《A dungeon core story: Magic with a hint of Science》 chapter 1: a fools death "Die die die, why don''t you just die"I scream while I furiously mash buttons on my keyboard. The orc warrior I was fighting just wouldn''t die. One moment I would bring him to near death, thenextmoment he would stun my sorry ass and regain nearly all of his HP back whilst dealing massive amounts of damage to me. I, in turn, would spam heal myself until I''m full hp again after the stun wore off. This cycle repeats itself a couple of times, until disaster strikes. I ran out of defensive cooldowns just when his offensive heavy hitters came off cooldown. And just like that, my paladin died and I lost the arena match. Frustration overtakes me. Yesterday I, withmy trusty paladin,wasconsidered to be the king of the arena. And today, with the latest patch where they nerfed paladins, I''m dethroned. It''s so unfair, I have no idea whether I want to cryorscream instead. Out of disgust, I close down the game and throw of my headset. Mad as hell, I stalk towards the kitchen of my little studio, looking for something to furiously munch on. I throw open the cabinets only to discover I''m out of snacks again. Great, just great. Now I have to go out and get some, after all, no snacks mean glorious crunching and munching to lessen my frustration. Some people have a stress ball they would furiously squeeze. Me? I cope through eating. This doesn''t necessarily mean I''m fat though. far from it actually. I''m one of those who has the unfair advantage of having a ridiculously high metabolism. Which suits me, as one could guess, just fine. After all, isn''t it everyone''s dream to be able to just eat without getting fat? The only downside is that I go through snacks as a crack addict goes through crack. And because of this, I constantlyhave to go to the store that''s a couple of blocks away. Which leaves me short on cash most of the time as well. And what little money I have left, I usually spend on games like most children of the modern era do. Yes, I''m a filthy millennial, deal with it. I pull on my shoes, grab my coat, keys, phone and wallet and go out of my studio to brave the chilly autumn day. Arriving at the shop, I grab a basket and head straight towards the chips and salty snacks aisle. Different bags ofchips, salted nuts and salted sticks swiftly disappear into my basket until my basket is nearly full. To top it all off, I head to the cookies, candy and chocolate aisle as well to fill the rest of my basket with caramel sea-salt chocolade and biscuits. After spending a fair chunk of my allowance, I leave the store with my snacks spread over two plastic bags. My way back home requires me to cross the street so, in my haste to devour helpless snacks, I rush towards a pedestrian crossing. With a quick glance left and right, I deem it to be safe enough and cross the street. At least, I started doing that. Out of the corner of my eyes, I see a black shape bearing down on me. Loud squeeling, a short honk, followed by a crushing impact and I''m soaring. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.For the briefest of moments, I''m soaring over the road, flying like an angel, before I crash heavily to the ground. I roll over a couple of times before I come to a stop with my head facing the road. The owner of the black car briefly stops, looks at me and then legs it with squeeling tires again. A typical case of hit and run. Judging by the loud squeeling I initially heard, he must have been driving way to fast. My body starts aching all over. a burning pain can be felt in my limbs, most of all in my knees, and in my chest. To outrun the trauma, my mind goes full analytical, trying to guess what bodily damage I might have sustained. First of all, the pain in my legs and knees. Most likely bend in angles that were never intended on human beings. Maybe even a couple of bones sticking out somewhere, who knows. Then there''s the pain in my chest. Multiple cracked ribs? most likely some even fully broken even. Hmm, there''s a tightness in my chest aswell, as if it is becoming more difficult to breathe. So, a punctured lung maybe? or maybe even both? I cough wetly, feeling as if I have taken a huge gulp of water that went down the wrong pipe. Definitly a punctured lung. And what is this I spy from the corner of my eyes? A puddle of blood is starting to form and spread out around my head. Add a head injury to the list aswell. I try to move. Alas, my body won''t respond, I''m most likely paralised from the neck down. I try to shout for help. Again, my body wont respond. The pain is slowly fading aswell until it is nothing more but a dull ache. Full paralasis? locked-in syndrome? Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Is there no one around to call an ambulance? Is it my fate to just slowly die here, either choking on my own blood, bleeding out or maybe even both of them at the same time? Damn that driver for driving me over. Double damn him for not stopping and calling an ambulance. Damn the Warrior I fought that got me so mad that i had to vent my frustration. Damn me for running out of snacks. Double damn me for paying not enough attention while crossing the street. Damn it all. Breathing is becoming an increasingly difficult task. I feel death coming now. Looming around the corner like a creepy stalker that''s waiting for you to stop paying attention. Looks like it is time for regrets now then. Maybe evenhave my life flashing before my eyes? No no, not the life flashing before my eyes thingy. Never liked cliche''s. I see no reason to go with the oldest cliche in human history now, just because I''m doing something as inconvenient as dying. But the regret thingy? That I can do. Lets start with an easy one. regret for not being able to kick a certain warrior''s ass. Hmm, any other easy ones lying around? Ah yes, regret for not having finished my chemistry masters degree. Oooooooh, another easy one. regret for not having done anything usefull with my life and my allowance. After all, instead of saving up for something nice or meaningfull, like my own place, a girlfirend or a trip around to world, I spend it all on games and comfort food. Maybe a hard one this time? Regret for not spending more time with my family maybe? seeing as I''m considered to be the black sheep of the family, that''s a bit more difficult. Oeh oeh oeh, I know what else you can do while dying. Thinking about what you''d do if you had a second chance. Yes, that sounds like the perfect thing to do. it''s easy even. I would go kick some ass and take names. Yeah, that sounds about right. The end feels mighty near now. You know what, let me just....rest my eyes.....for.. a bit.... congratulations, you have died. Your plea for a second chance has been heard. Enjoy your second chance! chapter 2: conversation with a goddess congratulations, you have died. Your plea for a second chance has been heard. Enjoy your second chance! Did I just...? Did I just receive a status update? Where did that come from? And what''s this about a second chance? All of the sudden, I can see again. Looking around, all I can see is an empty white space around me. There even seems to be nothing underneath me, just more white nothingness. I realise I can move again, without trouble, and that I don''t feel any pain anymore. I raise my hands and look at them. They seem oddly ethereal, almost see through. Since I died previously, does this mean I''m looking at my soul? does this prove the existence of the soul then? Major culture shock there, since I''m a resolute atheist. Does this mean that capital G o.d. exists as well? "come now mortal, thinking earth''s imaginary gods are real might just offend me and my kin." One moment I''m alone here, the other there''s a woman in here with me as well. And what a woman! One with a perfect figure, with boobs and an ass which are perfectly proportioned. With long legs that just seem to go on forever. With a face that''s both extremely beautiful and cute. Her head is crowned with bright blonde curls which accentuate her sparkling blue eyes. And her voice, so soft and silky yet ethereal. " Who, who are you?" I stutter? "Me? I''m the goddess of second chances and rebirth. I go by the name of Elaria" "are you really a goddess? a full-blown, all-powerful divine being?" I ask, not really believing her. "yes mortal, I wield divine power which could reduce mere mortals to ash in the blink of an eye. I witnessed the birth of new solar systems. I have been around longer than your mere mortal mind could comprehend." "...wow..." "you should be impressed, not many are granted an audience with a god or goddess. Even fewer people are granted an audience with me, seeing as rarely people are granted a second chance at life. Sometimes people get reincarnated but there people all have their past wiped, clean slates to be re-introduced into the world" "How come I have never heard of you? You said something about your kin as well? Are there any of your fellow gods who reign over Earth?" "There is a good reason you never heard of me. Earth is what we call a dead zone. A place without magic where even gods loathe to tread. Even now, my presence on Earth taxes me greatly. After I send you off to your second life, Iwon''t be able to return to Earth for quite a while. The only god that ever stayed there, was the one that you mortals called God. And he was just a weak whippersnapper, barely even ascended to divinity before he was so foolish to visit Earth and got stuck here. The moment he came here, his powers started draining at an astronomical rate. The so-called miracles he worked to start a religion were mere illusions and party tricks. In fact, soon after his so-called miracles, he was utterly drained and just faded away into nothingness." "Good, I''m glad that the basis for one of the biggest religions is gone and has been gone for quite some time then. I have no place for religion in my life." "This is likely to chance mortal, for I am going to send you to a world with is rich in mana, where the gods are capable to walk amongst mere mortals in disguise. Miracles are not so uncommon there." "ughhhhhhhh, really? are there going to be silly people with silly hats who think that whatever they do is for the greater good for their god?" "I can understand your frustration mortal, if it is any solace, most gods don''t condone the more wicked deeds of their followers. So if you ever feel the need to bring some of the more devout religious down a peg, you can do so without fear for divine retribution. Besides, even us gods need to follow the rules of the divine covenant." "What do you mean with the divine covenant?" "A long time ago, all of the gods convened after a horrible war, where the gods used the mortals as pawns to fulfil their personal and mostly selfish goals. When the gods, both evil and good, as far as those terms fit, got in a stalemate, we all decided to bury the hatchet and create a covenant. A covenant that laid down some ground rules to prevent a second god war. To enforce this covenant, a magical and divine court was created, with utterly impartial judges that would pass judgement upon any god that dares to break the covenant. These judges have the power to unmake any transgressor. Since then, there was only one god as foolish as to break the covenant. The judgement cast upon him was enough to cement the judge''s power and any thoughts of misbehaving or breaking the covenant fled from the other gods in the face of this harsh yet deserving punishment." "What is in this covenant then? How does the covenant protect me from the machinations of the gods?"A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. "By the covenant, they are not allowed to directly strike at a mortal. Only in the direst of situations and with approval from the judges can they strike at a mortal. And as far as machinations of other gods, gods are allowed to influence mortals, guide them, even grant them some power. But as with everything, is have to fall within certain boundaries." "That''s good to hear. Now then, what''s this about a second chance then? You said I would get a second chance but on a different world? how many different worlds are there? and mana? Does that mean that magic is real there?" "My my, aren''t you full of questions all of a sudden" "Of course, wouldn''t you want as much information as possible if you had to start anew with your life?" "That is a valid point, mortal. I''m in a good mood so I will indulge your desire for knowledge for now. The world I will send you to is rich with mana and elemental energies. Due to the age of said world and because of the abundance of magic, the inhabitants never really progressed with science as on Earth. Therefore, the world is in an age not unlike the medieval era. As for that second chance, you will have to work for this one. The world is governed by a system akin to one of those games you liked to play, with status screens and levels. There are dungeons and monsters. And you, dear mortal, are gonna become one of these dungeons. this might seem like a punishment at first. It will feel like a prison at first. But know this, this is the only way I can give you a second chance, as decreed by the covenant. And who knows, one day you might be able to fashion yourself a body to roam the world. That is, if you ever are able to split your consciousness in two so you can still govern your dungeon." "Awww man..., a dungeon? seriously?" "now-now mortal, you would be fairly unique as a dungeon, for there are not many sentient dungeons like you will be. Normal dungeons get formed my combining massive amounts of mana and elemental energies and condensing them into a stone, the core of the dungeons. This newborn dungeon will then start to expand and act according to its basic directives. It is only after many years and after absorbing a lot of dead adventurers that the dungeon will gain any semblance of sentience. You, on the other hand, will be entirely different. You will be fully sentient right from the start, with all of your memories from your previous life intact." "Okay, if you pitch it like that, that will be a massive advantage I guess." "wonderful, now, before I send you off towards your new life, you need to make a choice. You get to choose where your dungeon will be. you can pick one location from this list" As soon as she said this, a transparent list popped up right before me.
Location choices: Additional info:
Alzar castle The ruins of the castle that stands in what once was the capital of a kingdom. Alas, most of the population died of a disease which caused the surviving inhabitants along with the then king and his court to relocate to another city. It is rumoured that the castle and the city is haunted by the ghosts of those who died from said disease.
Dragon Mountains These massive mountains form the natural border between an empire and a kingdom. The origin of the name of these mountains is still a topic for discussion between many scholars. The two main theories state that they either were once the roosting place of dragons or that the jagged and serrated tips of these mountains look like the teeth of the beforementioned beasts of legend.
Mons Igneus An active volcano that can be seen from many kilometres away. This volcano lies near the coast of the shark tooth sea. The constantly flowing lava slowly but surely expands the coast, creating new stretches of land made from basalt and obsidian, which gives it a black colour.
Tokotari swamp No one really knows where the origin of the name of this swamp lies. Rumours amongst the common folk say that this was once a mighty forest that housed a portion of the elven population and that some foul magic made the forest wither away until it was reduced to the current rotting swamp that everyone has heard of.
These are some interesting choices. Although some of them are an immediate big no-no. I have no interest in being a swamp all the time. Swamps smell, they are putrid and often contain big ass nopes that one should burn with a flamethrower. The castle, although the prospect is intriguing, becoming the dominant force in what was once a capital, the risk of being associated with undead is far too high. who knows who might come knocking. I can just about imagine it, a vast army of knights with whatever holy symbol they use saying they are on a crusade and that my evil and wicked presence must be cleansed. No thank you. That leaves the Dragon Mountains and the Mons Igneus. Both are mountainous, which is good I guess. Easily defensible like that. But what''s up with the name of the volcano though? Isn''t Mons Igneus latin for volcano? Did they call this volcano volcano? This sounds like the MoonMoon stuff all over again.... Would I like to be associated with something going by the name of volcano volcano? Besides, isn''t a volcano like tectonically active? Lots of earthquakes and such? Despite how cool it would be to be a dungeon in a volcano, the disadvantages are starting to stack up. With my choice clear now, I turn towards the goddess. "I made my choice, I would like to pick the dragon mountains as my starting location." "very well. I will send you on your way now. You will receive some help from the system if you do well enough. So work diligently and hard. And mortal? good luck, you will need it. Oh, I nearly forgot, sorry about the pain" That last part she says with a slight smile. "WAIT, what pain?" I yell, but she is already gone. The white space around me dims until it is pitch black again. Shortly after, a great pressure presses down upon me and a massive amount of pain can be felt all over my body. I feel as if my body is being stuffed in a regular size Nutella jar. All of it and all at once. What feels like an eternity later, the pain fades. Suddenly, I am launched at great speed towards some unknown destination. Minutes later, I become aware of a crashing feeling. And after that, nothing. There is nothing to be felt at all. chapter 3: rediscovering myself Blackness. No sensory input whatsoever. One might even think I''m dead. Which I know I''m not, the goddess said to me I was granted a second chance at life. Or am I actually dead? Did she lie to me? After all, who would trust a goddess? Maybe I should steer away from thoughts like that. I must assume I''m alive in some way. After all, isn''t there a saying that says, I think therefore I am? Soooooo, since I can think about being alive or not, therefore, I must be alive. With that settled, I can focus on other things. Like not being able to feel, see, hear, smell or taste something. Am I even a dungeon yet? What is a dungeon even? Are they the same as dungeons in games and fantasy novel back on earth? Instanced spaces that somehow defy all dimensional laws? A complex of massive underground corridors with just the entrance giving away that there''s a dungeon in the first place? Am I a place in a pocket dimension that is only reachable by going thru a portal? Looks like the first thing on my to-do list will be something that the greatest philosophers of earth never quite managed to do. Figuring out what someone or something is. I need to ask the question: What am I? And hope I can find an answer. Preferably in a reasonable time period as well. I have no interest to spend my entire life, like most philosophers did, on pondering on this question. So, What am I? How will I try to answer this? I will need to figure out how to feel stuff, how to sense everything that is to be sensed. Clearing my mind, I reach out with all of the senses I had in my previous life. Nothing. That''s... inconvenient. Maybe I''m not trying hard enough? This time, I just focus on one sense at a time. First of all, sight. As far as I can tell, I have no eyes. No eyes, no sight. Smell? as far as I can tell, I don''t have a nose. So no smelling then. Taste? Again, as far as I can tell, I have no tongue. I''m not even sure if I even have a mouth. That rules taste out as well. That leaves sound and touch. Since it feels like I have no ears, it is safe to assume I can rule out sound as well. All that is left now is touch. This should be doable, right? I mean, if I have some kind of body, I should be able to feel anything. With all the focus I can muster, I try to feel anything. And lo and behold. I can actually feel something. It feels as if my body, whatever it is, is surrounded by something on all sides except for my top. Making use of this sense, I conclude that my body is in fact somewhat roundish, with some shaved off facets. The closest example I can come up with is a football (the regular, non-American kind). Ugh, never liked sports, maybe I should pick a better example? How about a buckyball? That sounds better, after all, it is more sciency. Even though a buckyball looks a bit like a football, it is, in fact, a molecule made off a bunch of carbon atoms. Now that I have at least one sense to rely on, I can''t help but wonder. Is there another sense? After all, She said magic is real here. Does that mean I can feel mana? Or use it to substitute my other senses? All I can do is give it a shot and see what comes from it. I clear my mind again and reach out, but this time, I use my mind to reach out. At first, I don''t feel anything. But as I keep trying, I become aware of a fuzzy feeling in the corners of my mind. Is this mana? I try to use my mind to manipulate the fuzzy feeling. I grasp at the fuzziness and attempt to bring it closer. It is slow going at first, but as time passes, I manage to get it closer and closer. When I get the feeling it is close enough, I use my mind to ''jump'' on it and try to bend it to my will. As the mana comes under my control, I try to shape it. seeing as I only managed to grasp a tiny amount of mana so far, I decide to send it out as a ping, the same way as with sonar. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.Surprisingly enough, the mana does what I want and even so much more. Shorty after I send out the ping, the mana actually returns. And it brings information with it! It allows me to ''feel'' my surroundings, it lets me see how I look and even tells me what''s around me. Apparently, I''m a gem of some sorts the size of an adult''s fist. I get the feeling I''m roughly cut as well but that''s beside the point. My earlier analysis seems to be correct, I am in fact buckyball/football shaped. According to the mana, I''m at the bottom of a shaft and surrounded by rock on all sides. That''s what I''m talking about, finally some useful information. This answers my earlier question of what I am. I''m a fancy rock. Lovely. I''m supposed to be a dungeon. How do I go from being a fancy rock to a dungeon? Maybe I, the rock, is like the seed out of which you grow a crystal. A tiny kernel that grows out to a dazzling and colourful crystal. If I follow this analogy, grows a dungeon out of a gem/fancy rock then? I can give it a shot I guess. So I have the kernel, me, what can I use as the feedstock to grow? I am surrounded by rock, can I somehow shape this to grow? After all, most dungeons in the games I played were made out for gloomy stone corridors and chambers. I push all of the mana that I collected outside of my body this time. Once it is there, I try to use it like a jackhammer in the hope I can chisel away the stone around me. Alas, the mana just doesn''t do anything. Next, I try to permeate the rock around me with mana. Surprisingly enough, the rock soaks up the mana like a sponge, leaving me without mana again. I lose it a bit. I tried so hard to get that mana, and now that freaking rock just took it all. In anger, I try to forcefully reclaim my mana by grasping the mana that I can now feel lingering in the rock. WIth a vicious and anger fueled pull, I wrench the mana from the rocks. As my mana starts to flow back into me, I get another surprise. The amount of mana I''m getting back is greater than the amount of mana I sent out. Baffled, I sent out another pulse of mana to see what changed. When the pulse returns, I''m surprised. The mana infused rock is no more. I''m currently sitting in an open space that extends up to 2 centimetres around me. Was that how far the mana managed to infuse the rock? And what happened to the rock? I can sense no debris around me. Did I turn the rock into pure mana? Can I absorb things by infusing them and then reabsorbing my used mana? And what kind of rock was it even and would I gain a different amount of mana if I were to absorb a different kind of rock? As soon as I think this last question, knowledge just pops up. Somehow, I know for certain that the rock around me is diorite and that this particular diorite is bluish-grey with the occasional green specks. I even seem to know what the molecular composition is. I even get the feeling that if I were to invest some of my mana, that I would be able to make some diorite out thin air. Magic! Excited that I made some progress, I start spreading my mana again, infusing it in the diorite around me. Same as last time, I pull the mana back towards me to reclaim it. Even more mana flows back into me this time. It seems that the more mana I invest, the more I gain, which is logical I suppose. I repeat this cycle until I have hollowed out a space around me that''s 3 metres wide, 3 metres deep and 3 metres high. My body is currently sitting on top of a small pillar that I created by guiding the mana in a specific shape to only remove what I wanted to remove. Basically, I''m sculpting but instead of using a chisel, I use mana instead. At this point, I gained so much mana, I''m basically bursting at my seams. I feel so energetic and pumped up, I could go super Saiyan at any point. It is at this point that I receive another pop-up. Congratulations on your achievement. You created your very first room as a dungeon. The mana you gained by doing this will be enough to raise you to the next level of dungeon. To help you in this endeavour, you are granted a dungeon companion. Based on your past experiences you gain the companion: WIKI: A magical and sophont compendium with an endless amount of pages that knows all there is to know about dungeons. His knowledge will expand whenever you gain a new level. Also, whatever you learn as a dungeon gets written down onto his pages. Guard him well young dungeon. After all, knowledge is power. chapter 4: WIKI Congratulations on your achievement. You created your very first room as a dungeon. The mana you gained by doing this will be enough to raise you to the next level of dungeon. To Help you in this endeavour, you are granted a dungeon companion. Based on your past experiences you gain the companion: WIKI: A magical and sophont compendium with an endless amount of pages that knows all there is to know about dungeons. His knowledge will expand whenever you gain a new level. Also, whatever you learn as a dungeon gets written down onto his pages. Guard him well young dungeon. After all, knowledge is power. As soon as I finish reading the last sentence, a voice enters my mind. "Greetings master" "Who is there?" I ask within my mind. There''s a silence for a bit. "Why aren''t you answering master? Are you perhaps mad at me? Or..., might it be that you are unable to answer me?" A gasping sound enters my mind this time. "That must be it, you can''t ''speak'' yet. Oh, poor master. Let me help you with that. Try this: infuse whatever you want to say with some mana and then project that towards me. Or, if you want to ''speak'' to everyone that is in the room, project what you want to say to the room instead." Since I have no idea where the owner of this voice is, I project my voice into my room. "Hello, thanks for that tip. Can you tell me who and what you are, please?" "Certainly master, my name is WIKI and I will be your companion for the rest of your dungeon life." "Ohh, you are the one my pop-up told me about. you certainly got here fast." "Why yes indeed, magic can do many wonderful things." "So, WIKI, from what I understand, you are sent to me to help me in case I have problems or encounter question that I can''t easily answer, am I correct?" "Yes, master." "Splendid. Here''s my first question for you then. Is there a way I can perceive things like a normal mortal would? See, Hear, taste and smell? The feel part I have somewhat under control, I think." "Oh poor master, have you been without senses al this time? Fear not, I can help you with this. The main principle of sensing things as a dungeon is that you are only able to sense things that happen in your dungeon. Or you need to make use of dungeon monsters and use their senses, but this is something that is not within your reach just yet." "How would I become a dungeon then? Because, so far, I''m under the impression that I''m not a dungeon yet." "It is as master says, master isn''t a dungeon yet. To become a dungeon, master needs to infuse the rooms that he creates with mana. It is also important that you think about claiming the infused area. Otherwise, it the room won''t count as part of your dungeon. The moment you become a dungeon, you can use every sense other mortals use within the confines of your dungeon. Try it, master, it''s easier to just show you instead of explaining it." Since I already have a room, I only have to infuse it then. Slowly, I let some of my precious mana pour out of me which promptly starts filling the room. When about half of my accumulated mana has left me, I get the feeling as if the room is ''full'' and that I can''t infuse it anymore with more mana. With a thought, I mentally lay claim to the room. Immediately my mind receives a shock. I can see the walls that line my room. I can smell the musty smell that is associated with a cavern. I can feel the cold that comes down from the hole in the ceiling. I can see WIKI. He looks like a fair sized tome made out of slightly yellowish papers and with a blue cover that is lined with gold. I can see the slow flapping motions he makes to just float there. I can hear the slow flapping as well, the sound of rustling leaves or pages. I can even see the occasional snowflake that falls out of the hole in my ceiling. I can even feel the snowflaking drifting to the floor of my room where they slowly melt. I can even taste the falling snow as if I stick my tongue out and the snowflake landed on it. In fact, I seem to know a lot about those snowflakes now. Their makeup, their ice crystal matrix and even what weather phenomenon you need to be able to form this particular snowflake. "hey WIKI, how come I seem to know everything there is to be known about those snowflakes that flutter into my room? The same happened when I created this room. I seem to know a lot about the rock I devoured, even if I never had any geology classes."This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. "You absorb any and every non-living entity that falls on the floor of the dungeon. The only exception to this is when the object is somehow claimed or actively being used. For example, even though a boot touches your floor, you will not be able to absorb the boot for it is still attached to a living being and therefore, it is in use. You do the same absorption when you expand your rooms, for temporarily claim a piece of rock and, for a lack of better word, devour it. Full knowledge about everything you absorb or devour will then be instantly transferred to your memories. Since I''m now your companion and due to my magical nature, anything you learn by absorbing or devouring will also be written down onto my endless pages." "I do like knowledge and as the pop-up said, knowledge is power. Being able to absorb things and learn from them will greatly increase my knowledge and therefore my power." "Now then master. The main reason why I was sent here. At this point, with just one room, are you considered to be a level 0 dungeon. Since all the cool stuff starts at your first level, is it my duty to help you advance to this level." "Tell me then WIKI, how would I go about levelling up?" "Before I can tell you how to level up, I will need to tell master of his character screen. If the master wants to think ''character screen'' while using a tiny bit of mana, master will find one popping up." With the tiniest amount of mana and a mental command for a character screen, it indeed pops up, right in front of my proverbial eyes.
Name: Unnamed dungeon
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 506 mana
Mana collection: 0,0025 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 1000 mana
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters: N/A
Special achievements: N/A
Learned skills: Mana senses
Number of floors: 1 floor
Inhabitants: 1
I can''t help but stare at the character screen with astonishment. After all these years of gaming, I now have my own character screen, with stats and all. Taking note of the 530 mana that I currently have, I finally have a way to quantize the mana I collected so far. Since it felt as if I lose about half my mana by claiming this room, I lost slightly less then 500 mana. That kinda sucks a bit, since I was sitting on the required amount of mana to level up. On the other hand, the expenditure gave me my senses back, so I have no right to complain. Most of the stats on the character screen don''t surprise me. After all, in terms of age and experience, I''m basically a newborn babe. What does surprise me though is that I already have an inhabitant? "WIKI, why does it say here that I already have an inhabitant?" "You see master, even though I''m your companion, I count towards the total amount of inhabitants as well." "I see. Next question then. What does it mean by chosen dungeon monsters?" "When you get to the first level, you will be able to select a type of monster that you want in your dungeon. The only choices you will be able to pick from are the ones with a ''common'' rarity." "Wow, that''s definitely something to look forward to. So, in order to level up, I''m assuming I need to stockpile 1000 mana then?" "You are correct, master" Seeing as that I gained mana by hollowing out this room and that, according to the character screen, I will gain mana passively as well, I should easily be able to get another 500 mana. Even though I want to start digging and devouring more rock to gain more mana, I need to be smart about this. So I send out another mana ping, one that is a little bit stronger this time. When it returns, it gives me just what I needed. The direction of the nearest mountainside. With renewed fervour, I start digging a corridor towards the side of the mountain. The corridor I''m going with will be two metres wide and two and a half metres high. Since I received about 37 mana for each cubic metre that I dug from the room my core is currently in, I figure that the amount of mana I will get for digging the corridor should remain the same, as long as I only encounter diorite. So, with the dimension of 2 metres by 2.5 metres, I should gain 185 mana for every meter I dig towards the side of the mountain. So if I create a corridor that is 3 metres long, I should have enough mana to gain my first level. After a few hours have passed, I finish my digging. I made sure to make the walls of the corridor to be smooth and that the ceiling is slightly curved so the weight of the mountain is spread evenly. With all of that done, I check my character screen again.
Name: Unnamed dungeon
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 1088mana
Mana collection: 0.0025 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 1000 mana
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters: N/A
Special achievements: N/A
Learned skills: Mana senses
Number of floors: 1 floor
Inhabitants: 1
Looks like I even managed to gain some extra mana by passively collecting some. "WIKI, now that I have the required amount of mana, what should I do?" "That''s easy master, just gather the required amount of mana, condense it until you can''t condense it any further and think about levelling up." Gathering my mana, I set about following the magical book''s guidelines. Conventionally, the act of condensing something involves increasing the pressure of the medium. So by manipulating the mana with my mind, I increasingly put more pressure on it until I get the feeling it won''t condense any further. With the super dense mana fighting against my control, I scream out in my mind: "Level up!" chapter 5: leveling up "Level up!" Level up process is about to start. You are levelling up to your first level as a dungeon core. As a dungeon core, you started out as a dull grey and inferior gem. A perk from levelling up is a change in gem that your core is made from. Please pick one of the following:
Gem: Description:
Ruby: A deep red gem that increases the affinity towards the fire element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Sapphire A dark blue gem that increases the affinity towards the water element of the dungeon and its core to 50 %.
Emerald: A green gem that increases the affinity towards the earth element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Citrine: A yellow gem that increases the affinity towards the air element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Black star diopside: A black gem that increases the affinity towards the darkness element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Beryl: A green gem that increases the affinity towards the light element of the dungeon and its core to 50%
Bloodstone: A dark gem with blood red streaks that increases the affinity towards the blood element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Jade: A pearly green gem that increases the affinity towards the nature element of the dungeon and its core to 50%.
Diamond: A colourless gem that increases the affinity towards every element of the dungeon and its core to 20%.
Due to your otherworldly knowledge of physics and its use in compressing the mana needed for levelling up, you are granted an additional choice for gemstone as core:
Synthetic diamond: A colourless gem that has been artificially made by putting immense amounts of pressure on pure carbon and exposing it to extremely high temperatures. This gem increases the affinity towards every element of the dungeon and its core to 18% and increases the success chance of creating things with otherworldly knowledge.
Reading through the options, the last choice catches my eye. Even though it has a slightly lower percentage to the affinity with all the elements, the increased success chance for creating things with otherworldly knowledge is just too intriguing. After all, what they consider to be otherworldly knowledge is just basic chemistry and physics to me. Assuming the same knowledge is applied to biology as well, any real science will gain a bonus to its application in this world. Proper science! As an aspiring chemist in my previous life, this sounds like music to me. Without any hesitation, I pick the synthetic diamond. You chose the synthetic diamond. Congratulation! You gained an achievement: Become the first dungeon with an artificial diamond core. Reward: Title: Inventor Inventor: A title granted to crazy mages (or in your case, crazy scientists) that push the boundaries of their craft. This title grants you an additional 5% increased chance to successfully create a working prototype, be it magically or scientifically created. With your choice made, the process of levelling up will start now. With a jolt, the condensed mana flares up. I can feel a massive amount of pressure being exerted upon me as well as a massive amount of heat. This goes on for a while until I can feel something changing. Slowly but surely, my core changes from dull grey and boring to white and see-through. After a couple a hours, the conversion is finally done. Congratulations! You have reached your first level. You can now choose which type of monsters you want as your first dungeon monsters. Please pick one of the following ones with a common rarity:
Races or species to choose from: Additional info:
Slimes (common) Near mindless blobs of ooze that only strive to devour and to multiply. Slimes are considered to be the lowest ranking monsters for they are easily defeated. They are only considered to be a threat by adventurers when they come in greater number.
Kobolds (common) Humanoid lizards whose origin is unclear. Some say their blood has a draconic tint to it. Others say that kobolds are the failed experiments of dark mages which escaped at some point and multiplied like rats. Kobolds are known to be vicious creatures that have a frail stature which they make up for with a rapid breeding cycle and rapid growth to maturity.
Animals (common) Choosing this will grant you a few species to start with and an affinity towards learning the biology of any animal which dies in the dungeon and towards recreating it as a dungeon monster.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Undead (common) Your average zombies and skeletons. Often seen as vile things that only the darkest of sorcerers use. Hard to kill with regular means, unless they are attacked with fire or holy/light types of damage. Their major flaw is their lack of intelligence and their total dependence on their master for commands. Since quantity has a quality of his own, undead are easy to raise and are quite fearsome in large numbers. Eventually, undead can be evolved to undead lords and even liches that can control undead armies.
Plant monsters (uncommon) Various plant like monster, ranging from the actively carnivorous plants such as giant Venus flytraps with a taste for all flesh that comes in its reach to toxic mushrooms who feed on decaying flesh by absorbing its nutrients.
Demons (uncommon) Creatures summoned straight from the various rings of hell. These creatures are the sworn enemies of the holy churches. Many crusades have been sent out because of just the rumour of a demon-infested location.
Fey (rare) The fabled smallfolk like pixies, leprechauns, will-o-wisps, fairies, unicorns, etc¡­. Most of the smallfolk have access to spirit magic. The fey are most commonly known for their mischief.
Constructs (rare) Constructs in various shapes and sizes, powered by either magic or by mechanical forces such as clockworks. Highly adaptable seeing as a construct can be tailored to any given situation. Dwarfs and gnomes are known to be true masters of the automata.
Elementals (epic) Beings made of pure mana combined with an element. They are often found near places with a high influence of elemental forces like volcanoes, mountaintops, caverns deep underground, etc¡­. These elementals come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from playful tricksters to mighty elemental lords.
Draconics (epic) Descendants of dragons, or at least beings which have some traces of draconic blood. The draconics come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from small, fire-breathing lizards, to drakes and wyverns. Or even full-grown dragons, but this is not recommended seeing as that dragons are proudful beings and bow to no one.
Seeing this list, I''m absolutely stunned. So many choices. And so many cool ones as well, especially the ones with a higher rarity. But as far as the first four common ones go, it should be an easy choice. From what SHE said, churches are a thing here, it even says so in the description of the demons. I''m pretty sure that a church that hates demons also loathes undead in any form, so they are already a big no-no. Then there are the slimes. Slimes are just dumb things and as the description said. Their only instinct is to devour and to multiply. They are a write off as well. Both leftover choices show some potential. The animals as a choice have a broader adaptability while the kobolds have an advantage in numbers. A high rate of maturity will also help with naturally evolving them to a stronger and better species. Although, the same can be done with animals if I make use of my synthetic core trait. The initial frailty of kobolds in the early stages is concerning. In the end, seeing as I should be more familiar with animal anatomy than with kobold anatomy, my choice is made. With a slight flex of the mind, I choose animals as my first dungeon monster type. Congratulations on your choice. Because you chose animals, you will be granted 10 different kinds of animals. Because of where your dungeon is (Dragon Mountains/above the permanent snow line), one of you animal types will beideally suited for your location, the rest will be of a more generic type. The animal species gain are: Common forest wolfs, trapdoor spiders, mosquitos, ravens, fire beetles, boa constrictors, zebras, rats and moray eels. Your animal species that isspecially adapted to your environment is: Snow leopards You are also granted two basic trap designs and another trap design that is tailored to your environment. basic: Pitfall trap: a deep hole in the floor that can be lined with spikes or other sharp objects. The walls can be smoothed to make climbing out on your own impossible thru regular means. Rockfall trap: a hole in the ceiling or in the walls that is filled with rubble. The rubble is held in place with a cover which will fall away when a simple tripwire is triggered. Environmentally tailored trap: A sheet of ice made from crystal clear water, making the ice indistinguishable from the surface it lies on. Some of the animal species I gained were just amazing, especially the snow leopards. The wolves and spiders are not too shabby either. Others will be usefulin specific situations I guess, like the moray eels will be quite dangerous in a water environment. But what would I ever do with mosquitos, fire beetles and ZEBRAS!!!!!! Freaking zebras, they are tropical animals and my dungeon is located in some part of a frozen wasteland it seems. Now that I finally have monsters available to me, I check theircost.
Species: mana requirement:
Common forest wolf 300mana
Trapdoor spider 120mana
Mosquito 4mana
Raven 80mana
Fire beetle 30 mana
Boa constrictor 120mana
Zebra 280mana
Moray eel 150mana
Rat 50mana
Snow leopard 500 mana
Since I want something to defend myself with, I really want to create a snow leopard. Since my passive mana accumulation had paused while my core was changing, I''m still a bit short on mana and so I''m currently not able yet to spawn one. The traps leave a lot to be desired though. The only saving grace is that there seems to be a good synergy with the ice patch and the pitfall. With my level gained, it is time to start expanding again and to at least finish my corridor towards the mountainside. When that''s done, I will have enough mana to start creating monsters and traps to defend myself with. chapter 6: upgrade After levelling up, I resume my digging towards the side of the mountain. When a couple of hours have passed, I finally break through and with a slight puff, a bunch of snow falls into my tunnel. I have dug another 17 metres which netted me a nice 3145 mana. This time, I use more than half of it to infuse and claim the full 20 meters of corridor. With my core room finally connected to the outside by a proper corridor and nut some small chute, I take the time to study my stat screen.
Name: Unnamed dungeon
Level: 1
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 1295 mana
Mana collection: 0,0050 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 100 000 mana
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters: Animals
special achievements: *First dungeon with an artificial core
Titles: Inventor
Learned skills: Mana senses
Numbers of floors: 1 floor
Inhabitants: 1
So far, I''m not unhappy with my stat screen. Although I only have one inhabitant so far, this will change in a bit. And I might need to see if I can find a way to change my name. After all, unnamed dungeon is just lame. It also seems that the amount I passively gain doubled, meaning that instead of 9 mana per hour, I will gain 18 mana or 432 mana per day. That means that ever 25 hours, I can spawn another snow leopard. Also, the amount of mana needed for my second level has increased by a hundredfold. If I were to try to gain that mana solely by digging out diorite rock, I would need around 2700 cubic metre of diorite. To put this into perspective, it would mean I needed to, for example, dig a corridor that is 1 kilometre long, 1 metre wide and 2,7 metres high. Or if I were to used the same dimensions from my existing corridor, it would have to be around 540 metres long. The time required to dig all this would take many days and would take all of my concentration. If something were to happen while my mind was elsewhere, I would, in the best case, be too late to react. In the worst case, I wouldn''t notice anything and be destroyed or even worse, enslaved. Therefore, I really need my own monster and traps to protect me. I do wonder though if there is a way to split up my mind so I can be at two places at once. Or if there is a way to automate the digging, to tell my mana what to do and let it do it on its own. I wonder, is there a way to create my own spell or alter an existing spell to do my digging for me while still giving me the mana? Food for thoughts, but for later. After all, it''s time to create my first monsters. Gathering a 1000 points worth of mana, I force it out of my core in two separate ''heaps'' and mentally give each heap the command to become a snow leopard. I also make sure to include that one of them needs to be male and the other female. The heaps of mana flare up, revealing themselves to even those without a mana sight. Not that there''s anyone around, but for me and WIKI, to witness it. The mana just keeps glowing brighter until with a pop, it disperses. In their stead stand two snow leopards. Both are large, regal and proud looking cats with a white/ greyish fur with speckled black dots. They turn towards me as one and bow their head. "Hey WIKI, I wonder. Do I need to feed them or can they somehow sustain themselves?" "That is the wonder of a dungeon monster, master. They don''t really require much maintenance. They are sustained by the mana you emit and don''t really need any sustenance. This doesn''t take away though that they are still animals and that they as such enjoy doing what a regular one from their species would do. Such as hunting, eating, sleeping and mating."The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. "I see, does that mean they will occasionally wander off, to look for something to hunt?" "As they are now, they won''t be able to just wander off, as you call it. They are unable to leave your dungeon. This also means that, unless you upgrade them with a monster core, they are unable to hunt outside of your dungeon." "A monster core you say? How would one go about creating such a thing?" "One would be able to create a monster core in a dungeon monster by gathering one''s mana, directing it into the chest area of said monster and condensing it while willing it to become a monster core. The newly formed monster core would thus then act as a link between the monster''s master and the monster itself, thereby sustaining the monster with the much-needed mana" "Thanks, WIKI" "My pleasure master" With that little problem solved, I can focus on other things. Such as on the two big cats that have been respectfully bowing their head towards me while I was talking to WIKI. With a tentative caress, I mentally reach out to their minds and connect with them long enough to give them their instructions. Protect me at all cost. Take no unnecessary risks when they can be avoided. Keep each other company. Hunt together to take down any foe that threatens what is yours or mine. Mate with each other when both of you feel attracted to each other. Grow strong and prosper and in doing so, you make me strong and prosperous as well. With these commands imprinted unto their minds, I mentally wave them off. With a lot of curiosity, they start wandering around the room and the corridor, exploring their new home. When they reach the entrance, they both just look disdainfully outside before gouging the walls of the entrance, marking this as their territory. With that taken care of, I turn my attention towards the second part of defending myself. My remaining 295 mana will need to be enough for now to create at least some traps in this small dungeon of mine. With a mental command, I bring up the mana requirements for my traps.
Traps: Mana requirement:
Pitfall trap: 120 mana
Rockfall trap 150 mana
Sheet of ice 5 mana per square meter
By now, enough time has passed for me to have collected an additional 18 mana passively. Which means that I can create a pitfall trap that spans the entire width of the corridor and is a meter long and line the entire corridor with a sheet of ice as well. I gather the required amount of mana and mentally give the command to make it so. The mana speeds of to coat the entire hallway and becomes visible again. The ice is formed first since it barely required any mana while the pitfall trap takes a bit longer since a hole has to be dug. Oddly enough, I''m not getting any mana from the hole that is being dug. When the mana is finally finished, I''m totally not impressed. Oh sure, the ice is just awesome, it''s so clear that, unless you know it''s there, you would never be able to spot it. But the pitfall trap..., it''s just a hole in the ground with a rough and uneven floor and smooth walls to make it harder to climb out of. I could have done the same without the need to invest mana and I even would have gained mana instead. Which raises another question that I need to ask my companion. "Hey wiki, is there a reason why one would use the default traps? wouldn''t it be more beneficial to just create them yourself?" "It would indeed be more beneficial master, but there''s something you need to keep in mind. Most newborn dungeons don''t have the same luxuries that you have. They are barely sophont as it is and don''t have access to the higher thinking that is needed to create their own traps. Therefore, when they want to create traps, they need to pick one from those that are given to them. This is where a sentient dungeon such as yourself gets a huge advantage over other dungeons." "Thank you WIKI for your explanation, appreciate it." "I live to serve, master" Seeing as I''m considered to be a young dungeon, I don''t feel very safe yet. So far, I only have one room and a corridor that is barely trapped. And my two snow leopards take up my core room. I''m pretty sure that it would be a bad idea if I created more monsters while I still only have one room. Too many and it would get crowded in here. As such, I know what my next goal has to be. I need to create some more rooms and corridors, populate them and line them with traps to reach a modicum of safety. chapter 7: purpose With only three mana remaining after my latest upgrade, I''m in a bit of a pickle. I could either wait for more mana to be passively collected or I could go dig out another tunnel and maybe even another room. Seeing as I really hate waiting, I''m stuck with digging. Since I''m supposed to be a proper dungeon, I might as well look like one, with multiple rooms and different paths leading to those rooms. This raises a question though. What is considered to be a proper dungeon? what''s its purpose? These sound like perfect questions to ask my companion. "hey WIKi, mind if I bother you again with some more questions?" "I don''t mind at all master, go ahead and ask them. I will try to answer them to the best of my ability" "I appreciate that, WIKI. Things definitely would be a lot harder without you. My question is two-fold. Firstly, I wonder what a dungeon is according to this world and secondly,what its purpose is?" "Oh, master, such deep and philosophical questions. I hope master will be satisfied with the answers for it is not a simple matter. As master might be aware, the very essence of a dungeon''s being is its dungeon core. You might compare it to the brain of an organism while the rest of the dungeon, its corridors and its rooms, can be considered to be the physical body. Due to the nature of a dungeon, dungeons are uniquely well suited for manipulating and generating mana. Because a dungeon needs to permeate and infuse a freshly dug room or corridor with mana, makes it so that the entirety of a dungeon is richer in mana than other places. This makes a dungeon an ideal place for people and other beings to get stronger. Along with the fact that your minions will respawn and that they are a good source of resources, makes it so that dungeons are quite liked and in most cases even protected. After all, a dungeon core can be considered to be a mana battery of some sorts. There are some that would pay a lot of money for a dungeon core, no matter what level it is. Either to fuel their spells with or to craft it into some sort of powerful or even legendary weapon. Now, as far as your purpose is, there''s a slight difference between your purpose and that of a regular dungeon. A dungeon''s purpose is mostly to exist and to grow, although some would reason that their purpose also is to make others stronger and to give them loot. Your purpose, master, would most likely be somewhere along those lines, although, I assume you can mostly do whatever you want as long as you don''tstray too far away from the general purpose of a dungeon." "this is..., a lot to take in. Anyway, thanks WIKI." So, what do I want my purpose in this life to be? What are my goals? Man, this is something I can''t handle right now. Let''s go with short-term to midterm goals for now. Short term goals: expand my dungeon so my core is safer. To do this, I will need to expand, maybe eventually go down a few floors. I will need to populate the floors with various monsters, preferably with a wide variety of creatures to make things more interesting. Midterm goals: Science and/or magical experimentation? create a body for myself? These definitely look doable. And to start with the short-term goal, I need to dig. Hurrah! With a basic idea in my head about how I want my first floor to look like, I get to it. First of all, I set about creating two corridors that curve out a bit before coming back together. It''s my intention to create another room in which they will converge. I''m about done with the first of the corridors when WIKI gives me the mental equivalent of an air raid alarm. "So sorry master, but I needed a way to get your attention, something has happened in the core room that requires your attention!" WIKI not quite screams with anxiety.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. I shift my attention back towards my core room to see what has gotten WIKI''s panties in such a twist. Puzzled, I scan my room but so far, I don''t see anything different really. There are my leopards just taking a nap. A small mound of snow has formed underneath the hole in the ceiling. The fact that my leopards are taking a nap is assurance enough for me that there are no intruders that try to destroy of kidnap me. Sooooo..., what made WIKI react like that? Wait a minute though, I haven''t been digging long enough for a file of snow to be formed. And shouldn''t the pile of snow be automatically absorbed and converted to mana? With my curiosity piqued, I take a look at the mound of snow. At first look, I don''t see anything weird about the pile. It is only with a closer look that I see a couple of toes sticking out of the snow. Slightly panicking, I turn my awareness to my two leopards and order them to dig out whoever is underneath all of that snow. In very short order, a slender and poorly dressed woman is revealed. The moment she''s free of the snow, she starts to severely shiver while she looks around with haunted and frantic eyes. Her eyes slowly close as her consciousness fades. I cast another look around, looking for anything that might keep her warm. My sight falls upon my leopards again. With another mental command, I order them to lie close to the unconscious woman, in the hope that they can keep her warm. With the immediate threat of dying from exposure taken care of, I can turn my attention to other things. Such as looking for a way to make her a bit more comfortable, either by getting her something to wear or by somehow raising the temperature of the room. The easiest way would be to start a fire but seeing as I''m lacking anything to burn right now, this option is off the table for now. "WIKI, how would I go about using mana as a spell of some sorts? I need some way to start and fuel a fire or a way to heat up things without using combustibles since I don''t have any to my disposal." "Well, master, a spell is just a spellcaster''s way to summon and manipulate mana. Due to the unique nature of a dungeon, you can manipulate the mana freely, without the need for silly things like chants, dances or sacrifices. Just picture whatever you want to do and gather the necessary mana for it. Although might I suggest you find an alternative to just creating a mana fueled fire? It will use your mana at a ridiculous rate." An alternative way to create heat huh? Since I have no idea how conventional magic would handle that, I will need to fall back upon good old science. After all, what is heat? How is heat created? What gives off heat? If I want to heat her up, I will need to create something that gives off heat. Back in the olden days, well, the earth olden days, they would heat up rocks, put them in a pan and put them underneath the blankets if it got really cold. Seeing as that rocks have an excellent heat retention and that they slowly give away their heat, should mean that they will do fine with keeping her warm. So, I gather up some of the mana I got from digging and visualise and conjure up a couple of rocks. I make sure to smooth them andgive them an egg shape so there are no rough edges. I then focus on one of them and use the tiniest amount of mana to try to make its atoms start vibrating a bit faster. With just the tiny bit of mana used, the ambient temperature of the rock goes up by a few degrees Celsius. With my first proper use of magic an astoundingsuccess, I set about heating up all of the rocks that I created. I make sure to make them quite hot but not hot enough to actually burn her. When they are all heated up, I surround her with them and even put some of them on top of her and underneath whatever little amount of clothes she has to make sure they don''t fall off if she happens to move. With her being out of danger from dying of hypothermia, I can now focus on the weird circumstances in which she arrived in. What would a young woman like her be doing in these mountains? And with barely any clothes on even? From the looks on her, she''s not some magical race with a immunity to cold or something like that. I take a closer look at her. She has long black hair that looks quite badly kept and greasy. Her wrists and ankles are lined with scuff marks and look raw even in some places, as if she was bound for quite a while and tried to escape. I can only assume she was a prisoner somewhere and escaped, only to fall into the hole in my ceiling. The only way to verify my assumptions is to ask her when she wakes up. Hopefully, she doesn''t take too long though. chapter 8: The thing that goes bump in the blizzard Gruf was not a happy man right now. All had been going smoothly. They successfully managed to kidnap their target and transport her way up the mountains, away from prying eyes. And then his contractor just had to come here to have a look at his prize. And being the fat and gross swine that he is, he just couldn''t keep his hands off her. He sends us away so he could have some special time with the captive. It''s not that Gruf shies away from rape, not really, but seeing who the captive was and who her parents were, he explicitly forbade his men to have their fun. And then this pompous ass had to come waltzing in here like he owned the place, which he technically does, and demand that Gruf and his men leave so he could have his fun. And then the fool just had to remove her restraints, believing that he was strong enough to keep her subdued so the restraints wouldn''t get in the way of his fun. All he got out of it was a mutilated face when she grabbed his knife and carved up his face with it. With him in shock and bleeding like the pig he is, she fled. Which idiot keeps a knife in plain sight when trying to rape an unrestrained woman? And now she has a headstart because Gruf and his men weren''t there. And to make matters worse, because things had gone off without a hitch, Gruf had sent away most of his men to guard the trail up the mountain. Leaving him up here with only three others. And the bleeding pig of course. Thankfully though, it isn''t currently snowing so the women''s tracks are easy to follow. And with her being barefoot and underclothed, she couldn''t have gone far. With a cloth to his face to staunch the bleeding, the fat noble lags a bit behind as Gruf and his men follow the woman''s tracks. Not long after, they lose sight of her tracks. They just seem to stop. Closer inspection reveals a small hole, one that only a small or slender person would fit through. "Look around men, there might be an entrance to where she fell to" While Gruf and his men are looking around for a way down, a blizzard can be seen creeping upon them. Gruf knows that, if they don''t find a way down there fast, they would get caught by the blizzard. The temperature would drastically drop, visibility would drop to a point where you could barely see a thing and the chance of getting lost and dying of exposure would increase a lot. And if they had to abort their search for the woman, she might either get away or die from exposure. Which would be bad. A kidnapping would be one thing, but having her die on their watch whilst being kidnapped would set things in motion that would lead to a very painful death for all them if they ever were caught. With the blizzard nipping at their heels and the wind picking up, they frantically keep searching. It is with the company of howling wind that they finally stumble upon a hole in the mountain. Something that might be a cave or might have been an old mining tunnel once upon a time. After all, a lot of people, but namely dwarves, have looked for precious minerals and ores in these mountains. With the weather conditions getting worse each second, Gruf, his three men and the fat and bleeding noble enter the mountain. The tunnel is pitch black except for a point further ahead, where a faint glow could be seen. An extra loud howl from outside is all that it takes to get them moving. Two of Gruf''s men take out torches and attempt to light them. It takes them both a while but eventually, their torches light up the tunnel. Briefly taking note of the smoothness and the straightness of the tunnel, the group quickly push forwards. An even louder howl this time resounds through the tunnel which startles the small group. They all just nervously look at each other before one after the other just starts laughing and chuckling. Why would they, grownup men, be afraid of a little bit of wind? After a couple of steps, the noble slips and lands on his fat ass, taking the closest of Gruf''s men with him as he tried to use the man to keep standing. The noble starts cursing loudly, both at the tunnel and at the man that went down with him. The man that went down with the fat noble on the other hand, starts cursing as well, but under his breath, calling the noble various despicable things. Another howl, one many times louder then the last one echoes through the tunnel. As one, they all turn towards the entrance. There, in the faint background, looms a massive creature. It lets loose another bone-chilling as it seems to look at them. Very slowly, Gruf starts backing off, deeper into the mountain, while he whispers to the rest: "Move! Now! But slowly! Make no sudden movements, make not a sound!" With the ones that were still standing, slowly backing up, the noble and the other man that went down slowly try to rise so they can back up as well. The man makes it up without a hitch but the fat noble either has the worst of luck or is just too fat to gracefully rise while doing it slowly, Whatever it was didn''t matter much. What followed is another thing entirely. With the resounding smack of fatty meat hitting the floor, the noble once again crashes to the floor. With another massive roar, the creature at the entrance starts charging forwards. "RUN!" As one, Gruf and his men charge forwards as well, deeper into the tunnel. The prone noble scrabbles for purchase as he tries to get up, breaking and even tearing off nails in his panic and desire to flee from whatever it is charging down upon him. Just as he finds purchase, the creature is upon him. With one might swipe of his arms, the noble is batted towards the wall. With a wet crunch, the noble''s head collides with the wall and splits open like an old melon, killing the noble instantly. Which can be considered as a small mercy, since the creature tears off one the now dead noble''s arms and starts munching on it. While the creature was killing the noble and snacking on him, Gruf and his men were dashing further into the tunnel. All of a sudden, on of gruf''s men slips and slides head first and screaming into a pit that spans the entire width of the tunnel. With just a split second to react, Gruf and his two other men leap over the pit, not sparing a glance for their fallen comrade. To falter or stop is to invite certain death. Unfortunately for them, the fallen man''s scream alerts the creature to even more potential victims. With renewed interest, the creature charges forwards once more. As soon as Gruf enters the room, he quickly scans it, looking either for a way out or for something that would help them in their fight against whatever it is that is chasing them. With only the weird orb giving off a slight glow, the cave is just too dark to look for any potential weapons that can aid them. Gruf takes it all in and makes his decision. "stand fast men, we''ll make our stand here." They turn around and face the charging creature. Gruf pulls his sword out of his scabbard and brings forth the shield he had slung on his back. The man on the left of his pulls out two wicked daggers that glisten at their tips and at the edges in the torchlight. Coated with poison. The man on Gruf''s right releases a greatsword from the straps on his back and brings it in front of him. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.They would look like a proper adventuring team if they had ranged backup. or maybe even a healer. Sadly enough for them, the man that fell down the pit was their archer. With Gruf standing slightly in front of the other two, he bends his legs a bit and raises his shield before him, hoping to halt the charge of the creature. It must have some sort of low light vision at the very least because the creature just casually jumps over the pit during its charge. Seeing Gruf standing there with his shield raised, the creature jumps forwards, crossing the last few meters with a single leap. With both of its arms raised over its head, he slams them forward onto Gruf''s shield, making use of his massive strength and the kinetic and potential energy of his leap. An attack fueled by the very mass of the creature combined with the speed of his jump and the strength in the arms of the creature. With a mighty crash, the creatures arms impact with Gruf''s shield. Even though Gruf is a rather strong man with a high constitution, his shield arm just snaps as if it were a dry and brittle stick. The massive flare of pain that runs like liquid fire through his nerves is enough to temporarily stun him. Luckily for him, his teammates quickly slip slightly behind the creature and start swinging at it. The man with the daggers, presumably some rogue type, starts stabbing the thing with gusto. Every time a blade of his would penetrate the thing''s body, traces of the poison that coat the blade would remain behind in the creature, quickly finding its way into the creature''s bloodstream. From there it would slowly spread throughout the things body. On humans or smaller animals, the poison would act fast enough to at least incapacitate them but with a creature this size and with such an impressive body mass, the rogue knows that it will take a lot longer. And then it might not even be enough. After all, a creature this size most likely has a lot of blood and tissue to dilute the poison, reducing its effectiveness. The man with the claymore starts swinging his mighty sword around as well. Even though it is rather unwieldy and is not made to be swung around with grace, it still is a deadly weapon in the right hands. After all, the very thing that makes it unwieldy, the length and mass of the weapon, also gives it a certain deadlines. The slightly sharp edge combined with its mass makes it so that the weapon cuts deep and leaves behind wicked and long gashes. Unfortunately for them, the creature is quite sturdy and can take a fair amount of punishment. With Gruf temporarily out of combat, the creature turns its attention towards the rogue. With a mighty swing of his right hand, the rogue is sent flying towards the nearest wall. Which he hits with a faint crunch as at least a couple of ribs break. Gasping for breath from the pain and because all the air in his lungs got forcibly expelled by the impact, he just lays there. The man with the claymore just keeps hitting the thing with all of his might, enraged by the fact that his boss and comrade were being manhandled as if they were nothing more then children. With two out of three immediate threats out of the way, the creature turns itself towards the man with the claymore. Receiving another cut, this time to its chest, the creature attempts to grab the man. The man manages to jump back in time and retaliates by swinging at the creatures outstretched hands. A pair of fingers are cut off from the creatures left hand. Looking befuddled, the creature simply stares a bit at his hand and at the spot where two fingers used to be. Befuddlement quickly turns into rage as the thing can''t believe his meal just managed to permanently harm him. With hate-filled eyes, the creature looks at the man with the Claymore before he just jumps towards the man, throwing all caution to the wind. The creature collides with the man, both crashing to the ground. The creature is first to get up and jumps on top of the man. The impact makes the man expel all of his breath as the creatures heavy weight presses down on him. With the man pinned underneath it, the creature starts pummeling the man. Soon after, the creature calms down, his body coated in red. The head and upper body of the man turned into an unidentifiable mess of blood, bone and grey matter. Just as the creature is about to stand up, it is run through by a sword, its resilient hide pierced by a Gruf''s sword. "How dare you kill one of my men. I will cut you up. I will gut you like a pig at a butcher." Sadly enough for Gruf, the thing is made of sterner stuff and it just turns towards him. The sudden motion rips the handle of the sword out of Gruf''s hand and makes Gruf lose his balance. With the sword still stuck in the thing''s body, Gruf is disarmed. Out of balance, weaponless and with a useless right arm, Gruf tries to crawl backwards. The hateful thing rushes forth again, but this time, it has decided it had enough. It opens up his mouth as far as possible and takes a huge bite out of Gruf''s shoulder and neck. Blood comes spurting out of his ravaged throat and shoulder, in the rhythm of Gruf''s frantically beating heart. As the thing keeps hold of Gruf, the intervals between the spurts of blood become longer and longer until it stops altogether. Gruf lies dead in the thing''s arms. The thing takes another bite out of Gruf''s body, treating it like some sort of snack. While it is feasting upon Gruf''s corpse, two grey blurs creep forward. With an explosive burst of movement, the two leopards that had been hiding in the gloom before both take a bite of the thing''s Achilles heels. With both of his Achilles heels completely cut, the thing promptly topples over. It pushes itself uponits arms and looks at whoever or whatever dared to attack it. The two snow leopard just stare back at him, completely impassive, almost bored even. The thing tries to rise again but its feet won''t work properly, causing him to fall again. To make matters worse for it, a large puddle of blood is quickly forming at his feet. The two snow leopard just lie down a bit further, out of the thing''s reach, waiting for the blood loss to weaken it. Seeing it being so casually ignored enrages the thing further, but without the use of his feet, the only thing the creature can do is to try to crawl forwards using his arms. Every time the thing almost comes in range of the two leopards, they just saunter off again and lie down once more. Because of this, the thing keeps losing blood at an alarming rate. Eventually, the thing''s movements become rather sluggish, untilit even loses all strength in its arms and falls flat on its face. It is at this point that the two leopards jump up again. One uses its mouth to turn the thing''s head to the side, exposing its throat, while the other lunges at the exposed throat and rips it out. With life leaving the thing''s eyes, it is finally dead. The rogue that was thrown towards the wall earlier tries to crawl sneakily away but unfortunately for him, the leopards weren''t alone in that room to observe all that happened. With a heads-up warning from their master, the leopards turn as one towards the crawling rogue. Upon seeing this freaky behaviour, the rogue frantically tries to speed up his crawling. With a snap of a jaw and the spurting of some more blood, all that didn''t belong in the dungeon, except for the mysterious woman, is dead. Tranquillity has returned once more. chapter 9: A beast of myths and legends Well, that was quite the excitement. What a mess as well. Blood, bone and brains everywhere. congratulations on your first kills as a dungeon. Your kill count consists of: Five first rank humans. One second rank Yeti. Since yetis are beasts, the Yeti speciesis now added to your list of spawnable animals and beasts. Unfortunately, due to the nature of humans, humans as a species can''t be added as a spawnable race. Because the humans and the Yetidied in your dungeon, they were absorbed. You gain 5000 mana for the five humans and 2500 mana for the Yeti. The items that the humans carried were absorbed as well, you are now able to recreate them and are granted knowledge about them. The items they carried were: one common qualitysteel claymore, one common qualitysteel one-handed sword, one commonquality steel banded oak shield, five common quality steel daggers, one box containing a paralysis-inducingpoison, one common quality yew wood bow, one commonquality quiver with regular steel-tippedbarbed arrows, one exquisitequality high steel dagger, four pair of commonquality fur lined snow boots, one pair or exquisite quality lemur fur lined snow boots, four sets of commonquality fur-lined clothes in various sizes, one set of exquisite quality lemur fur-lined clothes, five money pouches containing 815 gold coins, 85 silver coins and 71 copper coins; two tinderboxes, two torches, a couple of undecipherable letters, various bits of jewelry. Due to the nature of a dropped item, the dungeon was unable to absorb it as well. It currently remains near where it was dropped when the owner''s body was absorbed. This is a lot of information to digest. Where to start even. That thing was apparently a Yeti. A mythical beast thatwas talked about in Earth''s myths and legends. As famous as Bigfoot, Elvis still being alive, along with Hitler and Tupac. All those people that tried to give meaning or explain what the abominable snowman, the Yeti, could have been. And now I have the answer. It is apparentlysome sort of beast. But what exactly is it now?
Yeti The abominable snowman, a creature of legend. This being is, in fact, nothing more than a mere animal. The Yeti is an apelike creature from the monster ape family. Yetis have exquisite noses that can smell blood from a kilometre away. Unlike their normal ape brethren, Yetis and monster apes are purely carnivorous and have sharp teeth and an impressivebite strength, which allows them to tear and cut through flesh as if it were butter. Yetis mostly walk on two legs and because of this and theirhuman-likegait and posture, Yeti''s, when seen in blizzards, are often confused for being impossibly tall humans or one of the giant races. Mana cost to create a Yeti of your own: 3000 mana
So, looks like some of the crazies and scientists back home were right. They speculated that the Yeti sightingswere nothing more than the sightings of some yet undiscovered species of mountain apes. Although I''m quite sure that there were no monster apes on Earth, and that ape-like creatures mostly eat fruits, vegetables and nuts instead of meat. Anyway, fortunately for me, I can now make them for my dungeon and increase my safety by a huge margin. Especially if I were to create a couple of them. 3000 mana a piece is a bit steep but is most like worth it, seeing how easily just one of them dealt with five humans. Granted, the fat one was useless anyway and another one had the bad luck of dying to a poorly designed trap because he broke his neck of all things. Still, the amount of punishment a Yeti can take is impressive and regular poisons, like the rogue used, seem to do little against them. The dropped items netted me another 1500 mana, most of it coming from the exquisite quality gear that the fat one dropped. With the digging I did previously and the mana I gained from the little incursion, I currently have a little over 10.000 mana. This will come in handy later after I expand the dungeon a bit. The item that my dungeon couldn''t absorb intrigues me. With a little bit of mental effort and mana, I manipulate the stone underneath the item so it forms a small bowl around it before I make it come sliding towards my core so Iand WIKI can have a better look at it. The item is a ring, made from gold and lined with a small gemstone that is oddly shaped and coloured. The gem is in the form of a brown, greyish pyramid and capped with white. With a little bit of imagination, one would almost think that it represents a mountain. But that would be silly. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.Who in their right mind would wear a ring with a mountain shaped and coloured ring? The discomfort alone would be annoying, every move you make with your hand would result in accidentally poking yourself or someone else with the pointy tip of the ring. Whoever the fat one was, the mystery around his identity only grew bigger. Hopefully, the young woman can enlighten me when she wakes up. Which is, in fact, the biggest surprise of it all. Throughout all that racket; the fighting, the howling and the cries of pain; the woman never woke up. She must either have been utterly exhausted or she must have hit her head on the way down and is sleeping off a concussion. Let''s hope for her sake that she was just that exhausted. After all, the splitting headache that comes with a concussion in a bitch. Because if she has a concussion, and if it is one of the more complex variety, she might die from the buildup of pressure and fluid in her brain. No, if she suffered a concussion, please let it be a mild one. I can handle some puke, most likely. Although, in my previous life, if someone puked when I was around, the sight, sound or smell was enough for me to start gagging as well. Let''s hope that this new body of mine is free from things like that, otherwise, this is going to be my personal hell for me. "WIKI, what do the notifications mean with ranks? Like the first rank of the humans and the second rank on the Yeti?" "Much like you, master, do living beings level up to get stronger. Or rather, because they get stronger, they get assigned an appropriate rank from which others can tell how strong someone is. In between ranks are sub-ranks aswell but I can only assume that the system wasn''t interested in those." "Oh? Why wouldn''t the system be interested in those?" "I can only guess, but I assume that there is no difference between sub-ranks when it comes to mana gain." "So, if a highly ranked person or creature were to die in here, I would gain much more mana." "Indeed, but do keep in mind that if a sufficientlyhigh ranked person were to wander in here, he would most likely be able to defeat all of your minions and monsters, leaving you undefended and vulnerable to his whims." Ideally, if I want to get stronger, fast, I would need to lure and kill higher ranked creatures, but not too highly ranked. Looks like, if I want to walk this path, I need to find a fine balance between powerful and overpowered. There''s just one problem though. Even though I don''t mind killing whenever it is necessary, wanton slaughter for the sake of getting stronger, or even worse, for the sake of killing itself, is something that doesn''t quite sit well with me. It would be nice if I had a more casual way to get stronger, to get more mana. Some sort of diet that I can supplement with the occasional kill. Anyway, before I even need to break my head about this, I will need more visitors. Due to the snow and my starting location, I must assume one of a couple of situations has to be true. Either it is the middle of winter and snow has fallen over the entire mountain. Or, it isn''t necessarily winter and my dungeon''s location is above the permanent snow line. Whatever it is, I can safely assume that, apart from this unexpected visit that was most likely a fluke, other people aren''t likely to visit me just yet. People don''t like to travel through snow, this was true for my previous life, I can only assume that it is the same here. And since there were no survivors of the incident, there''s no-one alive to spread the news of the birth of a dungeon. One good thing about this incident, besides getting another animal species to spawn, is the fact that I now know how to create clothes and crude torches. This way, I can create something that will keep the woman warm and give her a way to see something when she wakes up. After all, waking up in a nearly pitch dark environment can be quite frightening. With a flex of my mind, I gather the necessary mana to create six torches, a torch for each side for each entrance or exit of a tunnel. With a slight twist, I make it so that for now, they keep burning forever by making them ''burn'' mana instead of the material they are made from. With the room quite well lit considering there are 6 torches for a room that is only 3 by 3 metres, I turn my attention to creating clothes for her. Since the fat man''s clothes looked the warmest and were by far the best quality, they will be better suited to clothe her. Gathering some more mana, I try to form the clothes as they were when they were dropped. Immediately, I encounter some problems. First of all, they are covered in blood and are ripped in some places. Secondly, they seem to be sized for the fat man and are thus way too big for such a slim thing as the woman that is currently sleeping on my floor. I reabsorb the clothes I created and try again. This time, I try to picture how the clothes would have been when they were in pristine condition. Removing the blood and grime is easy, I just have to think them away and the template that is within my mind gets rid of it. Repairing them takes slightly more work since I have to imagine them the way they should have been when new. The easiest way to do that is to take the torn or shredded pieces and puzzle them back together, sewing them back together in a way; without doing the actual stitching. With the clothes looking like new, I can try to find a way to fix the second problem. Sizing them in such a way they will fit her perfectly. I mentally project the clothes over her body to get an idea of how big they are and what needs to shrink. I keep shrinking various parts of the projected clothes until it seems like they would fit her snuggly yet comfortably. Feeling satisfied with my creation, I feed the projection the mana it requires. With a slight glow, the projection becomes reality as the clothes come to existence around her, making the clothes AND clothing her in one action. With those two basic needs taken care off, I''m feeling confident that when she wakes up, she will be less likely to panic. chapter 10: Nobles, what are they good for? The woman''s perspective: She slowly woke up, feeling as if she either has the worst migraine in human history or as if she drunk way too much dwarven ale yesterday and now has a massive hangover. Torchlight stabs into her bleary eyes, making them water a bit. With a sigh, she closes her eyes again and snuggles back into the warm and softness around her. Wait. Warm? soft? With a start, she jumps wide awake. With wide and frantic eyes, she takes in her surroundings. It appears that she currently is in a cave that is well lit with torches. In the middle of the room stands a small pillar supporting a white, nearly round, gem. In front of it stands a lectern made of stone, containing a beautiful looking tome. Above the gem is a small chute through which the outside air can be seen. The air inside the cave feels crisp and her breath can be seen every time she breaths. Which raises the question, why isn''t she feeling cold? In fact, she''s feeling quite warm. Giving herself a once-over, she''s surprised. Somehow, she''s wearing soft, fur-lined clothes that appear to be made from higher grade materials. The clothes fit perfectly as well as if they were tailored specifically for her. she never even felt it when they, whoever they might be, put these clothes on her. How long was she even out for? The last thing she remembers is that she was running for her life after escaping from her captors. While she had been fleeing, she had run down the mountain wearing barely anything, not even shoes. She had been sure that she was either going to be recaptured and quite possibly raped or worse or that she was going to die from exposure on this snowy mountain. And yet, none of these things happened so far. The fact that she fell down a hole she never even knew was there seems to be her salvation for now. "Hello? Is there someone here?" Even though she can''t see anyone around, she still asks this, if only to break the silence. As if on cue, two pairs of feline eyes open in the far corner. Straining her eyes, she can barely make out their grey shapes that somehow seem to perfectly blend in with the walls. Oddly enough, they just seem to stare at her, doing nothing else. Creepy. "Why yes, there is someone in here. You are in the presence of my master and its creations" A voice that sounds like old rustling papers answers her. Because of the fact that there didn''t seem to be anyone around when she woke up, she didn''texactlyexpect anyone to answerher. She figured that, whoever saved her, went outside or something like that and she just had the bad luck to wake up when no-one was around. It appears that she was gravely mistaken, even though she can''t seem to find the origin of the voice. Nor can she even see who this master is that the voice talked about. "Who are you? Where are you? And who is this master you talk about?" "I am WIKI" and with that statement, the book that in on the lectern in the middle of the room flies up, slowly flapping its pages as if it were a bird. "A... a talking book.DiI I hit my head or something like that when I fell?" "You did, in fact, hit your head when you fell. But that is not the point. You have not gone crazy, I assure you. You are, as you said, talking to a book. I''m WIKI, a magical tome familiar, in the employment of my benevolent master." "I...See. Please tell me then, who might this master be then who you are talking about? "My master is currently all around you, he is the very dungeon you are currently standing in" "A DUNGEON!" In shock, she just stares at the gem in the middle of the room. If she is in a dungeon somehow, that must mean that the gem that is just lying there in the middle of the room, is a dungeon core. An item that has the ultimate power of creation, some even consider a dungeon core to be akin to a demigod. What''s even more shocking is the fact that she is in a dungeon and yet, she still lives. Dungeons are wonderful places that can create things out of thin air. But they have a darker side as well. They are notoriously dangerous and theydon''t hesitate to kill whatever wanders in them, all to get stronger or to satiate a primal desire. And yet, she is in here, safe and sound. And if she guessed right, this very dungeon might have even saved her by keeping her warm and maybe even defending her. Getting over her shock, she turns fully towards the core and bows towards it. "Thank you for saving me, it would seem like I''m in your debt" My perspective: Well, that''s one way to make a statement. She makes it sound as if I did something truly unexpected or unbelievable. Anyway, that is of no matter for now. What I would like to know is if I can talk to her. Since I have no actual mouth, I can''t just talk to her. Somehow WIKI is capable of speech, but I have to assume this is due to his magical nature. "WIKI, is there a way so I can communicate with her?" WIKI turnstowards me and shifts his posture so it would seem as if he were addressing me, confusing the woman in the process. For the sake of the woman, he says aloud: "Yes and no, master. Currently, there''s no way for you to communicate with her since you don''t have an avatar yet. Mind to mind speech is also not possible since she is not one of your creatures. The only way for you to be able to communicate with her would be if she offered you her full and unwavering loyalty of her own free will. This way, she would become somewhat a minion of yours and would thus enable you to speak to her mind to mind." Upon hearing this, she becomes pensive. "Well WIKI, seeing as that a normal person would be unlikely to become one of my minions, you shall just have to be my voice for now" "very well master" WIKI turns back towards the woman and says to her: "Since my master has no conceivable way yet to communicate with you directly, I will act as his proxy for now." "WIKI, tell her that, if she has any questions, she should feel free to ask. Tell her as well that I have some questions of my own that I would like an answer to." "Lady, my master wants me to tell you that if you have any questions, you should feel free to ask and he will answer them to the best of his capabilities. He also wants me to tell you that he has some questions of his own that he hopes you can answer for him." "I would be glad to answer any question your master has. Might I start then with a question?" "Go ahead" "Well, correct me if I''m wrong, but I''m under the impression that the dungeon of your master seems on the small side. This is a bit weird since your master seems, from what I can hear, more or less fully aware and sentient. This leads me to only one unlikely conclusion. Is your master, the dungeon, an actual person? Is he as truly alive as I think he is?" "My my, she doesn''t beat around the bush. WIKI, tell her this. It is as you suspect. I''m in fact a newborn dungeon and thus rather small. I barely even got my first level yet. And yet, I''m as you say fully sapient and sentient. What I won''t tell you though is how I came to be, this is a little secret of mine I''m going to keep close to my chest. What I would like to know though is, who are you? I can''t just keep calling woman or lady after all" "Oh, my sincerest apologies, how rude of me. Yes, proper introductions are in order. I''m princess Mary-Ann of Ralomar, niece of the king of Ralomar, His Royal Majesty Edmond of Ralomar. Might I ask what your name is, sir dungeon? A princess. In my dungeon even. Granted, she''s only the niece of the current king, but still. Being in the presence of royalty is nothing to sneeze at. But now I''m in a bit of a pickle here, since I don''t really have a name. According to my character screen, I''m just called ''unnamed dungeon''. And going with my name from my previous life just feels wrong. What if I go with the name I always pick in games? "You may call me Aaron Lightblade." Would you like to change your name to Aaron Lightblade? You can only change your name once and are given this chance because you came to this world unnamed. Heck yes. A quick check of my character screen brings a smile to myproverbial face.
Name: Aaron Lightblade
Level: 1
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 10 360 mana
Mana collection: 0,0050 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 100 000 mana
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters:This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Animals
special achievements: *First dungeon with an artificial core
Titles: Inventor
Learned skills: Mana senses
Numbers of floors: 1 floor
Inhabitants: 3
I finally have a name according to this world. And I have a nice bit of mana lying around, which I gained from the kills, the items and the little bit of digging I did previously. But I''m getting sidetracked. "I have some more questions if you don''t mind. AsI''ve said before, I''m a newborn dungeon and thus I''m pretty new to this world in a way. I don''t have any of the basic information a normal person might have. I have no idea how this world is called, what continent I''m on nor do I know what kingdom or empire I''m in. The only thing I know for sure is that I''m located somewhere in the dragon mountains. But even my knowledge of the dragon mountains is slim. Do they span for hundreds of kilometres? Or are they somewhat isolated and not part of a mountain chain? " "Geography one Oh One then. Your dungeon lies in the kingdom of Ralomar, ruled as I previously said by my family. The dragon mountains are a chain of mountains that span for over a thousand kilometres in length and are over two hundred kilometres wide and form the natural border between Ralomar and the empire of light. Your dungeon lies only at the start of these mountains, in fact, if you were to go down the mountainside, you would encounter forests and flatlands. Your dungeon is located on an altitude above the perpetual snowline, meaning that this area is always covered in snow, all year round. The kingdom of Ralomar and the empire of light both lie on a continent of Allanaar. The kingdom of ralomar has some smaller neighbours as well, but they are hardly noteworthy and are our allies so I''m not going to elaborate on them. If you truly want more information about them, I can cover them in a course of geology one oh two." "That is a lot to take in. Now, on to other business. I want to ask you some questions that might bring up bad memories or that might make you uncomfortable. You can always refuse to answer them of course if you think I go too far or if they are too painful." "Go ahead, I''m a big girl. And despite what you might think, I''m not as emotionally scarred or unstable as you might think I am." "Okay then. I presume that the men that chased you in here, which died in here while you were out, by the way, were your captors and that you somehow managed to escape?" "Oh, they chased me and died in here? That is wonderful news. How many followed me? and was there a fat one as well? Did he die a horrible and/or humiliating death?" "There were five of them, one of them the fat guy you are thinking of, I think. They all died because a Yeti chased them and nearly killed one of them. Since it sounds like you despise the guy, I can tell you that he got his face smashed in and got snacked upon. In fact, he was the very first to die since he slipped on the ice that lines my corridor and fell flat on his fat ass." "Hah, serves that bastard right. They only lightly guarded me, thinking that the mountain would be enough to deter most people from saving me if they even know where I am. Therefore, the four others were the only ones guarding me." "How did you get captured? I would assume that a member of the royal family like yourself would be well guarded. But seeing those thug''s fighting prowess, they seemed like normal thugs and not capable of fighting a lot of guards." "Well, quite stupidly actually. I was returning from a diplomatic mission and decided to stay in a roadside inn. I and my guards took up an entire floor with my room in the middle. But they must have known or guessed that we would stop there for when after they served us dinner, all guards that ate started falling asleep, myself included. The very few guards that didn''t eat anything were sadly killed in the confusion. I can only assume that my captors just picked me up and walked out, just like that. I only hope that they just left when they kidnapped me and that they didn''t slit the throats of my guards. When I woke up again, I was tied like a hog, stripped of all of my valuables and was clothes in simple clothes that nearly came apart the seams. After a couple of awful cold and hard days, we arrived at their hideout that was a bit further up the mountain where they split up. Most of them went back downhill to guard the way up and as I said, only those four stayed high up in the mountains to guard me." "How did you manage to escape?" "I got lucky, I think. The fat one that died in here was their leader or the one that hired them, I think. After a week of captivity up here in the mountains, he arrived in the hideout. The very first thing he did when he arrived was to order the captors out so he could have his fun with me. Which was the first of many mistakes he made. When he was grabbing at me and trying to fondle me, I noticed he still had his knife strapped to his belt. With him distracted, it was easy for me to grab for it and to slash at his belly and face. Sadly enough, I couldn''t reach his balls because his fat belly protected them, otherwise I would have cut them off. With him reeling back from the pain, I quickly cut through my bonds and just ran outside into the snow. Not thinking where I could go to, only that I wanted to get as far away from there as possible. And the rest you know. Fell into a hole and was saved by you." "Sounds indeed unfortunate that you didn''t manage to cut his balls off, yeah. On the other hand, it''s my assumption that, because he was bleeding quite heavily, the Yeti chased them because it was attracted by his blood. So in a way, it was a good thing that you didn''t hurt him more than you did, otherwise, the Yeti wouldn''t have been there to help me with killing your captors. And I wouldn''t have been able to add the Yeti species to my repertoire." "You...can create Yeti''s now somehow?" "Yes, they cost quite a lot more but I can. They seem crazy strong as well. They most likely will make fine guards to keep me safe for now. I do have another question though. Who was the fat man? Do you know him? He seemed to be someone importantand rich, judging on the quality of his clothes and the ring he was wearing that I couldn''t absorb. When I looked at it, it seemed as if it was magical in nature. I don''t know if magical items are rare or not, but since the thugs didn''t carry any, I would assume they are at least uncommon." "That fat pig was one of my kingdom''s nobles. He was baron Ronhein Svarhall. A relative minor noble that was a member of the faction of nobles that politically opposes the king. How he ever grew the pair needed to stage my kidnapping is still beyond me for he was known as a coward and an opportunist. And as you said, he was quite well off but not as filthy rich as some other nobles. As far as the item you are talking about goes until you''ll let me see it, I can''t tell you what it might be." I manipulate some earth to form a crude pedestal with the ring lying on top of it. Mary-ann slowly approaches it and looks it over without touching it. Her eyes slowly grow wide and with an unbelieving face, she just stares at my gem. "Do you really have no idea what this is? The item you just have lying around here is called a possession ring. They are bound to their wearers and most often even to their family or heirs. When they are bound to the wearers family and the wearer dies, the rings teleport themselves to said family. Alerting the family of the wearer''s death and making sure that the rings don''t get in the wrong person''s hands. A possession ring is a magical item that holds a magically and legally binding deed of ownership proving the wearer is the owner of a plot of land. They are often used for quite large plots of land. In general, nobles usually have many of them. Occasionally the wealthier merchants own them as well. The beauty of possession rings is that they give the wearer a little bit of power and influence over the land it is bound to. From what I can gather, this ring represents the ENTIRE mountain and even some of the land around it, most of it part of the forest at the foot of the mountain chain." "That sounds amazing, truly a wonderful and lucky find then. But this makes me wonder though. Was the baron Heirless and familyless? Why else would it not teleport to his heir or family?" "That is actually a rather good question. If I remember well, he had a wife, two sons and a daughter. He likely carried many rings when he came here that teleported back towards them. For it to not happen to this one, especially one that spans such a big area, something weird must be going on. The ring was most likely never bound to them, which is what makes it weird. As I said, most people don''t want valuable plots of land to get in the wrong person''s hands. Maybe he never wanted anyone to find out about his involvement in my kidnapping and therefore he never bound it to his family. Whatever his reason was, it would seem that you only gained from it. Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of this mountain." "How do I claim this as my own then?" "Normally, one would put the ring on one of his fingers and bind the ring to his or her mana. And once it is bound to him, one would bind it to his or her blood and maybe even specify who of his or her blood it should go to. But with you not having any fingers nor any blood, I have no idea of how you could become its owner. I don''t even know if a dungeon can even become the owner of one of these rings." "Master, if I might but in? I might know of a way for you to become the owner of this ring. As I said earlier, any person that offers you its unwavering loyalty and services becomes a minion of sorts of you. With such a minion, for a lack of better word, you can then use said minion to claim the ring. Even though the minion claims the ring, you become the owner of the ring since you are the master of said minion." Again, Mary-ann gets a pensive look on her face. After a couple of minutes, the pensive look on her face turns into one of determination. She looks straight at me and with a serious voice says to me: "Aaron, I would like to offer you my full and unwavering loyalty. To protect you to the best of my ability, anyway I can. To keep you safe from any noble or person that might want to exploit you. I admit, my decision is partially influenced by the gratitude I feel towards you for saving me. But I''m also intrigued by you. I''ve never met a dungeon core, never even seen it with my own eyes. And I could have never even dreamed of meeting a dungeon like you. An actual living creature that has the power of creation in his own little domain. Thus I pledge myself unto you, to do with me as you see fit." Mary-Ann of Ralomar offers you her full and unwavering loyalty. A claim such as this is automatically verified with magic to protect a dungeon core from abuse. Her claim is found to be the truth. If you accept her offer, she becomes your agent, free to act outside your dungeon. Doing whatever she can, all in the best interest of your dungeon. She will act as your representative in the outside world and will never be able to, as long as she remains your agent, to intentionally harm you in any way. A contract like this can only be broken with the consent of both parties for loyalty goes both ways. She will receive some benefits as well. She will be touched by your mana which will increase her lifespan by a large amount and will even awake magical abilities if they weren''t already present. Would you like to accept her pledge and declare her to be Mary-Ann of Ralomar, Agent of Aaron Lightblade? chapter 11: Dungeons agent Would you like to accept her pledge and declare her to be Mary-Ann of Ralomar, Agent of Aaron Lightblade? A bit overwhelmed, my metaphorical brain just freezes. Seconds turn into minutes as I''m just staring at the message. When, after a couple of minutes, Mary-Ann starts to fidget and starts to look troubled, I snap out of my stupor. Weighing the pro''s and cons for a little bit more, I finally accept. Upon accepting, I feel a connection being formed between my mind and that of Mary-Ann''s. Tentatively, I explore the connection. For starters, I am now perfectly aware of where she is, even when I have my mana senses turned off. I also ''feel'' how she is doing. At the forefront is the ability to feel how healthy she is and this feeling just screams to me that she is hungry. Which is a new thing for me, since it seems like my dungeon creatures are sustained by mana and thus don''t necessarily need to eat. Seeing as she has been out for a while and that I have no idea when she last ate, it is no wonder she''s this hungry. She managed to hide it well though, it is only through our new bond that I''m even aware of it. Deciding to test our new mental bond, I use it to telepathically call out to her. "Test test, can you hear me Mary-Ann?" The moment I think this, she basically jumps and again looks at me wide-eyed. "Yes, I can hear you. How can I hear you even?" "The bond that was forged between us allows me to telepathically speak with you. It actually feels the same way I issue commands and warnings to my snow leopards. I do wonder though if you can use the bond to speak telepathically to me as well. Mind giving it a try for me?" She frowns and unfocuses her eyes, undoubtedly trying to find a way to use our connection to speak with me that way. After a few minutes of her staring into the distance, her eyes become focused again as she looks at me again. "Hello? Can you hear me, master?" It worked, instead of using her mouth, she talked to me using her mind. She even sounds the same in my mind as she sounds using her voice. This makes me wonder though how I sound. Do I sound all robot-like? Or do I sound just the way my voice sounded like in my previous life? These are questions for another time though. I might never even get a proper answer to them. After all, how would Mary-Ann know how I sounded like in my previous life? And it''s not like I have found a way yet to record what I say or think. "Yes, I can hear you perfectly. This will make communications between us way easier. One little thing though, please call me Aaron. Master just feels weird. After all, you are royalty and I''m just a regular person. Or dungeon, rather." "Are you sure? Not calling you master, as WIKI does, just feels disrespectful. And as far as the royalty thing goes, as far as I''m concerned, you are my liege now. The king is still family and thus still deserves my respect, but it feels as if my priorities have shifted and that my loyalty towards you has transcended the loyalty I feel for my uncle the king." "I think I would prefer that, yes. I''m not one for fancy titles or impressive names. I think I actually prefer familiarity from those that serve me. And I hope that those that serve me don''t mind if I do the same to them. It just feels as if that would create an even stronger bond." "If that is how you feel, I will call you Aaron then, at least when it''s just us. When it comes to official business, I will call you my master." "That is acceptable, thank you. I must say, It seems like I have been a terrible host, it is only because of the bond we share that I noticed that you are hungry and that it has most likely been a while since you last ate." As if triggered by me saying that, her belly grumbles and starts complaining, demanding to be fed. She grabs her stomach and sheepishly grins. "Well, this is not very flattering. I''m indeed quite hungry but I didn''t have time to feel that way previously because of the unknown situation I was in. Now that I know that I''m safe, food has gained an increased priority over safety. You wouldn''t be able to create some food for me perchance?" "Sadly enough, no. Nor the noble or the thugs carried any rations or foodstuffs on them when they died in here so I can''t just create some. Since my dungeon is in such a barren and cold area, I also have no access to fruits, vegetables or roots so I can''t make any food for you that way. And the only animals I currently have are my two snow leopards but it would be a shame to just slaughter them for meat. They seem to hit it off and work together quite well. They are truly some dutiful guardians. And, I''m only speculating here, I think their meat would be quite stringy and though since they are mostly made of muscle since they are built for speed. The only thing I can think of to get food in a reasonable amount of time would be for you to hike back to the thug''s hideout and get their rations and gear." With that, she scrunches up her face, as if she dislikes the idea of having to go back to where she was kept captive for so long. With a sigh, she seems to comes to terms with it though. "It would seem as if that''s the best idea, yeah. Let''s just hope that the thugs that are guarding the lower area of the mountain didn''t return for some reason." "Hmmm, yes, Haven''t thought about that yet. I have an idea though for you to feel safe while you go back. Normally, my creatures wouldn''t be able to leave my dungeon since they are sustained by my mana. But, according to WIKI, I can imbue my creations with a core that is linked to me, thus enabling them to leave my dungeon. It is expensive though and I can only do it when I create a new creature so I won''t be able to send my snow leopards with you. What I propose is that, for you to feel safe and maybe to make it easier to loot the thugs'' hideout, I create a Yeti and give it a core. The Yeti can then go out with you to protect you and to act as some sort of pack mule for whatever you may think would be useful to us. I can even give the Yeti the command that it is to treat any command you give it to treat it as if it were a command given by me. How does this sound?"The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. A look of gratitude and a smile now plaster her face. "That would be wonderful, I would very much like that." Gathering the 3000 mana needed for the Yeti and another 3000 for the monster core, I let the mana gather on the floor in front of me and give it the command to become a cored Yeti. The mana starts swirling and twisting around for over five minutes until it finally disperses. In its stead stands now a Yeti akin to the one that barged in here earlier. "You are to go out of the dungeon and escort my agent, Mary-Ann. You are to treat every command she gives as if I would have given it. You are to help her look for food and things that may be of use to me and her and help her carry it back to here." Turning my attention back to Mary-Ann, I see she''s staring at the Yeti in wonderment. "Will you be okay? WIll you be able to find your way back to the thugs'' hideout?" "It shouldn''t be a problem, I mostly ran down the mountain in one straight line. And if I can''t find it on my own, I''m pretty sure that this beast of legend will be able to find it for me. I think I once read somewhere that yetis have exceptional smelling capabilities. It should have no problems in following the noble''s trail of blood. By the way, is it an he or a she?" "It would seem it is male. I''m thinking of making it so that the next one that I create will be a female. In the best case scenario, they breed on their own, allowing me to save some mana. In the worst case, I still have two powerful yetis at my disposal. I''m thinking of waiting with creating a second one for now though. With a little bit more mana, I can create a second Yeti with a core." "Well, I''ll leave you to that. I''m gonna get going then while it is still light outside. I''ll be back in a couple of hours." With a casual wave, she strolls towards the exit. "Be careful in that corridor though. I''ve slightly trapped it for now. The floor is covered in thin ice and there''s a pitfall that you need to jump over. It''s not that wide, just a meter or so, I''m sure you''ll easily make it." I mentally ''shout'' this as an afterthought. After all, it would be quite bad and embarrassing if she were to die to my meagre traps after just bonding with her. The Yeti seems to made of sterner stuff and should be accustomed to slippery surfaces so he should be able to easily handle the few traps I currently have.
A couple of hours later, as the air outside turns to twilight, Mary-Ann and the Yeti come stumbling back into the corridor. Following along in their wake is an improvised sleigh that is stacked with various things and which is being pulled by the Yeti. From my bond with Mary-Ann, I can feel that she isn''t hungry anymore so she at least found what she set out for in the first place. "Did anything interesting happen while you were outside?" "Nah, making use of the Yeti''s superb sense of smell, we easily found their cave. We carefully sneaked inside but that was apparently unnecessary for there was no-one in there, as expected I guess." "That''s good to hear. Tell me, found any good loot?" "Found plenty actually. It would seem they had planned to stay there for a while for they had a lot of provisions and even some nice amenities.They used a sleigh to originally move it all up the mountain. I stacked all the things that we couldn''t carry on top of it to make transport easier. And then I had the big guy pull the sleigh, making use of his ridiculous strength. In the end, we managed to bring all of it. Want me to list it all for you?" "Yes please. Anything that you can''t use right now, I''ll just absorb it and learn how to make it out of mana. That way, if you or I ever need it, we''ll have easy access to it and in the case of the food, it won''t spoil that way." "Sounds like a wonderful idea. I will sum up then what I found and brought. Enough keepable provisions that would have lasted them for a month. Most of it was stored in a lesser and inferior quality dimensional backpack that just was able to fit all of the food. A couple of spears, a shield, a belt with a sheathed dagger, a quiver filled with arrows; mostly spare ones I assume, a couple of whetstones, five sets of sleeping bags, a bundle of unused torches, two tinderboxes, a set of playing cards, a couple of waterskins, four backpacks filled with personal belongings and a bunch of spare clothes. Oh, and some money pouches." "That is quite the haul. I''m assuming that you want to get back as soon as possible to your uncle the king to assure him of your safety? what would you need for such a journey? And would you be able to make it down the mountain and past the thugs that guard the way up? Or would you like the assistance again from the Yeti? Depending on what items you''ll leave behind, I might be able to create the second cored Yeti as I''m planning to send it down with you to break through them." "Two yetis would certainly be a force to be reckoned with. And I''m pretty confident that I can sneak past them in the chaos created by a Yeti attack." "What items would you need or like to take with you for your trip back to your uncle the king?" "I''m thinking of taking the lesser dimensional backpack with me and only a quarter of the food. That should last me long enough to reach the capital and then some. I guess you can add various foodstuffs to your menu when I leave. I''m going to take the belt with the dagger so I at least have some way to defend myself. Since I''ll have some free space in the dimensional backpack, I''m going to take a tinderbox, the cleanest bedroll, some spare clothes, some torches, a waterskin and a spear. And, if you don''t mind, I would like to take the money with me as well. With the money, I can use it to spend some of the nights in an inn and have a nice hot meal and maybe even occasionally bathe to wash away the grime of the road." "Yeah, go ahead. I have no use for money right now anyway. As you say, it would be better suited to help you reach the capital. I''d say, go ahead and pack whatever you want to keep. The rest I''ll absorb so I have the mana to create my second cored Yeti. When dawn comes, you can start your journey back." In no time, two piles are formed. A small one that eventually disappears into the dimensional backpack and a larger one that I spontaneously absorb. With my mana reaching over 6000 again, I invest the mana necessary to create my second cored Yeti. A female one this time. With two yetis, two snow leopards, a magical tome and a human woman, my core room feels rather crowded. Luckily, after Mary-Ann leaves, I''ll have the time to resume my digging. When morning comes with a fiery dawn from the low hanging sun that reflects upon the snow, Mary-Ann is packed and ready to leave. "Before you go, I would like you to wear the possession ring and claim this mountain in my name. This way, we have at least some power over it and thus other people can''t just waltz up the mountain and claim it as their own and me with it. You can also show it to the king and use it as proof of the noble''s guilt. Maybe he can even start an investigation to see which parties were involved and bring any remaining parties to judgement." "I will wear it proudly. I will be back as fast as I can. I tried using our mind link to communicate with you while I was looting the hideout but it seems as if I can only talk to you telepathically when I''m in your dungeon. I will thus take initiative when it comes to matters that relate to you and act in your best interest of course. Wish me luck!" With another wave, she leaves my dungeon with the yetis in her wake. Hopefully, she will make it safe and sound to the capital. chapter 12: snowflakes and landscapes With that little bit of excitement over, I can turn my attention back to what I was doing in the first place. The continuation of building my dungeon. In just a couple of hours, I finally finish the first of the two tunnels after which I start on the second one. At some point, I vaguely notice the two yetis returning. After briefly stopping my digging to ask if Mary-Ann made it safely of the mountain, which they assured me she did, I finish the excavation of the second tunnel. Keeping the same dimension as my entrance corridor and making both of these tunnels twenty metres long as well nets me another 7400 mana. Because I already spent what I got from what I got from digging half of the first tunnel on my Yeti''s, I only have around 6000 mana in my mana reserves. But that is fine. I still need to create a room. And who says I will even stop there. There is going to be a lot of digging in the future. The very first room I created was 3 by 3 metres. The next one I''m about to create will definitely be bigger. I start by creating a cylindrical room with a diameter of then metres and a height of 7 metres. The roof of the cylinder is slightly domed to ease the pressure of the mountain and thus to prevent cave-ins. Having dug out this room myself gained me another staggering 20300 mana. Sadly enough for me, to claim both of the tunnels and this room, I need to invest 13850 mana. This still leaves me with over 12000 mana to work with though. Using the mana from my excavation, I create two stairs made of blue ice and make it so that they start from the middle of the room and near the walls. Hugging the walls of this room, they go up for three metres and come together in a platform made of thick ice. So make sure the platform and the stairs will be able to support heavy equippedadventurers, I place a couple of support pillars underneath them. All symmetrical of course. In the middle of the platform and on the far side of the wall, I create the start of another tunnel. Since I want to finish this room first, I only dig out the first metre of the tunnel. Investing some more mana, I line the stairs with handrails and the platform with railings made from blue ice to prevent people from just falling off. So far, I''ve been overlooking a pretty important part in designing my dungeon. Important to me, that is. I haven''t paid any attention to aestheticsyet. So far, my tunnel and first room were made with practicality in mind. This will have to change though. Going back to my entry corridor, I try to envision what I want to do with it. Standing near the entrance, I try to look outside but sadly enough my vision just cuts off. Luckily enough for me, I have two cored monsters that are capable of leaving my dungeon and thus are capable of looking out of my dungeon. I mentally command one of them to come towards the entrance and make it stand there just at the very edge of my dungeon. Mentally linking with it enables me to use its senses, temporarily swapping my own mana based senses for actual eyes, ears, nose, skin and tongue. The shift in perspective is profound and staggering but not necessarily unpleasant. For starters, it seems like a Yeti is colourblind. Which would make sense I guess? When you live in a biome that is mostly white from the snow and dark from bad weather, you have you use for colours. Every colour just becomes a shade of grey to differentiate things from each other. It would seem that with a loss of colour comes an increase in contrast though. I''m only guessing here but it would seem that the yeti that died earlier would have easily been able to spot my two camouflaged snow leopards if it hadn''t been so busy snacking on the thugs since they rely on the colour of their fur to blend in with the surroundings. The Yeti''s sense of smell is just astounding. From where it stands, it is easily capable of smelling the musky odour of the leopards and of the other Yeti. Luckily for me and the yetis, the blood and the stench of it were absorbed along with the bodies, otherwise, it would have overwhelmed us and might have even driven the yetis into a bloodlust fueled frenzy. Even this high up, I can faintly make out the smell of the pine trees that are hundreds of metres below me. In the distance, the cry of some kind of bird of prey can be heard as it is most likely looking for its next meal. Not being able to find it using the Yeti''s eyes just confirms for me that a Yeti also has superb hearing. For the first time since coming to this world, I''m now capable of truly looking at it. The sole sun currently sits high in the sky which would mean its currently somewhere in the afternoon I guess. Halfway down the mountain slope below my dungeon, the rocky, snow-covered slope makes way for the occasional pine tree. Pretty soon after, lone pine trees become many until it becomes a full-blown pine forest. Way beyond the dense and vast forest, the forest makes way for gentle hilled plains. There are no signs of civilization as far as I (the Yeti) can see. It would seem like these mountains are truly desolated and that people steer clear of them. Unless of course there are people that live further in the mountains and that I can''t see because the entrance of my dungeon is faced towards the kingdom of Ralomar. The gentle snowfall outside of my dungeon brings me out of my reverie. Making the Yeti stick its tongue out, it catches some of the drifting snowflakes on its tongue where they spontaneously melt. I feel like a kid again, playing outside in the first snowfall of the winter. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.The proverbial inspirational lightbulb starts shining in my head as I get an idea for how to decorate my dungeon or at least parts of it. Leaving the Yeti''s mind, I turn my attention back towards my dungeon. Due to my new nature as a dungeon, I recently discovered that I''m now capable of perfectly memorising and recalling things. Making use of this trait, I start engraving the view I saw outside into one of the walls near the entrance. Slowly but surely, the slope of my mountain starts taking shape. After the slope is formed, I litter the slope with trees until they eventually become a vast forest. To finish it all off, I line the top of the engraving with the flowing hills of the plains. Taking ametaphorical step back, I take in my creation. Its crude in some places and could have most likely been done better by actual masons or artists but, even though my background was in science in my previous life, I''m quite happy with it. I mirror my creation onto the wall on the other side of the corridor to finish this particular part of my decoration plan. The rest of my entrance corridor gets lined with engravings of snowflakes. Making use of the snow I previously absorbed, I make it so that every single snowflake is different except for its twin on the other wall to keep things symmetrical. Each snowflake spans from the floor to the ceiling and is as wide as it is tall. The other two corridors that I have created so far get the same decoration treatment. My two chambers, however, get a slightly different decor scheme. I line the small room with a myriad of engravings of smaller snowflakes, some of them even the same to make things easier. After the engravings are done, I fill some of these engravings with a layer of ice so that the flickering torchlight makes it look like the snowflakes sparkle. From afar, the flickering snowflakes look like stars on a clear winter sky in the middle of the night. Sadly enough, I encounter a problem. The torches that I placed in this room have increased the ambient temperature of this room ever so slightly. While not much, it is still enough to bring the temperature of the room above 0¡ãC and thus above the melting point of regular ice. If I do nothing about this, I will lose the flickering effect of this room which would be annoying for I really like the aesthetic. Instead of trying to lower the ambient temperature of the room, I decide to increase the freezing point of the ice instead. While this may be harder to do, in the long run, it will be more useful to me. After all, I still have another room. One which stairs and platform are made of pure ice. Increasing the freezing point of ice is no simple matter if you try doing it with regular means though. It requires components that I currently have no access to. Luckily for me, this is where magic comes in. After fiddling around a bit, I manage to infuse ice in such a way that it essentially becomes enchanted. Because of this infusion, the ice becomes harder, stronger and hasan increased melting punt. In fact, I managed to make it so that it requires four times the amount of heat that is needed to change the state of the ice. If a fire mage happens to wander in my dungeon, he would have four times harder for him to melt my ice than he normally would. This translates to needing four times more mana to get the same result as with regular ice. Deciding that my first room is sufficiently decorated, for now, I focus on the second room. I start with applying the same infusion as my first room to the ice to make sure my stairs and platform don''t just collapse. Then I place torches on the walls near the entries and exits for the corridors and corridors to be. This way, adventurers will have at least some form of lighting even though it isn''t the best. The decor scheme of this room will be engravings of pine trees with snow on them, making it look like the entire room is surrounded by a stone forest in the middle of winter. Engravings like these take me a ridiculously long time but in the end, I''m quite happy with them and with how the room looks. After aesthetics and decoration comes safety. I again line the corridors with a thin sheet of crystal clear ice. Even though it is just a nuisance at most, I''m still quite fond of it. It works well with the theme I''m currently going for. I dig out another pitfall in each of the corridors but this time I decide to ignore my prefab traps and decide to create them myself. To make sure that my creatures can safely traverse my dungeon at will, I leave some solid edges they can move over. Since they are bound to me, they should have no problem in detecting where its safe and where it is trapped. I hide the hole of the pitfalls by growing a very thin layer of ice over them. I mix some very fine diorite dust in the ice so that it looks like a normal part of the floor. Only people that are very lucky and walk over the solid edge, that have some way to detect the trap or that just have great intuition will be able to traverse these traps without falling in. That''s the plan at least. The bottom of the traps gets lined with copies of the daggers that I absorbed from the thugs. Even though a dagger isn''t very long, it can still kill someone if one lands badly or if he or she isn''t wearing a sufficient amount of armourto stop the dagger from penetrating. After all, a dagger through your arm is painful and might kill you through blood loss. A dagger to your heart or your eye and you can be sure you are done for if you have no healer with you. Would you like to add this modified version of the pitfall trap: Pitfall with daggers and a camouflaged ice cover, to your list of available traps? This way, you can save the design and make them en mass wherever and whenever you want as long as you have the required mana for it. Yes, please. This will make things that much easier. Deciding to forego building the same trap in the second corridor myself as I did with this one, I just will my new trap into existence. Mana leaves me, slightly more then I used to create the first trap and coalesces where I want the trap to be. When the mana clears up again, there''s nothing to be seen. Or so it would seem for when I inspect the place with my mana senses, the hole underneath the ice becomes glaringly obvious. The increased mana cost doesn''t come as a surprise to me since I dug the hole for the first one myself, which gave me mana. In the future, if I want to make more of these, I might just create them all from scratch to save on the mana but just now, as an experiment, this was fine. interlude: map Managed to create a map that I''m fairly ok with. Its a bit rough but it should show the basic layout of the dungeon as it is now well enough. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The colours are a bit off in some places since I had to make do with pre-made building blocks from roll20.net In the ideal situation, would all of the corridors and rooms have an icy texture but this was currently beyond me. I think I got most of the proportions right, each square is one metre and should thus give you all an idea of how the dungeon currently looks and how big it is. chapter 13: diggy diggy hole Before I can start with the next rooms and corridors, I need to be sure of what I even want to populate my dungeon with. Granted, I already have my snow leopards and my yetis but they are currently more like my last line of defence againstintruders. Especially the yetis. They are powerhouses that regular people and even lower ranked adventurers can''t stand against. This raises the issue though that anyone who enters my dungeon dies to them unless they are of a sufficient rank. Which leads me to my next problem. I need other minions and monsters. I was granted a variety of animal species but out of all of them, only the forest wolf should have any chance of surviving in the cold and icy environmentthat the first floor of my dungeon currently is made of. With a mental command, I order my yetis to go out of my dungeon to bring me any animal or beast they can find and kill. As an afterthought, I also command them to be safe and not to take any risks. Who knows what''s out there in this magic-filledworld. There are most likely plenty of things that stand above yetis on the food chain, even in these remote and desolate mountains. With that taken care of, for now, I can keep going with expanding my dungeon. Every bit of mining and expanding that I do will get me the mana that I need to create traps and creatures to defend myself with. Since I''malready committedto having an ice-themed first floor, my next set of corridors and rooms will be somewhat similar to the ones I already created. I extend the corridor that I previously started, making it 20 metres long, 2 metres wide and 2.5m high. Lazy, I know. But repurposing a working design has been done throughout all of human history. So why should I do any different? Before I can get to the next part of what I want to create, I''m distracted by the return of my yeti''s. One of them is carrying the bloody carcass of some sort of white fox while the other is carrying the carcass of what seems to be some kind of snow hare. When they are a couple of metres in, they just unceremoniously drop the carcasses on the floor with some wet thuds. Internally sighing about how casually these yeti''s handle the carcasses, I will the dungeon to absorb them along with any blood and gore that fell on my floor. New animal species detected. Due to the fact that they didn''t die in your dungeon, they are as of yet not fully able to add them to your species list. Detected animal and progress: Arctic fox: 1/3 Arctic hare: 1/2 That''s interesting. Seems like, if I want instant unlocks, I will need to make sure that stuff actually dies inside of my dungeon. Otherwise, I just will need more already dead specimens. With a mentally conveyed thanks, I ask them to go out again to gather more stuff for me. But just to make sure they know what to look for, I give them some examples to look for and what to certainly bring back if they can find it. If they can find any, I would like them to bring back some eggs if they can find any bird nests and get to them safely. Other arctic hares and foxes would be wonderful as well so I can actually get them as a species. If by some stroke of luck, or skill, they manage to get some sort of bird they also should bring it back here. If none of these can be found in a reasonable timeframe, they should bring back whatever they can find. As an afterthought, I make sure to tell them to try to capture alive what they can and to only kill it when they are back here in my dungeon. Just imagining all the things that might be out there and that I can get makes myproverbial mouth water. Shaking that distracting though away, I speed my consciousness back to where I left off. Suffice to say, I have come up with a plan. One that will kinda fit the theme I''m going with so far. It will involve A LOT of digging and will give me a massive amount of mana. For starters, I''m going to excavate a room that is considerably larger then what I''ve done before. Massive even. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.The first part of the room will be cylindrical with a diameter of 50 metres and a height of 10 metres. Above this will come a ceiling in the shape of a dome. Because of this design, the highest point of the ceiling will be 35 metres high. From the sides or this room will lead away five corridors. Four of them will connect to dead-end rooms and the last one will lead further into the dungeon and eventually to the boss room. This last corridor will be closed off with a door and this door will be locked. It''s my intention to make it so that anyone that comes into my dungeon will have to go to the dead end rooms and get a key in each of them. The door would only unlock with four of those keys and to get those keys, I''m thinking of giving the adventurers (or intruders) a task in each of the rooms. Either by making them solve puzzles or by making them kill stuff in a certain amount of time or in a certain way. I might even go full hack and slash on them and make up silly challenges where they need to kill things while it is in mid-air. Maybe even make this a bit harder by making it so that the things they need to kill are ground animals that normally don''t leave the ground. With the one corridor leading up to the massive room and five leading away from it, it will look like a snowflake if one could see it from above. A crude snowflake most likely but a snowflake nonetheless. When or if they manage to open the door, I''m thinking of creating two sets of corridors again that eventually meet each other again but this time the room they will meet in will be the boss room. And after the boss room, I''ll create a room for my core where I''ll stay for a while until I can get started on a new floor. Just the excavation of the big room takes six days of non-stop digging. In fact, I didn''t even stop to look at the things my yetis brought back. Whenever a notification would pop up, I would just tell it to give me the information later when I''m done with my excavation project. From the sides of the big room, I dig out five more of my generic corridors and put at each end the same round and 10 metres wide room as the one I made earlier. Out of the round room that is the furthest away from where one enters the big room, I make two corridors lead away. I make each corridor connect to a square room that is 8 metres wide and 5 metres high. More corridors lead away from them but this time from another side of the square room so that the two corridors leading to and from each room form a 90¡ã angle. At the end of these new corridors, I create two new square rooms and have another corridor lead out each of these as well but this time the corridors leading in and out of them are opposite to each other. Another set of rooms at the end of the created corridors and another set of new corridors that form a 90¡ã angle with the previous corridor but this time in such a way that they vaguely lead back to the middle. One slight change though compared to my previous corridors. instead of being 20 metres long, these two are only 19 metres. I make these two slightly shorter corridors come together in a slightly bigger square room, one that is 12 metres wide and 10 metres high. This shall be my boss room and from this room only one corridor shall head further in, leading to my core room. For simplicities sake, I make it so that my new core room is the same as the slightly smaller square rooms. With everything excavated as planned, I make sure to claim it all before moving my core over to my new core room. A quick look at my character screen leaves me flabbergasted and wide-eyed so to speak.
Name: Aaron Lightblade
Level: 1
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 1 088 106 mana
Mana collection: 0,0050 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 100 000 mana
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters: Animals
special achievements: *First dungeon with an artificial core
Titles: Inventor
Learned skills: Mana senses
Numbers of floors: 1 floor
Inhabitants: 5
Number of agents: 1 (Mary-Ann of Ralomar)
Over a million mana! That''s ten times more than I need to increase my level. I definitely will need to level up again. Who knows what kind of awesome goodies I can get. Spoiler: floor map chapter 14: puppies and yellow snow Four weeks, that''s how long it took for me to dig out all of my corridors and rooms. Four weeks worth of stuff that my yetis brought back. That''s a lot of stuff. Congratulations! New animal species have been added to your repertoire: - Arctic hare - Mountain goat - Arctic fox - Yak - Snowy owl - Ermine - Snowy owl egg - Reindeer - Frost eagle - Husky - Frost eagle egg - White speckled mouse Because you gave your yetis a task that has lasted for nearly a month now, your yetis have acquired some skills and proficiencies whilst doing this task: - Both gained projectile mastery 1 - Both of them got stronger from bringing back the things they found and killing them in your dungeon. This resulted in an increase in strength and intelligence. - The male Yeti gained the ability: Intimidating Shout - The female Yeti gained the ability: Sneak Items brought back by your yetis: - Pine bark - Winter grass - Pinecone - Frost berries - Pine sapling - Frost berry bush - Pinewood - Deer moss - Pine leaves - Sleigh - Canvas tent - Dried dog food - Beef jerky - Pickaxe -Prospectors pack - Medallion of the prospectors league - Oil lantern - Keg of inferior grade oil - Whip - Leather straps - Belt buckles - Gold panning kit Oh-oh. This can''t be good. Did my yetis really kill a prospector? Maybe I need to look at this from the bright side. At least the item list has no items called package, present or wrapped up stuff. Otherwise, along with the sleigh and the reindeer, that would have led to some bad PR for my dungeon. I can just about imagine it. ''Aaron Lightblade: The dungeon that killed Santa and ruined Christmas.'' What would that make me? The Grinch? Anyway, this is an interesting development, to say the least. Even though I''m a bit concerned about possible retaliation from the ''Prospectors League'', I can rationalize most of my concerns away. After all, whoever it was that came up here on this mountain must have known what dangers lurk here in these mountains. Another interesting development is the intellect gain on my yetis. I can only guess here but I''m assuming that along with an increase in intellect an increase in initiative followed. They might have figured that since they couldn''t find any more animals that I didn''t have yet or that they could safely kill or bring with, they might as well bring items to me that might be of use to me. I''m a little bit sad though that a doggo had to die in my dungeon. But at least, I can now make an army out of them if I want to. Heh, just imagining it makes me ''smile''. Adventurers wandering in here, hoping to find loot, power and recognition, only to be thwarted because they are dog lovers or have at least a dog lover in their party that refuses to kill a doggo. Heh, What if I made all of them puppers. Death by cute and big eyes, cuddles and licks. All foolishness aside, its now time for the main event. Levelling up! I gather the 100.000 mana that is required and start condensing it in my core. When I feel as if it won''t condense any further, no matter what I try, I mentally shout "Level up!" The mana that I condensed bursts out of my core and surrounds it. Soon after, it starts crystalizing on the surface of my gem, making it grow slightly. Congratulations with your level up! You are now a second level dungeon. You have unlocked the following things: - You can now dedicate rooms as challenge rooms. - More traps - 10 new, random animal species of which one is ideally suited to your environment. - basic dungeon mechanics and items Traps unlocked: - Magical spike launching mechanism (spikes can be made out of nearly anything you want such as ice, earth, metal, etc... The cost goes up with the rarity and complexity of the spike material. Easier to detect through magical means, impossible to detect if the person or party that encounters the trap doesn''t have someone with mage sight.) - Mechanicalspike launching mechanism (spikes can be made out of nearly anything you want such as ice, earth, metal, etc... The cost goes up with the rarity and complexity of the spike material. Much harder to detect through magical means. Needs a trigger that with a good enough perception can be spotted, thus giving the trap away.) - Basic projectile launcher (mechanical/magical) - liquid sprayer (magical/mechanical) (Any liquid you have access to) Animals unlocked: - Seals - camel - Moles - Red Robbins - Trouts - Cockroaches - Bats - Bobbit Worm - snow petrel - Dire wolves (Uniquely suited) Dungeon items and mechanics unlocked: - Boss room designation - Automaticrepopulation - Designate creatures for special respawn - Safe zone and safe passage designation - Ability to create doors, locks and various unlock mechanics (puzzle, key, challenge, etc.) - Flowing water (closed water circuit) Awesome! Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.A lot of these will allow me to beef up my current floor. Some of them even fit right in with my ice and snow themed floor. Speaking of my floor, it''s time to finish what I envisioned. First of all, every single round room needs an infused ice platform with two infused ice stairs. The big round room needs the same platforms and stairs to connect the big room with the corridors and the smaller rooms so they get made as well. Next is the big room. At the moment, it is just a big empty room with some stairs and some platforms. It''s dull, it''s grey and it is boring as hell. To change this, I dig out a river that stretches from one side till the other. Right in the middle of the room and thus in the middle of the river, I dig out a pond with a radius of about twelve metres and a depth of 8 metres. On one side of the room, I create a waterfall that starts halfway up the wall with at its base a small pond with a width of around 3 metres and a depth of 1,5 metres. To fuel all my river, pond and waterfall, I fill them all with heaps of snow. Making the snow vibrate on a molecular level turns the snow into clear and pure water. Since snow and ice has a slightly bigger volume compared to water on a mass by mass basis, I need to create some additional snow to actually fill it all. Thanks to my level up, I have now the ability to make the water flow by having it magically moved from one side of the river to the top of my waterfall, making it look like the water wells up there from a natural spring. To give the room some more interesting features, I create a layer of snow that blankets all of the floor and that is at least fifty centimetres deep. In some places, I make bigger piles of snow and make them look like snow drifts that were formed by the wind. It is in these drifts that I hide my spike traps that will launch spikes made of ice and which are triggered and released by magic. Another idea for a trap came to me when I was reviewing all the things that I gained from levelling up. The massive troll in me reared up its ugly head and demanded that I make a trap that is humiliating instead of deadly. Being the nice person that I am, I agreed with my inner troll''s demand to keep the peace of my inner psyche. As a basis for this trap, I dig a hole with snow at the bottom. In one of the walls of the hole, I place a rockfall trap but instead of rocks or rubble, I fill it with massive amounts of snow. To make things worse for my unsuspecting victim, I place my newly gained liquid sprayer so that it is connected to the rockfall trap and fill it with pee. You heard it right, pee. Thus, my yellow snow humiliation pitfall is created. Maybe I need to put a sign in the trap as well that states to not eat the yellow snow? New trap created: Yellow snow pitfall of supreme humiliation Would you like to save this design and add it to your list of available traps? Yes, please! To make sure that any intruders aren''t capable of just rushing towards my soon to be made boss and my core, I create a massive door made out of layered pine wood. I lock it with five locks but instead of the default locks that came with the unlock from the level up, I change them into the more modern locks I was used to in my previous life, thus making it hopefully more difficult for the more unsavoury types of people to lockpick them. I create all five of the keys from mana infused ice but to make sure the keys are sturdy enough, I infuse the ice with even more mana this time. Congratulations! You have created a new material. Legends spoke about a form of ice that with the merest touch could cause burns as if one touched fire. Because of this, it was named: Cold-fire ice By some stroke of luck or just because out of the need for some better ice, you have managed to recreate this legendary material and are now able to recreate it at will. Legendary...Ice? That''s just ridiculous. I put one of the cold-fire keys at the bottom of the pond so that they have to swim down in the freezing cold water to retrieve it. Even though this is technically not a trap, whoever dives for it might still die from it if due to exposure if he or she or it is not properly prepared for it. The other four keys I spread out over the four cylindrical rooms to the side of my snowflake. In these rooms, I Make use of my new-gained challenge ability. The second key can be gained by killing five enemies while they are in the air in under one minute. To facilitate this, I place a single arctic hare in the centre of the room. The moment they kill that one, two arctic foxes will appear. After they are killed a mountain goat will appear and finally, as the last one, a yak will appear that they need to get in the air somehow and kill while it is there. To make sure they understand the challenge, I write out the instructions on the far wall from where they enter and for those that can''t read or speak another language, I crudely etch the instructions next to the writings in basic and crude stickman figures. The third key I put in a lockbox made of stone which I then put in the middle of a massive block of cold-fire ice, one that is two metres wide, two metres long and two metres high. In order for people to get it, they need to destroy theice by whatever means they can think of, be it fire or brute force. The fourth key is a challenge where they need to bathe four snow leopards in under an hour. For this challenge, I create four diorite bathtubs that stand on slightly raised so they can light a fire under them to heat up the baths if they so desire. Seeing as that the snow leopards are just bigger cats, the adventurers or intruders that wander in here will have their hands more than full. For the purpose of this challenge, I create four snow leopards and again engrave the explanation, text and stickmen, on the wall. The fifth key I hide behind another challenge but this time, it''s a puzzle. The thing with puzzles is, I can either make them ridiculously hard by using my knowledge of science, or I can try to make them so, at least for this first floor, that people from this world can figure them out as well. For that reason, I copy my etching of the area surrounding my dungeon and turn it into a sliding puzzle that consists of a five by five grid with one empty square. In order for the adventurers or intruders to gain the key, they will need to slide all 24 squares to their proper position and complete the landscape. When they manage that, The key will appear on top of this puzzle. To make sure that adventurers don''t get too bored, I create a pack of direwolves in my big room containing seven direwolves. Upon creation of this pack, the strangest thing happens though. The direwolves all face each other and start growling. Some of them even lunge at some of the others'' throats. After a couple of minutes, this display of animal ferocity dies down and one of them grows slightly bigger. All the others seem to defer to the bigger one. Congratulations! One of your direwolves evolved, by making the others submit through sheer ferocity and intimidation, into a dire wolf alpha. Every pack of wolf-like creature is led by an alpha and these are often the biggest, meanest and toughest of the pack. In order for this specimen to be the same, it gained more muscle mass, denser bones, enhanced speed, slightly enhanced intellect and an even stronger sense of pack awareness and pack tactics. chapter 15: Here bossy bossy bossy, Whos a good boy? An alpha version of a creature can be quite useful. Who knows, I might eventually turn it or a new one into a boss or at least a miniboss. To make things more interesting for intruders or adventurers before reaching the challenges, I make sure to place some extra traps in the corridors leading to them. Somecovered pitfalls with daggers here, an icy water sprayer there and even some spike and dart launchers to spice things up a bit. Keeping to the true spirit of dungeons as I knew them from games and literature from my old world, I remove all traps from the entrance corridor except for the thin layer of ice. The entrance corridor and the small room that the corridor leads to will be safe places before anyone goes in. Area''s where they can prepare or maybe even flee back to. Above the other two corridors, I place some text saying: ''danger! Possibility of death beyond this point'' To finish it off, I place crossed skulls, akin to a jollyroger but actually the hazard symbol found on chemical containers, to the sides of the text. That way, if there are some illiterate people that want to enter, they at least will be warned as well. To give some more ambience to my pond room, I create some seals to happily splash around in the pond and on its banks. To make the water more lively and to give the seals something to snack on, I fill the pond with trout and make use of the auto-populate function so that the pond never runs out of trout. In fact, I add the dire wolf pack to the auto-populate as well along with the seals. Since I''vegrown fond of my two original snow leopards and cored yetis, I add them to my respawn pool. According to the knowledge I gained about the respawn function with the level up, I can add a limited amount of creatures to respawn as they were before, with all of their knowledge and experiences intact and should they gain an increase in strength ranks, they get to keep these as well. The auto-populate function is just as the name suggests. When your monsters, mobs or animals die, this function will make use of your own mana pool to respawn them albeit with a blank canvas so too speak. This is a great tool for the more generic stuff such as in my case fish and other stuff. What''s even better is that, whenever a monster or animal of mine dies, I can recover a large portion of the mana I put into it. This way, I''m less likely to run out of mana and thus less likely to not being able to replenish my dungeon denizens. Now then, is there anything else my currently decorated and populated rooms and corridors need before I move on to the rooms and corridors leading up to the boss room? Light! Unlike most of my creatures and myself, others can''t see in the dark or at least not well. To light up my dungeon, I line the corridors and the smaller rooms to the side of the pond room with some mana fueled torches. For the big pond and river room, I have something special in mind now that I have access to lanterns. I supersize four lanterns and place them at the four cardinal points. Not that I know where north, east, south and west is in this world but for the purpose of having a point of reference, I''ve decided that the entrance is in the ''south'' and my boss room and coreroom is in the ''north''. In the middle of the room and at the top of the dome, I create a massive ball of clear ice with shaved sides, giving it the look of a disco ball. A few millimetres underneath the top layer of ice, I make very fine diorite dust appear. The combination of a dark background and a clear surface such as ice essentially creates a mirror and turns my big ball of ice into an actual disco ball. The only big difference with my version and the ones I was used to is that fact that mine does not spin. To finish it all off, I aim the lanterns at my ''disco ball'' and make it so that they are fueled by mana. My pond and river room is now truly a sight to behold. A gurgling stream of water which flows into and out of a crystal clear pond that is inhabited by playful seals. Snowdrifts dot the room, between which my direwolves run around or which my direwolves use to stalk the seals while the seals, in turn, stalk the trout in the pond. To top it all off, the entire room is illuminated with motes of light, making it look and feel quitecosy if not for the fact that the temperature in this room is near the freezing point. The next part of my dungeon, the split corridors and rooms leading up to my boss room and core room, needs to be populated and trapped. This is the part where the risk of death is to increase. The further they go in, the deadlier my dungeon should become. For that reason, I line my western corridors with covered pitfalls with daggers and spike launchers and my eastern corridors with projectile launchers and liquid sprayers. The liquid sprayers get a twist this time though. Since my yetis brought back some sort of oil after they presumably killed that prospector, I can have it now as an additional liquid to fill my liquid sprayers with. To make the oil sprayers more deadly, I place a couple of them in a row going from the floor till the ceiling of the corridor. I make sure to place a torch right next to my sprayers when I fill my rooms and corridors with torches so that the oil streams will get set on fire. Impromptu flamethrowers for the win! With traps and illumination taken care of, the next thing on the list is enemies to fight with. Since I split up my traps between east and west, I''m going to stay to the theme and have only certain animal species in the east and other certain animal species in the west corridor. In the west corridor, in the first room, I''m placing a single Yeti. In the second room, I place a Yeti and two direwolves. In the third western room, I place two yetis and two dire wolves. In the east corridor, in the first room, I place twelve huskies. Yes, I''m going with my idea of a small army of dogs. If they actually kill any of these, they deserve to die. In the second room, I place two reindeers and two snow leopards. In the third room, I place a yak, two reindeer and two snow leopards. The only thing I still need to do now is creating a boss. I have half a mind to turn both of my cored yetis into a boss couple but then I will lose them as my scouts and gatherers. I do wonder though, Is there a way to make my own mythical creatures? If I recall correctly, in Norse mythology were various mystical and powerful animal such as Fenrir; the demon wolf, Jormungandr; the monster snake of the sea, Sleipnir; the eight-legged horse and Huginn and Muninn, the all-seeing ravens of Odin. Seeing as that giant sea snakes, horses and ravens are not suited for an arid and inhospitable environment as my mountain, that leaves out Fenrir. Depending on the literature you read, his fur was either pitch black or the brightest of white. Some even suggested that he was the very embodiment of winter and that wherever he would go, the harshest of winter would follow in its wake. In fact, according to this particular myth, it was only ever seen as a massive shape in a blizzard and it was thought that the blizzard was in fact created by it, either because of some kind of breath attack or because of some passive, perpetual weather phenomena around it. Even though it was just a myth and part of the Norse pantheon back on earth, It doesn''t necessarily mean that something like Fenrir, or any other mythical creature like it, doesn''t exist here. Maybe some sort of frost wolf, either regular sized or massive, might be quite common in certain parts of this world. And who better to ask then my faithful companion.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. "WIKI, What do you know of animals and beast with a magical nature? I''m assuming that, since magic is fairly common and since mana is all around us, magical creatures are a thing?" "For a beast to be recognized as a magical creature, it needs to undergo a mana induced evolution." "Mana induced evolution you say, howdoes it work? From what I know of evolution, it is a slow process that spans over many generations. But the induced part sounds as if it is considerably faster?" "It is indeed way faster than natural evolution. The main difference between a regular animal or beast and its magical cousins is that the magical version has a core where it stores its mana. In order for it to create one, the animal or beast needs to take in massive amounts of magical energies or even pure mana. This intake can either happen through one massive surge of magic or an extended exposure to greater amounts of magically and elementally infused energies. Because of the influx of magic, a core will start to form in the body of the creature. The creation of this core requires in most cases minerals though so the forming of a finished core takes a while since most creatures have a mineral rich diet." "So, If I understand you correctly, a core is all a creature needs to become its magical counterpart? Does that mean my cored yetis are considered to be magical?" "Well, there is, in fact, another step but the core is the main part. In order for something to be truly considered to be a magical creature, the core needs to form a pathway to the area where most of the exposure happened. This is the reason why there are so many different variations of magical creatures with the same natural ancestor. For example, If an animal somehow gains the magical energies needed for the creation of the core by eating rich magically infused foods, It will form a mana pathway to the stomach and the throat of the animal. This would result in either some sort of breath attack, a spit attack with magical properties or even both. Another example, If the animal were to gain the magical energies just by walking over a rich magically infused surface, it will absorb these energies through his feet, claws, paws and whatnot. This would result in the forming of a mana channel between these appendages and the core, allowing the creature to eventually empower his appendages with mana. As a last example, If the skin, scales or hide of an animal is exposed to the magical energies, it will form lots of smaller pathways between its skin, scales or hide. This would result in magical abilities like being able to harden its outer layer, becoming resistant to some form of damage or even in the rarer cases, invisibility." "What form would the magical energies take when it comes to effect? Would it be pure mana that enhances the affected area''s?" "Not necessarily, master. The only way a creature would be able to use pure mana-based attacks is if it was exposed to pure mana and this basically never happens since nearly all mana is tinted with at least a minimal amount of elemental influence. It''s way more likely that a creature gets infused by elemental mana, which would result in elemental based attacks or defences. For example, a bear that hibernated during winter in its lair in a magically rich environment would be exposed to lots of earth mana since his lair is most likely underground. Since it is not moving much and not eating whilst hibernating, it would absorb the energies through his hide. When he would wake up eventually and starts gorging itself to replenish its body mass, it would form a core quite fast. Soon after, the earth mana from his earth-based core would manifest itself as an armour of rock that the bear could conjure at will." "That sounds so cool. So, if I wanted to create a frost breathing dire wolf boss with frost claw attacks and maybe even the ability to conjure a small blizzard, I would need to...? Pump it full of frost mana through its claws, mouth and hide?" "I''m not sure about the blizzard but the breath attack and the infused claws sound about right. Keep in mind though that magical creatures rarely have multiple magical effects since it takes a lot more mana. In fact, most creatures would die when exposed to these amounts and thus only the strongest would be able to evolve in such a way. This would incidentally lead to an even stronger creature, up to the point that it would become ridiculously strong." "Sounds like a perfect boss monster to me!" As a template for my boss, I create a dire wolf alpha but before it is completely formed, I pause the creation process. Next to its heart, I create a perfectly round mana coreand infuse it with ice mana. To make sure the right pathways get formed, I infuse the dire wolf alpha through its claws, hide and mouth. Right before my metaphorical eyes, the channels start to form from their point of entry and soon reach the mana core. Now will come the tricky part, have I used enough mana to get decent results or do I need to increase the amount of mana that I infuse? The only way to test this is to allow the creation process to resume its course and to test my newest creature. The creature that now stands in the middle of my boss room is considerably bigger than a regular dire wolf alpha and has a fur that is as white as the purest snow and deep blue eyes. I order it to attempt a breath attack, which it promptly complies with. The result is... lacking. It only manages to slightly chill the air in front of it. Definitely need to boost that part of the mana infusion. Next is an ice infused claw attack. Again, seems like I''d been expecting too much from this. His claws just become slightly colder as well instead of the freezing weapon of icy death that I hoped for. Lastly is the hide infused... whatever it is. I order it to channel its mana to his hide to see what would happen. Well, it is no blizzard, that''s for sure. If I look close enough, I can see that a very thin sheet of ice has formed over its fur. Definitely not thick enough to stop a weapon. Overall, my experiment was a success and a failure. Yes, I managed to create my very first magical beast and it even has some of the abilities I envisioned, but on the other hand, Its power is severely lacking. Ah well, that''s the nature of experimenting I guess. It''s all about the setbacks and the breakthroughs. I just need to keep trying until I get it right. With a twist of my mind, I make an important blood vessel that runs to its brain burst, causing an oxygen deficiency in its brain. When it''s dead, I reabsorb my creature and start anew. By killing it, I at least managed to recover some portion of my invested mana. No need to be wasteful about it. It took many tries and failed attempts but in the end, I got what I wanted. There were two types of failures. The unimpressive ones where it just didn''t live up to my expectations and the actually impressive ones. What was so impressive about my failures was that, because of over-infusion, the dire wolf would go pop in a big explosion of gore, blood, chunks of bone and fur. In one case, it even imploded which left me flabbergasted. The solution, when it finally came to me, was quite the obvious one now that I think of it. In order for a core to be able to power three ability areas as I wanted, It needs to be able to hold enough mana and the pathways need to be big enough. Thus, the cores that I created kept increasing in size and efficiency until it was nearly twice as big as the one I started out with. And because the core and pathway needed to be bigger, the boss'' size had to increase as well. The thing that is currently standing in the middle of my soon to be boss room is truly awe-inspiring and frightening. A massive dire wolf with a fur as white as the purest snow that can turn a Yak into a popsicle in seven seconds flat with its breath attack. A creature that can cause frost burns with the slightest graze from its paws or a partial and even full freeze of the flesh it directly strikes at. An icy armour that is five centimetres thick and can be activated at will and which can even increase in thickness to fifteen centimetres if I or the boss so desires. As if somehow feeling that I''m satisfied with my creation, a pop-up appears. Congratulations on your new creation. A new species has been added to your list of available animals: * Frost wolf You have created a new variant of this species: * Frost wolf king Neat. Now comes the important part though, actually turning this room into a boss room. With a slight exertion of my will, I will this room to be a boss room and my dire wolf to be its boss. This room is now a boss room! Boss-type creature detected which has been tailor-made to be the boss of this floor. * Please name this boss. * optional: please give this boss a title. "My new boss shall from this moment on be called Fenrir and shall hold the title of ''Demon wolf of the frozen peaks'' " And just like that, my first floor is done. chapter 16: travels and bad table manners Getting off the mountain proved to be quite easy yet really frightening. Apparently, all you need is two Yeti allies that tear the thugs that guard the way up the mountain to pieces. The only downside is the noise the thugs make as they die quite violently. The sound of screaming, crying, sobbing, throwing up, hastily shouted orders and pleas for mercy or for help, divine or from their comrades. Sadly enough for them, the gods seem to be preoccupied or just uncaring since as sudden the attacks started, as fast did the attacks and the slaughter end. The once tranquil white snow is now painted red with blood and body parts are just about strewn out everywhere. Interestingly enough, the battlefield is already starting to shrink since the yetis have started snacking on the various body parts. Which is, in fact, a rather gruesome sight because of the ''interesting'' eating habits of the yetis. Shredding pieces of meat straight from the bones using their ridiculously sharp teeth or sucking and licking various body parts out of their armoured containers. Oh, and the fact that they eat with their mouths open and do their sucking and licking with slurping sounds as if they were eating a bowl of stew or soup doesn''t help either Mary-Ann pushed all of it, the sight, the smell and the sound, from her mind and made it further down the mountain and into the pine forest. With all the frightful elements behind her, she is now in a tranquil forest of pine trees where the faint breeze makes the green pine needles sway and carries with it the fresh scent that is associated with them. With a thump on every second step, Mary-Ann moves towards the east using her spear as an impromptu walking stick. Not that she needs it, mind you. If her course holds true and if she keeps heading to the east, she should come across the road that skirts the great pine forest of the dragon mountains and which acts as the main trade road between two allied kingdoms. Once she finds herself on that road, she should be able to take the only major side road to get to the capital. She made good time, yet she still needed three days to make it out of the forest and onto the main road. During the night, she made a crude shelter out of branches and slept in her sleeping bag which she placed on a bed of pine needles to make for softer sleeping arrangements. Fortunately for her, she was undisturbed in her passage through the forest. All she encountered were some bunnies, some deer and some wildfowl. She did see a pack of wolves in the distance but they had plentyof easier prey to hunt so they left her alone. By the time she left the forest, she was completely covered in dried up sweat, grime and traces of pine resin. There should be plenty of small villages of just even travel outposts with inns along the road and with a bit of luck, she will be able to make it before nightfall. Just the thought of being able to sleep in an actual bed and to be able to take a bath reinvigorates her and makes her take longer and more energetic strides. Multiple hours pass and it''s only when dusk starts to fall that she finally spots the telltale signs of a garrisoned outpost. A wooden palisade surrounding a cleared and flat area that is just of the side of the road. Faint traces of smoke, originating from various chimneys and campfires, rises up over the palisade. Which is a good sign. To much smoke could be a sign of an accidental fire or a raid by bandits and not enough smoke could again be asign of bandit activity or a disease/magical disaster. The one saving grace of being so filthy and being ''just'' the niece of the king is that no one should be able to recognise her or should be able to identify her as royalty. Soon after and right before it was truly dark, she came to the gates. The gate is flanked by two men, one on either side, both wearing leather armour and carrying spears. On their hips, a short sword can befound that is only that much bigger than a big knife. These men look at the surrounding area with a fresh look in their eyes, aided by the light of torches that lines the road for about fifty metres. Around their necks, they have a wooden whistle that, should any trouble arise, be able to call for reinforcements even in the loudest of storms. These men and the others that are garrisoned here are proud soldiers of the Kingdom Of Ralomar. Even though these men are not the best of the best that the kingdom has to offer, they are still worth twice as much as any regular soldier of the allied kingdoms and are on par or even slightly better than the average soldier of the Empire Of Light. In fact, the kingdom spares no expense to keep the men well equipped, well fed and well trained. Even though there is no current active hostility between the empire and the kingdom, there has been some in the past and this, combined with the occasional monster attack or bandit attack is reason enough to condone the expense. It is under their watchful and calculating gazes that Mary-Ann enters the outpost. On her left stands the barracks with its training area so that if anything were to happen and if the guards were to call for help, reinforcements would be almost instantly there. On the right side stands a large storage area combined with stables, used to store the carts, wagons and beasts of burden of the merchants that pass through here for the night. The storage area and barns are under constant surveillance to ensure that all thievery is kept toan almost non-existent level. This allows the merchants and their guards to sleep unburdened in the Inn. The more people that don''t need to keep watch on their goods, the more people that spend their coin on drinks in the in as well.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. On the opposite of the gate stands the inn. This is a three-story building which consists of the main building and two wings in which guests can be housed. In between the wings and in front of the main building is a quaint little courtyard with benches that surround a fountain. Faint music can be heard coming from the door to thebar room as wandering artists often stay in these inns for weeks on end. Upon opening this door, Mary-Ann is greeted with the smell of stale beer, sweat and unwashed bodies, shards of drunken conversations and hot air from the combined effects of the roaring fireplace and the heat given off by the high amount of patrons. With a minimal amount of shoving and elbowing drunkards, Mary-Ann makes it to the bar. With a quick wave, she signals the barman, a veritable mountain of a man with a big black beard and hands so massive that they could be mistaken for shovels. "What can I do for ya, lassie?" "I would like to hire a room for the night. And if it is possible, I would also like to take a bath and have some dinner and a drink delivered to my room." "A room for the night would be ten coppers, a bath would be five coppers and a meal and drink to be delivered to your room would be three coppers." She pulled out twenty coppers from her coin purse and threw them on the counter. "Here''s twenty, have the maids deliver some extra buckets of hot water and plenty of soap." "Sure, lass, extra hot water coming right up. Here''s your key, you are in room15 of the western wing. The food should be there in about ten minutes and the bath should be there in around half an hour." With a nod to the barkeep, Mary-Ann takes the key and strolls towards the west wing, shoving and elbowing drunkards out of her way. The hallways are lined with panelled wood and the doors are numbered with shining brass numbers. Reaching the door carrying the number fifteen, she opens it with the key and strolls in. The room is quite plain and in it, a bed with plenty of blankets and pillows, a window on the opposite side of the hallway, a bedside table, a chest at the foot of the bed and a table with some chairs. The middle of the floor is covered in a soft and red rug. She leaves her spear right next to the door and drops her backpack on the table. When her food arrives, it joins the backpack on the table. The food is quite simple, a pork stew with some vegetables and served with large pieces of bread. To wash it all down, she is given a mug of dark brown and frothy ale. While she was still eating, someone knocked on the door. After a shouted "Come in", two maids walked in and carrying between them, a large wooden bathtub. They quickly left and returned shortly after with buckets of water, both hot and cold. They left and returned another time to get the extra buckets of water she ordered. With a small curtsy, they left her to finish her meal and to bathe in privacy. Quickly wolfing down the rest of her food, she finishes and just about rushes to the bath. First of all, the buckets of cold water go in it to serve as a base and to ensure that there is plenty of water in the tub. After that comes some of the buckets of hot water to bring the bathwater to a comfortable temperature. With justa bit more of hot water, the water reaches a barely bearable temperature. Now that she is happy with the temperature, she starts to undress and slowly lowers herself in the tub. A sigh of contentment makes it past her lips as the warm water covers her body like a comfortable and warm hug. After a half hour of just soaking, she finally picks up the soap the maids left and uses it to lather up her body and to wash her hair. When she is clean, or at least as clean as she could get with washing like that, she leaves the tub and wraps herself in a towel, which again was left behind by the maids. With only the towel to protect her modesty if anyone should barge in her room, she throws her clothes in the tub and adds the rest of the slightly cooler hot water. Making use of the bar of soap, she shrubs her clothes to remove most of the filth and the dust from her travels from them. Once they are as clean as they can get with what she has to work with, she wrings them out and hangs them over the chairs to dry. With a full belly and a clean and fresh body, she crawls into her bed and under the covers. Soon enough, the exhaustion brought on from her travels and her recent experiences overwhelms her and she promptly falls asleep. When morning comes, she swiftly puts her clothes back on, grabs her backpack and her clothes and makes her way back to the bar. She greets the barkeep with a smile and drops the key on the counter. "How much would it be for breakfast?" "That would depend on what you want, If you want some simple yet filling fare, you can get a bowl of oatmeal for a copper or a breakfast plate filled with bacon, eggs, sausages and bread for three coppers." Just hearing him talk about sausages and bacon makes her drool slightly and makes her stomach grumble. "I would like the breakfast plate, please. And, if possible, a cup of the strongest tea you have." She says as she hands overfive coppers. With a sweep of his hands, the barkeep swipes the coppers of the bar and says to her: "One breakfast plate and a cup of our strongest tea coming right up. The food should be ready in about ten minutes or so and if you find yourself a seat, I will bring over the tea quite shortly." After a hearty breakfast and a nice warm cup of tea, she sets out once more on her journey towards the capital. Her great-grandfather, a now long deceased king, had once decreed that there should be enough outposts or villages along this trade route to ensure that travellers could stay at an inn every night, even if they are on foot. Only under the most unfortunate of circumstances would a person have to camp next to the road and in the wild where it might not be safe at night. chapter 17: Towns and bloody inns Mary-Ann quickly settled into a routine. In the morning, she would rise with the sun and after a hearty breakfast, set out on the road towards the capital. After a tiresome day of continuous walking at a steady yet fast pace, she would stop whenever she comes across the next outpost. There she would enter the inn and order a room, a bath with extra hot water and food and drink. She would then go straight to her room and eat her dinner there, after which she bathes and cleans her clothes before allowing her weary body the rest it needs. This repeated for multiple days on end since the road that follows the dragon mountains is as long as they are and settlements don''t just come from nowhere. Villages are normallyfounded around or near places of interest such as mines, crossroads, ports, important natural resources and dungeons. Due to the size of the kingdom, one would usually have to travel multiple days before encountering the next village. It is in frontof the gates of one of these settlements that she now finds herself. All villages are protected by the crown by the same troops that guard the outposts but in relativelysmaller numbers. The soldiers in these villages act as peacekeepers and as a mini standing army in case of a bandit or monster attack. Most of the actual guarding is done by a militia which has been trained by the royal troops. Compared to the royal troops, these militiamen are usually significantly worse equipped since the equipment is usually locally made or at least locally funded and imported from either the capital or surrounding villages that have a surplusthey want to sell. Most of the time, a village has its own blacksmith and, if he or she is capable enough, the blacksmith can also make arms and armour to equip the militia with or sell them to travelling merchants, adventurers or to neighbouring villages if he or she can make enough of them. Another building that is always present in one of these villages is a barracks, most villages have two even, one for the royal troops and one for the militia. But the building that is usually always found in a village and which is often the very first building to be build when a new village is founded is an inn. If the village is big enough, there are often more than just one of them, especially is a lot of trade passes through the village. In case of a dungeon village or town, it is standard practice to set up a branch of the adventurers guild. In fact, smaller branchesof the adventurers guild can be found in most villages which are often staffed with a small detachment of adventurers, most of which are actually low ranking locals. Depending on the size of the village, the branch itself and the importance of the village, an adventurer with a rank that is a couple of tiers higher than the other adventurers is assigned as the branch leader. If the village is truly special or important enough, there would also be a small branch of the mages guild that specialises in selling magical commodities and teaching low-level and common spells to aspiring mages and maybe even a church of one deity or the other. In the kingdom of Ralomar, religion and churches have to adhere to some rules, some of which some might find strict or even harsh. To prevent trouble between followers of different gods, it has been decreed many centuries ago that there can only be one church in every village, town or city and that if the clergy of a particular god wants their god to be represented, they can claim a single altar in the shared, Crown-owned church of that village, town or city. In fact, It doesn''t matter for the crown which god has an altar in a church, as long as the clergy and followers of that god follow the rules and laws, any god can be represented in the church. It is not uncommon for the biggest churches to have altars devoted to the god of necromancy or the god of hell, demons and fiends. Churches are usually only found in towns or more densely populated habitats. A church is only built in a village or town if a petition is sent to the Crown, which has to be signed by three heads ofclergy from three different gods. Unsanctioned churches are, if found, immediately torn down by the soldiers of the Crown and the clergy that runs the church is chained up and sent to prison where they remain for two years or until the leaders of that religion pays a heavy fine. It rarely happens that someone is convicted of this crime multiple times but when it happens, the perpetrator is hanged without mercy and the clergy of the perpetrator is held responsible as well and punished accordingly by the king himself. Nearly all of the settlements that lie at the Dragon Road are towns and because of the size of the settlement and because they are important for wandering pilgrims, they all have a church. The town that Mary-Ann is about to enter is called Domwik. Why this town is named this way is lost in history. There is plenty of speculation, mind you, but most of the speculating is done by people who have already drunk their fair share of alcohol. From the western gate, the one Mary-Ann is entering Domwik through, she could, if she were to be so inclined, walk all the way to the market in the centre of the town and if she were to keep going to the east, leave through the eastern gate. This boulevard that connects these gates serves as the main hub of which all the rest branches out. All the important buildings and some of the more common buildings can be found on this boulevard. The church stands on the northern end of the market square while the small branch of the mage guild and the branch of the adventurers guild share the southern part of the square. There are two barracks for the militia, one near each gate and the barracks for the royal troops takes up a corner of the market square. Another corner of the square is occupied by the local blacksmith and a small stable where the blacksmith or one of his apprentices can reshoe the horses of travellers of the dragon road. Along the main boulevard and not far from each gate, multiple inns can be found as well as another inn on the corner of the square which is more luxurious and thus costlier. The rest of the boulevard is taken up by shops and some of the homes of the more wealthier citizens. The Last corner of the square is taken up by the town hall while the rest of the town is mostly taken up by residences. Interestingly enough, most of the towns and villages along the Dragon road look the same since they all have been founded with funds that were sponsored by the crown. The only stipulation that came attached to this sponsoring was that the villages and towns adhered to a certain pattern and that certain buildings were built at certain places. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.So as far as layout is concerned, at least as far as the important buildings of these villages and towns go, it is near identical to the next village. Despite the general layout, every village and town feels different due to the style in which each building is build in and the personal preference of the citizens. The only buildings that look the same as in every other village or town are the church, the adventurers guild branch house and the mages guild branch house and even the style of the church can be changed if a petition with enough signatures is sent to the king and if the village or town is willing to fund the changes itself. So far, this hasn''t happened many times before since the local heads of the different pantheons thatare present in said town seem unable to agree on the style they want the church to look like. And even if they do manage to agree, it is still required that the followers of these pantheons pay 75% of the renovation cost. As a result, only the church in the capital looks different from the other ones and only because it was funded by the crown and had the style chosen by the crown as well. To remain as inconspicuous as possible, Mary-Ann decided to hire a room in one of the inns on the boulevard instead of taking a room in the inn on the corner of the market square. As before, she orders a room and a meal with a drink. Since she has reached the town around noon, she also places an order for a meal to be delivered to her room around dinner as well as her usual bath and extra bath water. After her lunch meal, she goes out again but leaves her spear in her room and makes sure to securely lock it. She then casually strolls through the market square, looking at each and every stall and shop to see if anything catches her eye. Even though she is not paying much attention to her surroundings, she still keeps her spatial backpack in front of her to prevent pickpockets from stealing anything from it, like for example her money pouch. Her main interest currently lies with getting a set of spare, comfortable clothes that she can wear while her other clothes are drying from their wash. Unbeknownst to Mary-Ann, her shopping and her taking her money pouch out of what must surely be a spatial bag were noticed by a pair of men of the more unsavoury type. With greedy grins, they look at each other, deciding to shadow her to see where she stays for the night. Soon after, Mary-Ann returns to her room. She had picked up a book at the market in which she quickly is engrossed in. Thus she spends the rest of the afternoon until her food and her bath arrives. After a quick meal, a long bath and washing her clothes, she nestles herself in her bed with her book again while wearing her fresh clothes and sipping from a cup of tea that she recently ordered. With her book and some candles to help her with her reading, she keeps reading until way after dark. When she finally sets her book aside and goes to sleep, it is easily somewhere around midnight. After blowing out the candles, she snuggles deeper under her covers and goes to sleep. On the roof of a nearby building, the two thugs have been lying in wait all this time. With a huff of annoyance, one of them whispers to the other: "She finally went to bed, who would have known that she was such a night flower." "Yeah, even though it is already this late, we still should wait even longer until we can be sure she''s properly asleep." "Agreed. And once she is, we can sneak in through the window, cut her throat and take all of her possessions. If we then leave through the window one more, we''ll be long gone before they find her corpse." "Too bad we can''t have our way with her for some fun, she looked really hot." "If I''m right about the nature of her bag and the status of her money pouch, we can hire all the whores we want." With this thought taking up both of their minds, both of them keep switching between hungry looking at the woman''s window and staring in the distance whilst daydreaming about wealth and women. After roughly another hour has passed, they finally make their move. Thanks to their careful planning, they already have a rope attached to the top of the inn that spans all the way over the alley between their building and the inn. With their feet swung over the rope and with both hands, they monkey traverse the rope to the other side and onto the roof of the inn. Once there, they use another rope to climb down to the small balcony that is attached to the woman''s room. This balcony is just about big enough for two grown men to stand on as long as they are not to fat and don''t move too much. As one of them keeps an eye out for any potential witnesses, the other one starts opening the window by trying to undo the latch that keeps the window closed by making use of some expensive thief''s tools. Inside of Mary-Ann''s room, she suddenly wakes up. Confused at first, she looks around for the thing that woke her up. When she doesn''t immediately see anything that could have awoken her in such a way, she is really confused. Why are her instincts just about screaming at her that there is animminentthreat? Just then, the moon breaks through the clouds and slightly reveals two silhouettes that stand on her balcony. Even though she has no idea why they would be there, or rather, why they are most likely breaking in, she still slowly slides out of her bed. Luckily for her, she left her belt with her knife hanging on a nearby chair. With a hurried yet steady movement, she pulls her dagger out of itssheath and flattens herself against her bed on the side that''s furthest away from the window. Right before the would-be intruders manage to open the window of her room, she shoves her pillows under the blankets to make it look like there is still someone sleeping there. With a very slight creak, her window opens and in come two men. Thanks to the moonlight that now shines through her open window, she can faintly see that they both carry a dagger. With some barely perceptible hand signals, they count down before striking the lump on the bed which they took for a sleeping human. The moment they stab her pillow, Mary-Ann''s gaze and demeanour grow cold. Since they came here to kill her, she should not feel bad if she were to kill them instead. As soon as they raise their blades and stab the pillow another time, she jumps up. With a shout, she swings her dagger towards the neck of the closest assailant. With a soft and wet squelch, the blade goes all the way in and with a massive tug, it comes as easily back out again, leaving a massive and horrible wound behind. With a red spray of blood, the first of the assailants goes down, clutching at the wound in the vain hope that he can stem the bleeding. Startled, the other one looks up and at her. Not believing what he sees, he just dumbly looks at the bed again before looking at her once more. "What are you doing there instead of lying here?" he asks, baffled. Not granting him an answer, she jumps on and over the bed, hitting the would-be murderer feet first. With a wheeze as the air is knocked out from his lungs, the man goes down with Mary-Ann on top of him. With her on top, she has all the leverage she needs to start laying into him with her dagger. When she finally stops stabbing him, he has been stabbed so many times that his blood has just about spread everywhere and covered everything in her area. Heavily panting, she just kneels there while clenching the dagger in her right hand that is white from how hard she is clenching it. Staring at the mess she just made, she can''t help but think ''What a mess I made and worst of all, now I need to bathe again and get rid of my new clothes since I doubt I will be able to get the bloodstains out of them'' chapter 18: I wanna scream, and shout, and let it all out Mary-Ann was in a bit of a pickle now. What is she supposed to do? She is completely covered in blood, she has two corpses lying in her room and her bed, sheets and pillow might just be stained or shredded beyond repair. Would there still be some of the staff awake this late? And what would happen if they saw her like this? Covered in blood. There is one thing she can do, now that she thinks about it. The one typical thing most women would do. Something that she has been feeling like doing from the moment she detected the intruders. So instead of suppressing the feeling, she just lets loose. She screams. A piercing wail that manages to wake up nearly every person in the building and that even some of the guards on the street manage to hear as well. Soon after, the resounding thuds of bootsrapidlyhitting the wooden floor in the hallway can be heard coming her way. However, they quickly falter a bit, most likely since the persons that were alarmed by her scream have no idea which room it came from. Since help is nearby now, she staggers towards the door, unlocks it and stumbles outside. She must strike quite the figure, covered in blood and gore like this. "Over there! What happened ma''am?" One of the guards spots her and shout at her whilst he runs towards her. Nearly immediatelyafter he reaches her, the rest of the guards reach her as well. One of them stands near her while the rest of them stand in front of the door to her room, their weapons at the ready. With a nod from a man that is at the front, they all slowly advance into her room while the one that stands next to her remains behind. As they advance into the room, they come across a grislysight. On the floor on the side of the room near the window and on the bed lays two corpses. One of them has seemingly had his throat slit. Even though wounds like that look impressive and horrid, these are hardened men that see them often, for backstabber and throat slashers are quite common in the back alleys. The other corpse, on the other hand, makes even the most hardened and most veterans of the guards falter slightly. The youngest and ''greenest'' of the guards literally becomes the greenest as he turns around and pukes in a corner of the room. Despite all of this, they quickly search the room for any potential lingering intruders before returning to the hallway. One of the men turns to the man that stayed with Mary-Ann to report. Apparently, the man that stayed behind with her was the leader of this small squad of guards. "There were no intruders left alive in there Sarge. It is a mess in there though, you got to see it yourself to believe it." The man, that apparentlyholds the rank of sergeantand that was standing next to her, turns towards her and asks her: "Would you mindwaiting out here for a bit while I go inspect the room? Now that my men have confirmed it to be safe, I can give it a cursory examination. From the looks of one of my rookies, it must be pretty bad in there so I think it would be a bad idea if I took you in there with me right now." "Yeah, yeah, sure. I''ll wait here then." With Mary-Ann waiting outside in the hallway once more, the sergeant strolls in the room to take in the scene. In the room, he takes in everything that''s there to see. The open window. The thief''s tools that were still lying on the balcony. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.The stabbed blanket with a pillow underneath it. The position of the bodies. The slit throat of one ofthe bodies and the multiple stab wounds on the other body. And lastly, the woman''s backpack that is hanging from the back of a chair. A backpack that looks a lot like a dimensional backpack. Even though they are not that rare, they are still uncommon enough to cost a pretty penny. Especially if its one of the bigger variants. Enough incentive for a pair of thugs to try to break in into this poor woman''s room, to stab her to death and to run off with her possessions. Sadly enough for them, it seems like she managed to kill them instead. Good for her. Less scum that prowls the street and a potentially prominent member of society that still walks around safely. Who knows what might have happened if she had been killed, she might have been someone important after all. While the officer on duty of the squad that came to her aid was in her room, Mary-Ann was reminiscing about what happened earlier. Somehow, she had become awake right in time to spot the intruders on her balcony and prepare for their entry. Thanks to this, she wasn''t stabbed to death in her sleep and also was she able to overpower her opponents through sheer ferocity and the element of surprise. This raises some questions though. How did she manage to wake up and spot them right on time? And how did she manage to put enough ferocity in her attacks to overpower two grown men? Even with the element of surprise and sheer luck, she feels as if she should have at least taken some hits or as if something should have gone less well. What she does have is a sneaking suspicion though, one that she can only verify if she heads to the branch of the adventurers guild. Great, anotherdelay before she can continue her journey towards the capital. Not long after, the officer returns wearing an unreadable expression. "Don''t you worry ma''am, it is pretty clear to me that you acted in self-defence. Since we, the city guard, failed to protect you, we''ll handle the removal of the bodies and will pay for the cleanup. Since I know the innkeeper well enough, I will give you a hand in getting a new room and something to clean yourself and your clothes with, all expenses paid by the guard." "That would be very kind of you. I can use a bath about now, standing around whilst covered in blood and wearing nothing but my night''s clothes isn''t what I would consider as having a fun time. Would you be so kind and have one of your men gather up my stuff? I''m loathe to go back in there, I''m afraid." "I''ll make sure one of my men will deliver your possessions to your new room in a bit. I''ll even have them clean your possessions a bit if they happen to be covered in blood as well. Now, if you would like to follow me?" After having woken up a grumpy innkeeper, Mary-Ann is assigned a new room, has been given bathwater and a tub and her blood-covered clothes have been handed off to a roused, even grumpier, maid that is tasked with cleaning and ironing the clothes by the morning. With Mary-Ann set up for the night, the guard captain bids her a good night and returns to his men to make sure the bodies are removed and to resume his patrol. Not long after that, Mary-Ann has bathed and has crept underneath the covers of her new bed. Seconds after her head hits her pillow, she''s fast asleep.
When Mary-Ann wakes up in the morning, she comes to the realization dawn has come some hours ago and the time is getting closer to noon. She must have been really tired after the entire ordeal the previous night for her to sleep that long. Not wanting to waste any more time, she gets out a spare set of clothes out of her bag since her other set of clothes were taken away for cleaning. Once she''s clothed, she grabs all of her stuff and opens her door. In front of the door to her room is a neatly folded and ironed pile of clothes. Scooping them up as she walks past them, she keeps walking towards the common room. With a small nod as a way of greeting, she places the key to her room in front of the innkeeper and orders a plate of breakfast. Not long after, she''s wolfing down a plate that is heavily laden with various meats and piles of scrambled egg. She washes it all down with a big cup of tea. After bringing back the plate, the teacup and the eating utensils to the counter, she strides towards the door. With a wave behind her back and a shouted thanks for the hospitality, she leaves the inn and makes a sharp turn towards the centre plaza. Her next immediate destination, the adventurers guild''s branch building. chapter 19: Progress With large and purposeful strides, Mary-Ann makes her way to the building of the adventurers guild''s branch. Due to a large number of people that are walking the streets, she needs to bob and weave between them but thanks to her lithe and agile body, she manages to slip between even the most densely packed groups of people. Soon enough, she pushes open the door to the branch building and walks towards the counters. Since there''s only one counter open at the moment, there''s a small queue consisting of three people. With a quiet sigh for the time she''ll waste, she goes to stand in line. A couple of minutes later, she''s at the front of the queue and standing before the counter. With a big smile on her face, the woman seated behind the counter asks: "How may I help you today? Are you familiar with the services we provide or would you like me to list them up for you?" "I''m quite familiar with the services the adventurers guild provides, thank you. It is one of those services I would like to make use of now." "Certainly, how may the adventurers guild be of service?" "I would like to undergo a Progress determination and purchase a Progress card, one that will update itself. I''m afraid I lost my previous one a couple of weeks back." Mary-Ann leanscloser towards the young woman behind the counter and whispers to her: "If possible, I would like some discretion whilst my Progress is being determined. Would you mind contacting the head of the branch for me? If he or she has been kept up to date on the political front, she''ll recognize me and get my need for... secrecy." "Certainly, I''ll contact her immediately." She picks up a quill and writes something of a notepad that''s lying next to her. A couple of seconds after she finished writing, text starts appearing underneath the text she wrote. One of the more interesting breakthroughs In magical communications of late is a notepad that can be magically tied to another notepad so that when someone writes on one notepad, the same text appears in realtime on the other one as well. Granted, for people who have to deal with a high volume of messages from a lot of different people every day, this might sound like a lot of work since you would need a notepad for each person or place you would like to stay in contact with so for a fair bit more gold, one can buy a notepad that is far more advanced and that can handle the incoming messages from multiple different pads at the same time and the is linked to multiple pads at once. After a glance at the new text on her notepad, the woman behind the counter stretches out a hand and points it towards the lounge area. "Please take a seat in the lounge, the branch leader will be down here in about ten minutes." With another quiet sigh for even more wasted time, Mary-Ann takes a seat in the lounge. Since she has nothing better to do, she takes to studying the adventurers that come through. Some are here to turn in slayer quests, using body parts or bloody items as grizzly proof that they slew their target. Others are here to turn in gathering quests, turning in copious amounts of common ingredients or small amounts of rare ingredients that can be used in various professions like alchemy, blacksmithing, leatherworking and others. And then there are some that want to register to become an adventurer. These people are usually very young, most of them barely an adult, and have never held a blade before nor do they have any combat experience. People like this are lured in by the promise of gold and fame and are likely to die young. Some of them might make it in life and become an average ranking adventurer, one that will only be able to live from week to week since the pay is usually not too good. And in the very rare cases, some of these youthful adventurers might make it one day in life and become a successful and well-known adventurer, one whose power or cunning or deeds know no bounds and thus becomes known in the entire kingdom and maybe even in the neighbouring kingdoms as well. Eventually, a petite brunette with straight hair that reaches her shoulders walks down the stairs at the back of the room. Even though this place is supposed to be safe and protected, she still wears her armour, a full set of armour made from brownish leather, and walks around armed with a bunch of daggers. As the woman is walking towards the lounge, Mary-Ann sees her looking at her. You can tell the moment the woman recognizes her for her eyes become as big as saucers. Immediately after, her face becomes a carefully crafted mask as she starts looking around, presumably to see if someone is paying more attention to her or to Mary-Ann than usual. When she reaches Mary-Ann, she beckons her to follow, all the while taking in the room and the faces and reactions of those that are in this room. "If you would like to follow me please, yo... ma''am" Stiff as a board, she turns around and walks towards the stairs, still taking in the room and only looking back towards Mary-Ann once to make sure she''s following. She takes the stairs two at a time and hurries with Mary-Ann in tow towards her office. Holding open the door, she waves Mary-Ann in. "Please enter and take a seat." With Mary-Ann safely inside, she quickly glances down the hallway to ensure there are no people lingering around that are not supposed to be there before closing the door and locking it from the inside. With the slight caress of a rune, she activates the sound dampening field that lines her room to prevent people from eavesdroppingon anything that will be said in this room. With the necessary precautions taken care off, she lets the mask in which her facial expressions were frozen in slip from her face, showing an expression of relief and anxiousness. With a jovial saunter, she makes her way to her chair and sits down. With her hands steepled before her, she gazes at Mary-ann for a second. she then bows her head towards Mary-Ann and says: "Your Highness, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Candice Vonk, leader of the adventurers guild branch here in Domwik" "A pleasure to meet you miss Vonk, I have heard many good things about you although I must say, most of what I know about you stems from the fame and prestige you earned in your days as a sneak and scout." "Those days are long past now, I''m afraid. For some foolish reason, I''ve decided to lead a less active life and settle down maybe. When this reached the ears of the top management of the adventurers guild, they pounced on the opportunitylike a puma would pounce on its prey and offered me the position of branch leader in what they described as a quaint little town with hardly any traffic passing through it. Now I''m stuck with a job that gives me more stress in a week than I would feel in a month." "Yes, you don''t strike me as the bureaucratic type although it is difficult to imagine you allowed to let yourself get ... persuaded in this way." "More like suckered into it, actually. But my recent past is insignificant at the moment. I''m more interested in you, Princess. Last I heard, youwere kidnapped from an inn while your escort was poisoned and cut down to the last man. I''m curious now, how is it that you are here now?" "I was indeed kidnapped. Mycaptorskept me prisoner in the dragon mountains but through a stroke of luck, I managed to escape. I was hastily making my way towards the capital when I ran into a bit of trouble here in the village." "Oh? what kind of trouble? Anything dire? Anything you want me to handle? As the leader of this branch, I carry quite a bit of influence here in Domwik." If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it."Don''t worry, the matter has been resolved already. It is just that, Even though I managed to handle the trouble quite well, I''m left with some confusion and questions. This is where I was hoping you could help me out, all the while making sure to keep everything to yourself. Such as the fact that you saw me here and what service I require from the guild." "You have my word that anything that is said in here won''t leave the room. Now, what service can the adventurers guild provide for you?" "I need the guild to determine my Progress and would like a new, self-updating progress card while we''re at it. The people who kidnapped me took my previous card away from me and I didn''t manage to get it back during my escape." "I''ll have someone bring over our measuring device right away." She bends forwards a bit and quickly writes down something on a notepad that is distinctly bigger. Not even two minutes later, someone knocks on the door which Candice opens about half way. After she gets handed an item, she closes the door and puts all of the security measures back in place. With her seated again, she puts the item she was handed on the desk in front of her. The item is, unimaginatively, called a Progress determiner. It is shaped like an orb that is cut into eight equally big pieces that are connected with each other through glowing rods. Thanks to the rods, there''s plenty of space in the middle and sides of the determiner to fit a person''s hand and part of his or her arm into it. And just to be sure, the rods can be turned to widen the gaps in between the pieces so that people with a more... stouter build can fit their hands and arms in as well. The orb-likeitem rests on a small pedestal which is capable of inscribing the information on a metal plaque, or as nearly everyone calls it, a progress card. Another thing the determiner is capable off is getting a base reading of someone''s progress and then linking their Progress through magical means to an enchanted card so that whenever there''s a change in their Progress, the card will update itself. "I''m guessing you know how this works, so I''ll spare you the explanation. Normally, the guild would charge a person quite an amount for a self-updating Progress card but since you are in somewhat of a unique and precarious situation and since your family is wealthy enough, I''ll just bill them once I learn of your safe arrival in the capital." "That sounds wonderful. Even though my uncle must be worried about my safety, for safety''s sake, I can''t let any more people know I''m free and well until I make it to the capital." "I fully agree. Now, please place your hand in one of the openings and we''ll have you back on the road in just a couple of minutes." Doing as instructed, Mary-Ann puts her hand, wrist and part of her arm into the determiner. As soon as Candice places an enchanted plaque in the inscribing slot and feeds the determiner a bit of mana, it starts its determination and glows blue and yellow whilst doing it. Just minutes later, the glow fades until it is completely gone, at which point Candice takes the plaque out of the inscribing slot and hands it over to Marry-Ann. The moment of truth for Mary-Ann. This card will, hopefully, clear away some of her questions and confusion that followed after the incident of the previous night.
Progress card
Name: Mary-Ann of Ralomar: Rank: 1
Vitality: 1.1 Dexterity: 1.2
Strength: 1.1 Magic: 1.1
Titles: - Princess of the kingdom of Ralomar - First Agent of Aaron Lightblade Holdings: An unnamed mountain in the Dagon Mountains
Abilities: - Danger Sense (slight) 0.1 - Evolving abilities (Tied to unknown source)
One might not realise it due to the fact that Mary-Ann has a great Pokerface and thus will only see a pensive expression on her face. But make no mistake, she is thoroughly surprised at what she sees on her card. Last time she checked, before she was captured, she was rank 0. She was just an ordinary person with stats all below 1. One has to realise, most of the population of this world is a rank 0 since it takes a lot of work and dedication to raise your stats high enough to get past the 1.0 threshold. Farmers, butchers, bakers, smiths and nearly all others with normal occupations will fail to rise to rank 1 in their lifetime. There are some exceptions of course. People who join the adventurers guild will receive training to increase their stats until they break through the thresholdand it is even free for them if they manage it to do it within five years. The hardest part of raising your stats is the magic attribute since it is hard to learn magic on your own and costly if you want to learn magic from a certified teacher. This does not mean that people with a normal occupation can''t get to rank one though. If they manage to get an attribute to level 2.0 or higher and two other attributes to level 1.0, they won''t need to raise the last attribute to level 1.0 as well. This only works if they have at least one attribute that is double the required level though and thus makes it so that rank is not determined by averages. Yes, (2+1+1)/4= 1 and, for example, (3*1.5)/4 = 1.125, this still does not mean that having three attributes of level 1.5 raises your rank to 1. Those that do make it to rank one despite not having every attribute at level one usually have a magic level that is really low. On the other hand, their highest rank is often strength if they have an occupation that involves a lot of manual labour like for example blacksmiths or dexterity if they have an occupation that requires a lot of precision, agility and focus such as hunters or those with a less... legal occupation. Thus it is a surprise to Mary-Ann that she got to level 1.1 in every attribute and even to level 1.2 in dexterity since she never got the chance to train since her capture. In fact, she expected her attributes to be lower than before her capture due to malnutrition and the occasional abuse. Another thing that she finds surprising is that she gained abilities somehow. One of them is the likeliest answer to how she woke up in time to ambush her would be attackers. Even though her Danger Sense is at level 0.1 and thus is ranked as Slight, it is still extremely useful since most people don''t even have it. Well, they do have a danger sense, but that one comes from intuition while this Danger Sense is magical in nature and thus superior. But most surprising of all, she has an ability that makes no sense, one she has no idea of what it does or where she got it from. Her card even agrees with her and is as of yet unable to identify the effect and the source. The only thing it is capable of is determining that the ability has a lot of potential and is thus likely to evolve. And due to the fact that it actually says Evolving abilities, plural, there''s a distinct possibility she will get more abilities when it evolves. Finished with her examination of her Progres, she looks back to Candice, who had been patiently waiting there for Mary-Ann to finish her examination of the card. Seeing that Mary-Ann is finished with her examination she asks: "Is there anything else the guild, or me for that matter, can do for you?" After giving it some thought, Mary-Ann shakes her head. "Not really, but thank you for the offer anyway. All I need now is to reach the capital and do so in an inconspicuous manner. I could request an escort of course and I know for sure you and the guild will be handsomely reimbursed for it but that will only draw too much attention I''m afraid." "I understand. In that case, the only thing that is left to do now is to wish you godspeed princess. I will eagerly await word from the guild that you arrived safe and well in the capital and will sleep a lot better at night knowing you are behind the walls of the keep and surrounded by guards." "Thank you. And don''t forget to send the bill for my Progress card to my uncle as soon as you hear of my safe return." Candice deactivates the safety measures and with a cheery wave, Mary-Ann hoists up her bags and sets off again towards the capital. chapter 20: Walls, gates, the capital and reunions The rest of Mary-Ann''s journey was rather peaceful as she hiked and occasionally hitched a ride towards the capital. It took her a while, about two weeks since her departure in the dragon mountains actually, but now she''s nearly home again. Traffic has picked up immensely these past couples of hours, all different kinds of people who want to make their way to the capital as well, same as her. There are merchants, easily identified by their more opulent garb and their closely guarded wagons and nobles or people of importance that are driven around in their carriages and guarded by a bunch of men, often mercenaries or in the case of the nobles, actual soldiers. The farmers and gatherers are also easily identifiable since they wear clothes of a rougher and sturdier quality and carry their wares on their shoulders or have them loaded on carts that are either hand-pulled or that are being pulled by beasts of burden like donkeys, mules and stout draft horses. The adventurers are also easily identifiable enough since they usually carry a lot of weaponry or are just distinctly different from the other travellers if they don''t use any weapon and rely more on mana to aid them in their endeavours. Lastly, there are those, like her, that are just travelling and whose'' purpose isn''t so easily determined. Up ahead, the capital is visible as it stands on a hill with on top of the hill the royal keep. Since the capital originally was founded with defence one of the more important aspects, the first settlers picked this particular hill to build on since it stands in the middle of a basin and is surrounded on all sides by taller hills, some of them big enough to be considered small mountains. one valley in between two of these smaller mountains is dammed off to collect the melting water when the snow and ice on the mountains start to melt. This water is then brought into the capital through a bunch of aquaducts where it is piped to the various districts and homes through magically powered pumps. The dam also serves another purpose, though this purpose isn''t known by the general populace since it is a closely guarded secret, only known to those of royal blood and their closest and most trusted military advisors. In case an enemy was to lay siege to the capital, the reigning king or queen, or in their absence, their heirs could remotely activate magical contraptions that will destroy the dam. This, in turn, will flood the entire basin, washing away everything in it in a maelstrom of water and thus, theoretically wiping away any attacking army. Due to the sturdy walls and the fact that the capital sits on top of a hill means that the capital itself should be safe from the water. Luckily enough, this desperate defence measure had never been used before and will hopefully never see any actual use. There are four roads leading towards the capital, one in roughly every cardinal direction. Every single road passes through a fort that lies in a valley in betweentwo of the hills or small mountains that surround the basin that houses the capital. These forts act as the first line of defence for the capital and also houses barracks and stables for the mounted guards that patrol large portions of the royal highways. Due to these patrols, the roads are relatively safe to travel and the occasional group of bandits and brigands is swiftly dealt with. Mary-Ann is currently travelling on the bit of road that lays between the western fort and the west gate of the capital. Unfortunately for her, she now has to wait and stand in a queue since the guards that guard the gates of the capital are only allowing passengers through one by one after they pass inspection. The inspection is a bit of a problem though since she would prefer it if she can keep her anonymity just a bit longer until she reaches the gate to the keep. But one of the requirements for entering the capital is getting a progress card from an adventurers guild''s branch building since they also can be used of identification purposes. And her card not only clearly shows her name, which is something every guard in the capital should know, it also shows her titles and one of her titles clearly tells anyone who reads her card that she is a princess of the Kingdom of Ralomar. after pondering about her dilemma for a bit, she comes to the conclusion that she has no choice but to confide with a single person and hope he or she is to busy to go telling people things she does not want to be told yet. Once she''s within the walls, she will be able to make it to the keep in about an hour or so, so even if her confidant accidentally tells others about her, it shouldn''t matter much. And her best prospect is most likely the on-duty guard captain for this gate. Thanks to a policy set by her uncle many years ago, every person that passes or wants to pass through the gates gets the right to call upon the gate captain for aid, whether it is for legal matters, a request for protection from brigands/thugs, turning in a pickpocket or thief or to try to gain entry despite not having a progress card. Or in her case, to enter the city as sneakily as possible. There is one tiny problem though. Even though a captain of the gate has to receive you if you so request, that doesn''t mean he has to be ready at your beck and call and will receive you whenever suites him best. On a good day, he only has to see a couple of people at most. On really busy days such as market days, he or she is likely to receive more requests than he can possibly handle in one day. And this is were some codewords or discreet hand signals come in handy. If you want to talk to the gate captain and it is urgent, there are some code words or hand signals that can be usedwith any of the guards and they will alert the captain of your presence and the urgency of your request. These code words are not known to many though. Granted, every guard in this city should know them of course but besides them, only the most prominent of traders, merchants and nobles know what they are. And some of the better-known adventurers know them as well. Oh, and of course the people that every single person that works or lives in the keep will deny off that the king would employ them; the spies, assassins and bounty hunters. After a pompous, fat and rich person was sent back towards the very back of the queue under the watchful eyes of the guards for trying to cut in line, it is finally her turn. Using part of her body and her cloak to shield her actions from those behind her, she flashes a particular signal towards the guard that stands in front of her. He acknowledges her signal with a barely perceptible nod and motions her forward and to the side where there is a door set into the stone of the wall and in the side of the gate. With a nod of thanks, she makes her way towards the door as she hears the guard shout out: "Next!" The door leads to a small, cramped and easily defendable tunnel that snakes its way through the wall for at least ten metres until it comes back out of it. At the end of this tunnel stands another guardpost that, in case of trouble, is heavily defendable. Along the walls of the guardpost are numerous arrowslits for bows and crossbows at chest height while higher up on the walls are various holes for pouring hot oil or other substances down, effectively turning the small area between the tunnel and the guardpost into a murder-hole or gauntlet which attackers would have to brave if they want to gain entry to the capital by going this way. Behind this guardpost is a small military quarter with some barracks, a training field, stables, a mess hall, and armoury and the offices for the local officers. The quarter is surrounded by a smaller and less thick wall to keep out the general populace and is only guarded at the gate between the military quarter and the rest of the city by two guards which are relieved more often than those at the walls to prevent boredom since any real threat is more likely to come from outside the walls than the inside. Mary-Ann is led through without so much as a curious glance towards her by the guards at the outpost since, as long as no alarm was sound, any person that was sent towards this guardpost was likely sent by the guards at the gate and should thus have a valid and reasonable reason to be there. The gate captain''s office is situated in between the barracks and the armoury, which are closest to the outpost for obvious reasons, and the mess hall. Upon entering the gate captain''s office, Mary-Ann finds herself in a small waiting room, decorated with multiple chairs and some plant pots, which also serves as the workplace for the receptionist. Luckily for her, the waiting room is completely empty and thus she should not have to wait long. After just a couple of minutes, a nondescriptive looking person walks out of the gate captain''s office. The moment that person walks back outside, the secretary looks up from her work and invites Mary-Ann to head further in. "The captain will see you now" The captain''s office is sparsely decorated. In the middle of the room stands a sturdy looking desk with two chairs in front of it and one chair behind it. Three windows with open shutters provide light during the day while some inactive light orbs that hang on the ceiling and on the walls will provide some light when it becomes dark outside. Near the door stands a weapons rack that holds a spear, two different shields, some swords, a crossbow with a quiver filled to the brim with bolts and an unstrung bow which also is accompanied with a quiver filled to the brim with arrows. On the desk are two neat stacks of paper, some writing utensils and a pitcher filled with water that is neatly placed at the edge of the desk, most likely to ensure it isn''t knocked over by accident whilst working. On the chair behind the desk sits the captain himself, currently looking through some papers and taking notes. The captain is wearing the typical blue and yellow uniform of the Ralomarian army but his uniform is lined with silver coloured borders and thread, the same as all officers in the army, to distinguish him from the regular soldiers and guards during combat and official business. A small and well-groomed brown beard and brown hair frames his face and makes his brown eyes look darker than they presumably are. As Mary-Ann nears his desk, he looks up and briefly studies her. The moment herecognizes her, his eyes and eyebrows seem to enter a competition to see which can get closer to his hairline as he looks absolutely shocked. As Mary-Ann now stands before his desk, she places a hand on the back of a chair and asks: "Mind if I take a seat? I''ve been hiking for days and my feet are killing me." Snapping out of his shocked daze, he jumps up and gestures for her to take a seat. "Certainly, my princess, please do take a seat. My apologies for not standing up as soon as you entered, I didn''t expect to be visited by a royal, especially one who was kidnapped a couple of months ago." As soon as Mary-Ann is seated, he sits down as well and looks curiously towards her for about a minute. "I have to say, Princess, as I just said, I''m quite surprised to see you here. Oh, where are my manners? My name is captain Gregori Thompson." "I can imagine, I''ve heard the same from the branch leader in Domwik. As you most likely have heard, I was kidnapped a little while back but luckily for me, I managed to escape. I''ve been making my way towards the capital and my uncle for a couple of weeks now, all while trying to remain inconspicuous and not draw attention to the fact that I''m in fact free again and mostly unharmed." "I see. I wonder though, why didn''t you go to the nearest place with a bunch of guards or soldiers and request an escort. You also said you hiked? Wouldn''t it have been faster to just order someone with a carriage to bring you towards the capital?" "Due to the nature of my kidnapping and those that were involved in it, I thought it was best, as I just said, to not draw too much attention to myself. Make others think I''m still kidnapped so that other parties, or the same party for that matter, won''t attempt to try to capture me again. And it is of the utmost importance that I get to speak with my uncle before people know I''m free, safe and back. Hence why I decided to come to speak to you." "I''m guessing you want me to let you into the city without a bunch of fuzz?" "Quite so. In fact, I would like it better if you forget you even saw me today until the announcement of my return." "Consider it done. I will personally walk you to the gate to the residential area and vouch for you with the guards that are currently stationed there. Furthermore, you have my word, an oath upon my honour even, that I won''t tell anyone of our meeting today." "Thank you very much." Not even five minutes later, Mary-Ann finds herself in the residential part of the capital, where the streets are bustling with people. Food stalls, vendors and shops line the streets and permeate the air with smells that make your mouth water. Every street in the capital is cobbled and underneath the streets is an extensive sewer system to prevent that no bad smells and unhygienic situations assault the residents of the capital. Thanks to the aqueducts that feed the city with water, general hygiene for the commoners is actually quite good since every person gets a free bath and washed clothes in the public baths once every week. The small road she now finds herself on leads directly to one of the four main roads that lead further into the rest of the capital and eventually to the keep. Thanks to the large throng of people and her simple clothes, Mary-Ann manages to successfully blend in. She left her spear behind with the captain as to not draw more attention to herself whilst traversing the traffic-laden roads. Around two hours later, she''s finally approaching the walls of the keep. These walls are the only defensive walls in the entire capital that only has one gate and because of fo that, three out of the four main roads loop around to keep, increasing the travelling time from the capital outer walls to the keep by about twenty minutes on foot. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.The gate is at all times heavily guarded by twelve royal guards, all capable of casting minor offensive magic and medium warding magic and backed up by two wizards for support. Every person, that is not a member of the royal family, needs to have a valid reason to be allowed to enter the keep and has to undergo a quick test to determine their intention for entering the keep. People with an invalid reason are sent away and those with bad intentions are immediately arrested and sent to the city stockades. Royal guards are veterans of the military with many years of combat experience and you can only be selected for a position as a royal guard if you have shown outstanding valour, loyalty, expertise and integrity and if you pass a magical aptitude test. A position as a royal guard is highly prestigious and a sought after position and is in general very well paid. In fact, if someone attempts to bribe one of the royal guards, that guard has to report the incident and will be paid the same amount of money or even more as the bribe he or she was offered. The direct descendants of the royal guards are all guaranteeda place in the military academy with a full scholarship and if they show enough aptitude, a spot with a full scholarship in the officer''s academy as well. As soon as Mary-Ann comes within a couple of metre''s from the gate and the guards, she lowers the hood of her cloak. The response of the guards is swift and highly disciplined. As soon as they see her, surprise shows on their faces but not for long as the most senior of the guards snaps out of it first and starts snapping out orders. "Higgs, Zane, David and Helana, please escort her Highness inside. I Imagine she wants to go and see the king right away but make sure to ask her respectfully if these are her intentions and escort her to wherever she wants to go." With him snapping out these orders, all guards pay even more attention to their surroundings than they were already doing, looking for even the slightest hint that there might be something dangerous in the vicinity that might attack the princess. The four mentioned guards quickly step forward and form a protective square around the princess and escort her swiftly inside of the walls of the keep. Once there, the female turns her head towards Mary-Ann and asks: "Where to your Highness? Directly to the king?" "Yes, take me to my uncle, the King, at once." "As you command, your Highness." As one, the guards swiftly march towards the throne room, with Mary-Ann in the middle. Seeing her and the guards that escort her, the guards at the door to the throne room swiftly and smoothly push open the double doors. As soon as they are open, one of the guards announces with a raised voice: "The princess, Mary-Ann of Ralomar, here to see His Majesty the King." From the looks of it, her uncle was entertaining some foreign dignitaries and because of that, and of course, since he had no reason to believe she was free, he looks startled and confused when the guard announced her like that. It doesn''t take long though because the moment he sees her being escorted in by the guards, he forgets about being a king first and an uncle second and just about rushes off his throne and towards his little niece. Due to the breach of protocol, the dignitaries look confused and slightly insulted as the man they were talking to just rushed off all of a sudden after a single announcement. The two guards at the front of the protective square deftly step aside to make room for the king, a couple of seconds before he reaches his little niece and just about bowls her over with the ferocity of his hug. Glad to see her uncle again, Mary-Ann eagerly returns the hug, uncaring of who might see this bit of familial affection. After a couple of seconds, the King releases Mary-Ann from the hug and look around sheepishly. The guards remained stoic throughout it all although the female guard might, just might, have slightly wetter eyes than usual although, that could have been a bit of dirt or an eyelash or so that had gotten in her eyes. The foreign dignitaries just look confused and flabbergasted though as they are unsure of what to do and what the protocol is for a situation such as this. Seeing that he breached protocol for dealing with foreign dignitaries, the King slightly shakes his head in shame he realises how weird his actions must have looked to them. He turns to face Mary-Ann and whispers to her: "My little niece, It is just wonderful that you are safe and sound. Would you mind waiting in the reading room until I''m finished here? I''ll try to finish here as soon as possible so we can talk. I''ll also send for your aunt to join us and have a maid bring something to eat and drink." Seeing as that, even though they are somewhat in public, he addressed her informally, she decides to do the same as she says: "Certainly uncle, I would love to just be able to talk to you, away from the court. I have some important things to tell you, both good and bad." Upon her agreement, the king beckons towards his steward to come forward. After giving him the order to take escort her to the reading room and fetch her anything she needs and wants, the King returns towards his throne and resumes, after apologizing to the dignitaries, his talks with them. Seeing as she is now in a safe environment, she dismisses the guards so they can return to their post with haste. The private reading room that the steward is escorting her to is situated in one of the corners of the keep and is in a part of the keep which only those of royal blood and their most trusted servants are allowed to enter. After asking her what she would like to eat and drink, he leaves her to her own devices at the door to the reading room. The reading room is like a library but far smaller and cosier, with a fire lit in the fireplace and large windows in the outer walls that allow a lot of light to enter the room. Multiple bookcases, all far bigger than a normal person and whose top shelves can only be reached through the use of a ladder line the other walls. Near the fireplace are a couple of big, comfortable and velvet armchairs and sofas with big pillows and blankets nearby. The windows are lined with drapes and are made from a clear glass that can only be made through the use of magic. The rest of the room is furnished with desks with chairs behind them, a liquor cabinet and a decorative plaque above the fireplace that contains two crossed swords. The floor of the room is made from a smoothly sanded wood and covered in some places with a plush and soft red rug. The books on the bookcases all are of the rarer variety and contain a bunch of history, lore and magical knowledge but also myths, legends and other more esoteric things. The value of this private collection, even though books are quite cheap thanks to magical printing, is quite staggering and is worth more than many a small village. setting her bag down near the door, Mary-Ann seats herself in front of the fire and just closes her eyes as she enjoys the warmth. A bit later, the steward and a maid enter the room, carrying respectively a tray of tea and biscuits and a tray laden with food, multiple platters and multiple sets of cutlery. After they set both trays on a small table that stands central in front of all of the chairs and sofas, they give a sweeping bow and make their way back out of the room. Just before the steward closes the door behind him, he sticks his head back inside and reminds her that, should she require something, she can just pull on a cord that hangs next to the door and a servant will come as soon as possible. After pouring herself some tea, she takes a couple of biscuits of the tray and nibbles on them while she browses the book collection, waiting for her uncle and aunt to join her. After about ten to fifteen minutes, she hears voices outside. From the sound of it, it sounds as if her aunt is badgering her uncle about what the big surprise is and why he is so happy all of a sudden. Smiling, for it sounds as if they haven''t changed a thing despite the ordeal, she stands up and faces the door, making sure she''s ready for the inevitable rush and hug once her aunt realises she''s back. With a "You will have to see for yourself." from her uncle, he swings the door wide open and with a grand sweeping gesture, motions her aunt in. It seems that confusion and befuddlement are contagious these days since they are exactly the expressions that grace her aunt''s face upon seeing her niece. However, the same as with her uncle earlier, this quickly clears away as they are replaced by a look of joy and relief. The expected rush does not happen though, her aunt just opens her arms wide and says: "Come here so I can give you the biggest hug you''ve had in years" Laughing quietly to herself about how comparatively different her aunt and her uncle are, she takes big strides towards her aunt''s waiting arms and hugs her fiercely. Eventually, her aunt releases her and holds Mary-Ann at arm''s length to give her a once-over. Satisfied with what she sees, her aunt drags her and her uncle towards the chairs. Her aunt invites her to sit in one of the armchairs and just about orders her uncle to sit with her on a sofa. She then proceeds to pour two cups of tea for both her and her husband. After deeply inhaling some of the fragrant steam that is wafting from her cup and taking a good sip, she turns towards Mary-Ann and calmly says: "Tell us everything. Don''t hold anything back for our sakes" Mary-Ann starts off with the night when she was taken, how she went to bed after dinner and how she woke up in captivity. About the multiple day journey as her kidnappers took her to a place high up a mountain in the dragon mountains where they kept her for a couple of weeks. She tells her aunt and uncle about the meals that consisted of cold and hard rations, all washed down with freezingly cold water. She then proceeds to tell them of who was directly behind it all. Of how her kidnapping was orchestrated by one of her uncle''s own nobles, Baron Ronhein Svarhall. Of how he tried to violate her and how she managed to escape. At hearing that, of all people, a noble was behind it all, her uncle''s eyes become as hard and cold as ice and he visibly struggles to keep his anger in check. Her aunt''s face on the other hand just became a lifeless mask except for her eyes, they somehow seem to contain a deadly promise, almost as if she would murder the man when she would see him again. Upon hearing that he also tried to rape her, they both lose their cool though as her uncle jumps up and shouts out and her aunt just starts whispering: "I''ll cut his balls off and make him eat them." Upon seeing them so emotional, she tries to calm them down. "Please calm down. There was not much harm done since I managed to escape and even hurt that baster whilst doing so. In fact, I''ve come to the conclusion that there must be more behind all of this. After all, the baron was a coward and a pig. There is no way in hell that he orchestrated all of this on his own or that it was even his idea originally. I have the sneaking suspicion that someone, maybe another noble, made it all seem as if it was the baron''s own idea and acted as some sort of puppetmaster to direct the baron''s actions. Also, I''m guessing here of course, but there might still be a money or paper trail we can follow back to the one that was truly behind all of this. After all, the baron had a possession ring on him, one that decreed that the entire mountain I was trapped on was owned by him. Such a vast tract of land does not come cheap and thus he must have been given money from the hypothetical puppetmaster. We just have to be swift and decisive about it though, for if word of my return were to reach the puppetmaster''s ears, he or she would try to get rid of any condemning evidence as soon as possible." After hearing this, her uncle falls into deep contemplation for maybe a minute or so. Eventually, he looks up and at Mary-Ann and slightly nods. "You are most likely right. The baron is not wealthy enough to buy so much land at once and it must have been a recent purchase as well, otherwise, I would have most likely known about it. I''ll send out guards to his manor and other properties of his as soon as possible. We''ll tear down every wall if necessary." After the last fiery exclamation by her uncle, her aunt speaks up. "I''m actually curious about something though. Why did you talk about the baron in the past tense? The way you speak about him, it sounds as if he shared an intimate hug with Death?" At this point, Mary-Ann starts to show some uncertainty and starts to fidget a bit. "There might be a couple of things I haven''t told you guys yet." She then goes on explaining the rest of her escape and about her miraculous saviour. She tells them about the most likely gruesome fate of the baron and the rest of the kidnappers as they died to a Yeti. She tells them at length about the dungeon, about its sentience and sapience despite being a relatively young one. She then finished off her story with how she pledged herself to the dungeon, seeing potential in such a union for herself, the country and of course for the dungeon itself. Another reason she pledged herself to it was that she was grateful towards the dungeon for saving her and for keeping her safe and also becauseit managed to spark her curiosity. Finally, she shows them the possession ring that decrees that she is technically now the owner of the entire mountain and that because of this and because of her union with the dungeon, the dungeon is the true owner of the mountain. Once more, her uncle falls into contemplation again but is this time joined by her aunt. Five minutes pass as the only sounds that can be heard is the sound of the crackling logs in the fireplace, the breathing of the three people that are in this room and the occasional howling of the wind outside. Eventually, it is Mary-Ann that breaks the silence. "I have a proposition." Her uncle and aunt both look back at her and her uncle gestures her to continue. "A dungeon could be a very good asset and towns have been founded for less. I also have a feeling this dungeon is smart and might eventually even be powerful to be a useful ally. What I want to propose is that the crown helps me create a new village there. To do this, I would need monetary support along with skilled workers and people that actually want to live there. Also, the adventurers guild will have to beinformed if we are going to found a new village and it would be even better if we could also entice the mage''s guild to sent over some of their mages, wizard and warlocks to create a branch of the mage''s guild there as well. Seeing as that I''m already the owner of the mountain, I was thinking I could take direct leadership of the village until a proper regent can be found." Another couple of seconds pass until her uncle agrees with her. "I will ensure you have anything you can think of that you will need and even anything you won''t think of. I will also give out the order for a full regiment to escort the goods and people that you will need. They will also stay there with you until volunteers can be found to rotate out those that are there only out of duty. To ensure you have the proper right to rule over a budding village, I will grant you the title of Baroness of whatever you eventually decide to call the place." "Thank you uncle, your unwavering support is highly appreciated." chapter 21: cue crazy scientist laughter during my work on my dungeon, my mind had wandered off sometimes and during one of its trips, I realised I had a problem that I should address. A problem that was glaringly obvious during my interactions with Mary-Ann. I can''t speak! Now, one might think that it shouldn''t be too much of a problem. In fact, it is not much of a problem at all. And yet... It was such a bother to have to use WIKI to talk to Mary-Ann. And making every single person that I come across my agent seems a bit... reckless. And cumbersome. No, I definitely need to find a way so I can talk, and in order for someone or something to talk is the ability to make noise. Think about it. A human, when it talks, exhales air from its lungs which then passes through his throat and past to tongue to create words. Even animals ''speak'' since they also force the expelled air through their throats to produce roars, growls, yips, squeaks, clicks, chirps and a whole lot more of noises, all to communicate some form of intent. Not having lung complicates a lot for me. But. I''m a massive complex made of multiple tunnels and huge open areas that are filled with air. And if you think about it, from a scientific point of view, sound is just the vibration of said air at a given frequency. If you know of what frequency the air needs to vibrate at and the length of the soundwave, you could, theoretically, re-create any sound. You could recreate the sound of rustling leaves that wave in the wind, the sound of waves that lap at the beach. Or you can go full predator and use it to fake the voice of others to use in traps. Maybe I should leave that particular train of thought for another time. Anyway, If I can manipulate the air that is within me, I should be able to, with enough practice of course, ''speak''. And boy, do I miss being able to talk and sing. Don''t get me wrong, I can talk with WIKi, but he''s like... a more advanced Siri. Capable of giving the information you need and being the obedient little servant but lacking a true personality. Any and every conversation that we have is basically me just asking question and him answering since he never says something to start a conversation. He never just talks about the weather (Duh) nor does he ever talks about how he feels, or what he thinks might be out there in the cosmos or about any other subject you might talk of to another person. Maybe I need to get him drunk somehow? Drunk people like to talk about the most random things right? Focus. In order for me to produce sound, I will need to be capable of doing a couple of things simultaneously. First of all, I need to be able to make small air particles vibrate and make them move forwards at the same time. In order for sound to exist, you need a medium, such as air, water or metal, that will carry yourvibrating particles until they reach the intended recipient. There is no sound in space since space is a vacuum (relative) and as such, there is nothing there to act as a medium and thus any generated sound will not travel. Secondly, I need to meticulously experiment and fiddle with frequencies and wavelengths until I can create the desired sound. I imagine it to work a bit like a speaker with my consciousness being the source that produces the sound and the speakers, or in my case my dungeon, to actually turn it into sound. Lastly, I need to fiddle and play around with it some more so I''m capable of changing sounds instantly or at least nearly instant so I can actually create words and more complicated sounds. It takes me quite a while of meticulous experimenting but eventually, I manage to recreate a myriad of sounds. Throughout the halls, corridors and rooms of my dungeon the sounds of rustling leaves, the babbling of a small brook, the chirping of birds and the howling of the wind resound, sometimes rather silent, other times so loud that prolonged exposure could lead to auditory damage. After that, slowly but surely, the sounds start to change. I manage to replicate the mooing of a cow, the roar of a bear and even the howling of an air raid alarm. After even more time has passed, I manage to form actual words. Sadly enough, it all just sounds quite monotonous and robotic so that''s what I experiment on next. In the end, after many days, I''m finally capable of true speech, with a voice that sounds almost the same as my voice from my previous life. And this is where the real fun starts. Song after song reverberates throughout my halls, going from Bon Jovi''s living on a prayer to ac/dc''s thunderstruck to Metallica''s fear of the dark. Seems like I''m not the only one enjoying myself though since it looks like my yetis are tapping their feet to the music and my snow leopards are doing something with their head that looks a helluva lot like headbanging. With my task accomplished, I turn towards other matters, such as creating a second floor. Even though it is really cliche to build out my dungeon downwards, I still do it because of a couple of reasons. If I were to build upwards, I would eventually come out of the side of the mountain and thus run out of space that way. The same goes for the other directions that I dubbed as Nord, East and West since I would just run out of space there as well. That leaves down. On top of that comes the fact that the further down I go, the higher the ambient temperature will go until it even might support other life forms. Who knows, I might even go down far enough one day for zebras to survive down there since it is unlikely that I will find a use for those striped ponies in the near future.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. So down I go. I start by making a rough winding staircase in my current core room that goes down for at least fifty metres. At the bottom of the stairs, I create a general purpose room from where on I will branch out. For my next floor, I envision some sort of maze that starts with multiple hallways branching out from the staircase, with multiple dead ends. Maybe even some false walls that I can close at will, to ensure that people don''t find the exit by just using the ''hug-the-left-wall'' rule, that would be just plain boring and annoying. I start off by digging six tunnels but this time, I''ve decided that they will be slightly different from the corridors I used on the floor above. I make the perfectly round and make them slope ever so slightly downwards. I have a plan, you see. What is one of the most typical things you see when it starts to heat up in the mountains, especially around springtime? Meltwater of course. So to make life miserable for those that want to traverse this floor, it is my intention to have a steady flow of freezing cold water to flow down the stairs through specially carved gullets and then flood this entire floor with enough meltwater to reach people''s ankles. Hopefully, it will get in their shoes and boots and they will be miserable the entire time they wander through my maze. The round and slightly sloped tunnels also can serve another purpose. Where I was originally from, flash floodsweren''t a thing but I''ve seen enough movies and read enough books, mostly made by Americans, to know how dangerous and frightening a massive wall of fast moving water can be in tight spaces. So this will be one of my next traps. When I''m finished with digging out my maze, I intend to create spaces above the tunnels with carefully sealed hatches in the roof of the ceiling that I can open at will or that I can link to tripwires, pressure plates and such. The round tunnels will make running away from the suddenly released water harder and might even make those that run away trip. And of course, since my tunnels will be perfectly round, they will also help to channel the water properly. Maybe, one day, I can make use of the meltwater to create a hydroelectric power station and thus get an easy source of electricity. If electricity even exists here, that is. You know what, I bet that the people here have no idea how lightning and electricity works seeing as that this world seems medieval. There''s a distinct possibility that the people of this world think that lightning is created by the gods or something like that. Maybe they will be like the Vikings, who believed that lightning and thunder was created when thor, the god of thunder, struck his anvil with his massive hammer. Who knows, if the people here are somewhat like the Vikings, they might just shout at a solar eclipse to scare it off. Heh, would be funny. During my digging, I encountered some veins of ore. Most common of all was an ore that held iron but, seeing as that geology has never been my strong suit, I couldn''t tell exactly what it was and what other trace elements it might contain. If I were to make use of these ores, I would either have to enlist the help of some locals, blacksmiths and such, to help me determine what kind of ores they are and what I can use them for and how to make stuff with them. Another thing I could do is to create various lab equipment to identify the elements that are present in those ores and in what concentrations. Now that I think about it, I would like to have a proper lab one day....Maybe, with enough time, I can replicate some of the machines I used during my education. oh god, I just came to a frightening realisation. I now lack access to some of the tools and knowledge that I took for granted as a chemist. Like for example, the periodic table. How am I supposed to know the molecular weight of each known element? And, what about any elements that I might come across that were unknown to mankind. Oh, I will even have to develop a way to accurately measure weight and length. So much to do, it feels like I have to start over from the dark ages and rediscover every bit of science. I don''t even know if this planet exerts the same gravitational force. I will just have to experiment I guess and try to remember how other famous scientist made their discoveries. And then claim them as my own in this world, mwahahaha. Damm, I wish now I had an actual body so I could wear a lab coat, have really weird spiked hair, wear a pair of long green gloves and wear some weird glasses. A mad scientist laugh also needs some ambience, maybe some lightning in the background. I''m getting sidetracked again. After that bout of panicking and manic cackling, I resume my digging. Before I get to do any proper science, I need to create a proper stronghold for myself and create plenty of space to do my experimenting in. Imagine this, maybe one day, I''ll even manage to make a particle accelerator. Then I can make antimatter! No! Need to stow away the crazy scientist again. Digging! Need to resume digging. Making my mana act like a giant tunnel boring machine, I grind out a bunch of tunnels, some of them ending all of a sudden in dead ends. Whilst I''m about halfway done with the amount of digging I need to do to finish my maze, my mana tunnel bore stops all of a sudden. Puzzled, I disperse the mana to see why it stopped all of a sudden. It seems that my tunnel bore came across a naturally occurring cave network. But this is not why it stopped though. It stopped because, right in front of it, is a humanoid shape. Must have triggered a safety somehow, one I wasn''t aware of that it even existed. The figure that stands at the end of my latest tunnel is quite small yet looks... I''d say mature. The fact that he, at least I think it''s a guy, has a beard with a twirling moustache and a nearly bald head confirms for me that the person in front of me is an adult. Have I also mentioned he''s tiny? Going on his appearance and the fact that he''s tiny, he can either be one of two things and, if I know my fantasy races well enough, I would say that this is in fact... a gnome. chapter 22: Always bold, never old. Can you imagine how someone would react when a wall that is right in front of it just disappearswithout a trace and without so much as a tremor or sound? Well, now I certainly can. It is quite comical even. The gnomethat is standing in the natural tunnel is just standing there, completely slack-jawed. The only indication that he didn''tdie from a heart attackis the rise and fall of his chest, indicating he''s still breathing, and the twitching of his right eye and moustache. After some more furious twitching, the gnome snaps out of his surprise and takes a few steps forward. He raises a hand towards the smooth wall of my dungeon and touches it, trailing his hand along the surface to feel its artificial smoothness. With a weary expression on his face and a muttered ''What the fuck?'' he starts to investigate the immediate area of where my artificial tunnel meets the natural tunnel. As the gnome tries to make sense of where this tunnel suddenly came from and how it was made, I make use of his investigation to try to learn more from it. From the looks of it, the gnome doesn''t look all that strong. He has a lean quality to him that, despite his white moustache, beard and hair, makes him look younger than he probablyis. Even thoughhis muscles look lean, they also have an odd density to them, which to me feels like he might be stronger than he looks due to this density. The only way to know for sure would be to observe him closely when he does a feat of strength of some sort. Or I could... incapacitate him and dissect him... Totally not freaky/crazy at all, noooooo. Although, isn''t that what biologists do? To understand how a creature functions, they murder gently and painlessly kill it and then cut it open, all the while naming various parts of its body. One could argue though that Da Vinci was also a biologist then because he had apparently an interesting habit of digging up fresh corpses and dissecting them to see how the human body works. Let''s keep it at just observing him, otherwise, I will have to create some scalpels, plyers and a bunch of other tools and I just can''t be arsed at the moment. And I won''t even be able to use all of those tools since I don''t have arms. Back to the gnome. Let''s get this ball rolling. I''ve been practising with my speech for a while now and I feel confident that I can communicate with this gnome. Provided we can understand each other language-wise. I wonder how I managed to communicate with the princess? Does everyone here speak the same language? surely not? Or was I given some sort of universal translator that doesn''t show up on my stat screen? Something to ask WIKI after, I guess. Ahem, here I go. "Hello, there little man." I boom throughout that part of the tunnel. Startled, the gnome jumps up in freight and upon landing, accidentally places one of his feet down wrong. With another startled yell, he goes down and hits the floor shoulder first. For a couple of seconds, the gnome just lays there on the ground before letting out a moan. Suddenly worried, I try to check him over but with no obvious and visible signs of injury, I can''t ascertain if he''s gravely injured or not. Thus I decide to speak up again, hoping that his reaction this time won''t be as extreme as his earlier reaction. "Hey, are you okay? That looked like a nasty fall. Are you gravely injured?" Upon hearing my voice again, the gnome starts to stir and before long, he''s sitting up. He''s holding a hand to the shoulder that he fell on and is slowly moving his shoulder, most likely to check if anything bad happened to it. Satisfied that everything is still working properly and that the pain is manageable, the gnome looks around again and speaks up. "Hello, who''s there? Where are you?" " Oh, do you understand me? I certainly understand you." "Yes yes, I understand you. Would you kindly answer my questions though?" "Oh? Ah, yes. Let''s see, my name is Aaron Lightblade, at your service. As for as where you are, well, quite frankly, you are inside me." He looks puzzled and slightly scared. "Inside you? How is this possible?" "Ah, well, you see. I''m a dungeon although I''m told I''m a bit different from the norm. Compared to other dungeons, I''m much, much smarter and more aware than other dungeons of my size and age. You are currently standing in one of the tunnels I was digging to create my second floor." As he hears this, two things happen quickly after another. First, his eyes become as big as saucers and immediately after that, his expression turns somewhat frightened. Seeing his frightened expression, I immediately try to reassure him of my peaceful intentions.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. "Oh, you don''t need to worry little one. I have no intention to harm you, I just wanted someone to talk to and when I stumbled upon you, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to test my newly gained speech." It takes a bit longer but eventually, he calms down enough to just sit down and have a chat with me. "As I said earlier, my name is Aaron, might I inquire as to what your name is, little man?" Looking slightly abashed now, he hastens to tell me his name as well. "Ah, so so so sorry, where my manners. My name Gerald Bout and if you would be so kind to call me by name or by my race, gnome that is, that would be much appreciated." "Ah, my apologies, sir gnome. Since I didn''t know your name and was unsure of your race, I fell back to what was most descriptive and sadly enough in your case, that would, at first glance, be your stature." "Apologies accepted." "Would you mind if I asked you some questions? I have never encountered a gnome before you see. And I''ve always been a curious kind of person and thus have an insatiable desire to know more." "Go ahead, I''d say although there might be questions that I can''t or won''t answer." "That''s fair. Let''s start then. Do you live here in these mountains? And do you know of more sentient and sapient races that live here?" "Hah, that''s an easy one. You see, these mountains are populated by both gnomes and dwarves. Each has its own cities and villages, mind you. Even though we''re on good footing with each other, we never really intermingle. The only Gnome you''ll see in a dwarven city and viceversa is anemissary." "Since you are here, does this mean there''s a gnomish city or village nearby? Or are you some sort of explorer or prospector that''s far from home maybe?" "Oh no, I''m way too old to be a prospector or explorer. Those areprofessions for those that are still spry, more nimble and brave and bold whereas I''m old, slow and, allegedly, wise. I''m the village elder of a nearby village. At least, I was." "What do you mean with, you were?" A look of great regret and sadness passes over him as his shoulder slump forwards a bit. "You can only be considered a village elder as long as you still have a village. The village I was elder offbefell a great tragedy. Many of us died and those that survived had to flee. I gathered as many of the survivors as I could and fled with them deep into the tunnels that criss-cross these mountains. It is my and my peoples hope to find a proper area to start anew. It will be though, and we lost so much; especially our prized magical machines, but we''ll manage somehow." At the sound of magical machines, my proverbial ears perk up. Let''s see, gnomes + magical machines + Looking for a new home = profit/opportunity. This almost sound like World of Warcraft where gnomes are the best engineers. What if... I was to invite them to settle in my halls. I could offer them protection and adaptable living space and they could offer me their expertise and other things I haven''t thought off. "You know, I could help you out here, maybe." "How''s that, sir dungeon?" "As you most likely know, I am capable of creating vast spaces and convenient structures in a short amount of time. Furthermore, I''m also capable of recreating resources the moment I''ve absorbed them once. And lastly, I''m capable of creating various kind of defenders to populate my halls. I''m offering to put all of this at your and your people''s disposal. I''m offering to create you and your people a living space in my dungeon where you can rebuild your village and that would be under my protection." As I say this, the gnome at first looks hopeful but soon after, he starts to look conflicted. "And what would you get out of this? what would you want or need in return? Our souls maybe? Because, as the leader of what remains of my people, I need to look after their safety and wellbeing." "Oh, don''t you worry. I have no need for your souls, wouldn''t know what to do with them in the first place. As far as for your concerns towards the safety of your people, rest assured, I want your intellect and expertise. I would like my halls to be populated, to prove that dungeons are not just mindless killing machines and that they are capable of great and spectacular feats. Besides, I''m interested in science and thus, I think your people and I could work together to further this world''s science." The gnome elder looks hopefull again after my words and his eyes shine and sparkle with either unshed tears, excitement or maybe even both. "That would be wonderful. Myself, I''m inclined to take you up on your offer but I''ll have to relay your proposal to my people, see what they think about it. After all, I''m a village elder without a village now and thus can''t make decisions in their stead anymore. So if you don''t mind, and if you can wait a bit, I''ll go to where the rest of my people are and tell them all about what happened, you and your proposal." "Sure, go ahead. I will be right here, eagerly awaiting your answer. In the meantime, I will keep digging and building my second floor but I will leave this passage here open. As soon as you are back, just step inside my tunnel and give me a holler, I should be able to hear you just fine." With a cheerful wave, the small, elderly gnome man saunters away, back into the dark of this mountain''s tunnels. chapter 23: All a budding village needs With the gnome gone, I''m conflicted as to what I should do next. I could try to finish up my second floor or at least the rough outline of it. Or I could start digging out an area for the gnomes to settle in, even if it is temporary. After all, I''m pretty sure the gnomes will take up my offer, it is too good to turn down. So to prepare for their arrival, I should pick a location and excavate it so they can set up the start of their new village there. If they are unhappy with the spot or if they find a better place somewhere in my dungeon, I could always dig out a new room and repurpose the old excavated room. Thinking that, since I have no idea how close the gnomes are since I''ve forgotten to ask the old gnome, I''ll better get started with the excavation of the new village. They might just arrive in as much time as a couple of hours. Granted, it might also be a couple of days, weeks or even months but still, might as well get started. First off, a village is all about location, location and location. There should be plenty of space, access to fresh water, plenty of natural resources such as wood and minerals and plenty of food or ways to get food. So with all this in mind, I get to it. The entrance to the new village will be situated on the western wall of the safe room so I start there with my digging. For now, I keep the same dimensions as all of my tunnels on that floor. If I find out at a later date that there''s a need for bigger tunnels, I can always dig another, larger tunnel alongside my entrance tunnel. After the tunnel is sufficiently long, around fifty metres or so, I start digging outwards, upwards and forwards, slowly creating an increasingly bigger area. As far as how big an area I need to dig, I can only guess until the old gnome returns with the survivors. For now, I''ll have to guess a bit as to how many there are and how much space they would need. If I were to go with an average of around 500 people that live in a medieval village, I could start calculating how much space such a population would approximately need. Say a family counts at least four people. In fact, most families were larger in the dark ages since it was, as a farmer, quite useful to have many children to help you work your land. But still, just to be on the safe side, let''s work with a family of four. Even though they are gnomes and thus all presumably quite short of stature, I should not underestimate how much space a family needs to comfortably live. After all, bad living conditions can and will lead to morale problems and will thus lead to friction. So, around 500 gnomes divided by at least four gnomes per family equals 125 gnome families. Just living space alone for each family should be... let''s take a 7x7 metre area for now. That comes down to...where''s a calculator when you need it. Sod it. I''ll just start digging and see how much space I end up. I''m feeling rather sciency lately. I have a nice idea of how this space is going to look like. First, I start out with digging out a hexagonal shape that has a diameter of 800 metres. At the six points of the hexagons, I shave off some more of the outer walls so they bend around and because of this, each shaved wall if viewed from above, looks like part of a circle. Along the outer wall and to finish off the circles at the points of the hexagon, I dig a bunch of ditches. Next to three of the six outer walls, I dig more ditches that run parallel them. I make sure they are connected to the circular ditches so that when I fill them with water, they are all connected. When looked from above, the entire floor looks now like a benzene molecule. At the ''carbon'' atom furthest away from the entrance, I dig a channel that will take the water away from the room, thus making it flow. At the ''carbon'' where the entrance is, I create two waterfalls to feed the ditches. I now have plenty of space and also access to fresh water. Due to the proximity of the entrance and thus the proximity of the forest, I have no need for creating my own wood supply. Minerals are something they can go and look for themselves, after all, they are gnomes and thus most likely know how to create a proper mine. That leaves me with food. As far as food goes, I intend to partially solve this by populating the streams that line this room with plenty of fish. I also intend to make the fishies respawn fast so that they are always in abundance. Other foodstuffs might be harder though. Funnily enough, my Yetis never brought back any soil. Never asked for any and they are not really big initiative takers. Also, I never dug up any fertile soil since the tunnel I dug to the entrance come out of the hard rock and snow of the mountainside. Guess that the only thing I can do to rectify this is by sending out my two adorable yet slightly dimwitted terror monkeys and hope they bring back something nice. Would be even better if I can get them to bring back some seeds for edible plants. Would be even better if they can find me some wheat but I don''t hold high hopes for that. Looking through my list of available animals, I''m confronted with the lack of diversity in aquatic animals that I haveaccess to. Looks like my best option for populating my streams will be trout. After all, the only aquatic animals that I have are trout, seals, moray eels and bobbit worms. And considering that moray eels are nightmare fuel... I''m reluctant to use them for such an environment. Seals are an option but they flourish in deeper waters, filled with fish and kelp. Besides, I would feel horrible if the gnomes were to club them to death all the time or something like it. Although, I have heard that sealskin is really good for making cold resistant clothing... No, let''s stick with trout for now.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. After a while, one of my yetis returns with a big scoop of soil in each paw. As soon as the Yeti crosses the threshold and enters my dungeon, he unceremoniously drops his load. Thankfully, any staining is prevented by absorbing all of it. All of a sudden, my mind and vision are flooded with... stuff. Congratulations! New items, resources, organisms and plants have been added to your collection. Items: Rusty iron nail and broken mithril chainmail link Resources: Fertile soil (clay, sand, silt and humus) Organisms: Earthworms, fire ants, dung beetles, springtails, earwig and centipedes Plants: Grass and grass seeds, wild garlic seeds, bluebell seeds, fern and fern seeds and spores of forest mushrooms (Penny bun, honey fungus and fly agaric) All of this will certainly help. In fact, I''m already getting bright ideas. If I remember correctly, the honey fungus and the penny bun are edible and can thus provide some food for a new village. To start off with my mushroom farm, I create a plain, box-shaped room that branches out of one of the ''carbon atoms''. With the room dug out, I fill the entire floor with humus and add in a bunch of pine logs and branches. With the room good to go, I create two clouds of spores, made from both edible species, and basically make them explode a bit so the spores cover the entire floor of this room. Thanks to the fact that mushrooms don''t need light to grow, I don''t even need to add in a light source. Light...source. I knew I was forgetting something. To me, it looks like my new village area is brightly lid, but that''s because of the way I ''see''. To any other person, this village area would appear to be pitch black. To remedy this problem, I create a setup similar to the one that I used in the big snowflake room. With that done, the village is now lit up with the thousands of tiny light squares. Not much after I fixed the lighting situation, my other Yeti returns with a whole lot of goodies in his arms, which it unceremoniously drops in a pile on my dungeon floor. Congratulations! New items, fauna and flora have been added to your collection. Items: Blueberries, blackberries, shiny and nearly perfectly round pebble and fresh deer dung Fauna: Honey bee Flora: Blueberry bushes, brambles and rye I wonder as to what goes on in the head of my Yeti''s. I mean, why would anyone ever think it is a good idea to pick up deer dung when tasked with gathering foodstuffs. Is it because they are related to monkeys that they share their enthusiasm for excrement? Anyway, this allows me to create more and a larger variety of foodstuffs. Berries and rye. To bad that they didn''t manage to find regular wheat since, if I recall correctly, rye takes more work for the same amount of nutritional value. I create two new rooms,eachone on a different ''carbon atom''. To make sure everything that I will plant that will grow properly, I liberally coat the floor in fertile soil. Since both berries and rye will need water to grow, I dig a small irrigation channel that will provide the fertile soil with plenty of water. The last thing that every plant needs, is a source of light. Something that sends out photons, preferably with a frequency that places it in the red or blue colour zone of the visible spectrum. Since the plants can also use some heat, I coat the ceiling of the rooms with a layer of dark stone and cold-fire ice, thus creating a mirror-like surface that will reflect any and all stray light. The light and heat in question will be provided by four huge stone braziers that are fueled by mana to prevent a buildup of smoke, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. With the basics set up, I plant the rye in neat rows by creating a bunch of rye seeds already in the soil. This way, I don''t have to till the freshly created soil and thus save some time. Granted, the moment the gnomes harvest the grain, they will have to till it but at that point, that shouldn''t be my problem anymore. For the berries, I divide the room into two halves with on one side of the room a bunch of blueberry bushes and on the other side a bunch of brambles. Since the brambles are more of a safety risk than the blueberries, I make sure to place them at the back. This will hopefully save a lot of work forthe seamstresses and will also ensure that the blueberries don''t get smushed all the time by stumbling gnomes. Plenty of space, access to fresh water, access to a variety of food and access to raw resources. The only thing I''m still missing is safety/defences but that is something I''m planning on doing when the gnomes are actually here. All I can do now is wait and see if they show up. chapter 24: Cats, dogs and moving blobs of lard Whilst waiting for the gnomes, I decided to go back to working on my next floor. But first, I''ve been forgetting something. I''ve dug a lot these past couples of days. I have claimed all of the areas I have dug as well so half of all of the mana that I gained from digging, and thus lost a massive amount of mana that way. I also used a bunch of mana to create the framework for the gnomish village. Did I mention I dug a lot these past couples of days? And with a lot, I mean, truly enormous amounts. I have enough mana to level up and still have plenty of it left for emergencies. And thus, without further ado, I start compressing it all. All of the mana that I will compress, I spread out over the surface of my gem core and then expose it to a massive amount of localized pressure. Slowly but surely, the mana collapses in on itself and creates a new, thin layer on top of gem core, essentially growing it like you would grow a crystal. Congratulations with your level up! You are now a third level dungeon. You have unlocked the following: - 10 new, random animal species of which one is ideally suited for your environment or the artificially created environment of your newest floor. - New traps Animal species unlocked: - Salmon??????????- Coal Tits - White-handed gibbon??? - Blue king crab - Wildebeest???????? - Man o'' war - Kangeroo?????????- Tabby cat - chihuahua???????? - Walrus (uniquely suited) Traps unlocked: - Pendulum trap (sharpness and weight depend on the material it is made off) - Intermediate projectile launcher (mechanical/magical)(slightly improved activation delay and projectile speed) - Slowly closing walls/ceilings Attention! Due to the fact that you reached 3rd level, levelling up will now require an additional resource. Check in with your dungeon companion for more info. Did the system just RTFM (Read The Fcking Manual) me? At least my manual is a bit more intuitive and easier to use. Guess I''ll have to check in with WIKI and get his input on this. Anyway, the traps seem interesting enough. Swinging axes and bladed pendulums are an absolute necessity for budding dungeons, at least, according to Skyrim. The most intriguing traps are the slowly closing walls and ceilings though. For starters, they give me the means to make it so that I can change the layout of my maze at will. So if there is a particularly obnoxious group of people moving through my second floor, I can try to keep them trapped in there for a good while. Secondly, how cool would it be if adventurers that walk through my maze have an Indiana Jones moment where they slide underneath a slow-moving slab of stone and reach back to grab their hat. Only works if they have a hat though. Would be awkward for a knight to lose his helmet, especially since that helmet should be strapped to his head and that the only way he could lose it would be if he lost his head with it. It seems like I can get upgrades for my traps as well. Maybe, one day, the slow-moving walls and ceilings will become faster. Think of all the mess I could create. Okay, that''s too gruesome. Moving on. Animals! Interesting choice for the uniquely suited species. I''ve been given a fat blob of lard that can move if it deigns to do so. If I recall my animal documentaries right, walrusses are fat, lazy, territorial, horny and did I mention fat? What gave the impression to the system that, according to my newest floor, a walrus would be a great addition. The only thing a walrus would be able to do in my maze would be acting like a blockage so that water will start building up. The animal that is infinitely more useful to me is the man o'' war. I mean, I can just create a couple of them in my maze in some random location and they will just float along with the current and sting whatever it comes across. If you take in account that a single sting is enough to sometimes kill a regular sized person, imagine what it would if someone is stung multiple times or if gnomes, dwarves, halflings and other smaller races are stung just once. Just the anaphylactic shock alone might kill people of greater size if they are allergic to it. I have the feeling that I''ve been given a bit more aquatic animal species. But hey, who am I to complain. The salmon will be great to help feed the village since salmon is a very protein rich fish. The king crabs could be useful as an additional food source as well. Or I could try to scale it up, create some sort of crab monster. They look scary enough as they are with all those ridges and spines. As far as the Tits go, maybe I need to create an aviary so I can fill it with tits. And maybe one day, I hopefully get my hands on some boobies as well. I can hang up a sign that saysNo touching allowed, just like in a strip club. Oohhh, and right next to the aviary a saltwater basin with clams.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. To far? To far. I find it interesting that I was given two creatures that never mix well. A tabby cat and the terror of all dogkind, the rattiest of dogs, the direct descendant of a hellhound; the chihuahua. Let''s be honest with myself. I really don''t like dogs that are smaller than my ankles. They always feel like they have something to prove. And they try to prove stuff by biting at your ankles. And chihuahua''s are just plain evil. If a chihuahua had an alignment, It would most likely be chaotic evil. I do wonder what would happen if I put a chihuahua and a cat in the same room. A battle between the spawn of satan and an evil, plotting and stonecold overlord who decides every night while you sleep if you get to live or not. The gibbons, kangaroos and wildebeests are cool I guess. Maybe, If I one day make a savanna or tropical floor, I can use them to populate it along with the zebras and boa constrictors. Since my consciousness has been in my core room all this time, I simply turn my attention towards my faithfull companion, WIKI. "Hey WIKI, I got a message that stated that levelling would be a wee bit different from now on. It also said that you might know more. Do you?" "Oh, wonderful. That must mean Master has gotten to his third level. I know of the change that the Master speaks of." "Please, enlighten me. I''m curious now" "As soon as a dungeon reaches its third level, the requirements for levelling up change a bit. The amount of mana that a dungeon would need will stay ata fixed value from now on. However, a second resource has been unlocked for you now, one that is called many different things but you, master, might know it as Experience." "How would the experience be a resource? Isn''t experience something intangible? Or is it the kind of experience that is somehow quantified and thus has become some sort of gainable materiel?" "The idea is that every being should be able to gain a certain level of proficiency in something if he puts in enough effort. This intangible gain is called experience with a lowercase e and indirectly shows the proficiency of someone. Think of a blacksmith that has worked the forge and anvil all of his life. With just a few well-aimed and powerful strokes, the experienced blacksmith will be able to do the same as all of his apprentices combined in the span of a couple of minutes while they would need half an hour. Or an archer that is able to hit the back of a needle at fifty paces or further while a wanna-be hunter might not even be able to hit the straw target that''s behind it." "I think I understand experience. What is capital E Experience then?" "Since a dungeon normally is incapable of getting hands-on experience with crafts, combat or other skills, another way was devised by the gods to show how proficient a dungeon is at killing and/or creating. Whenever a dungeon kills something within its halls, the dungeon gains a certain amount of quantified Experience. The amount gained depends on the thing that dies in its halls. If we go back to the experienced blacksmith, he or she would give way more Experience than his apprentices since he or she has put more time and effort into his skills and trade." "Are there other ways to gain more Experience? I wouldn''t mind getting stronger and more capable of greatness, but mercilessly killing every single thing that walks into my halls doesn''t sit very well with me. Not that I shy away from killing, mind you. Killing fools, criminals and thieves is something I don''t mind, actively trying to kill innocents is something my conscience cannot condone." "There are indeed other avenues for getting more Experience. Although, these usually only become possible at higher levels since, at the lower levels, normal dungeons only act out of instinct and can be considered to be nothing more than wild animals. One such avenue is to create things or discover things this world has never seen. Another way would be by doing deeds that please the gods, thus gaining a small bit of favour from them, which in turn gets turned into Experience. The gods are fickle, though. You should be wary if you intend to curry favour with them." "You have given me much to think about, thank you." Now, how does my stat screen currently look like?
Name: Aaron Lightblade
Level: 3
Location: Dragon mountains
Dungeon companion: WIKI, the endless tome
Mana: 900 750
Mana collection: 0,0100 mana per second
Mana needed for next level: 10 000 000
Experience: 65
Experience needed for next level: 1000
Integrity of the core: 100%
Chosen dungeon monsters: Animals
Special achievements: *First dungeon with an artificial core
Titles: Inventor
Learned skills: Mana senses Beast core creation Monster mutation
Number of floors: 2
inhabitants: 55
Number of agents: 1 (Mary-Ann of Ralomar)
Looking good! But, what''s this? Somehow, I''ve already gained some experience. Another notification demands my attention now. Congratulations! Due to performing some special feats and/or creating some special items/materials, you have retroactively gained Experience. Thanks to your creation of ''the yellow snow pitfall of supreme humiliation'', a never seen before dungeon trap, you have gained 10 Experience. Thanks to amusing a god with your creation of ''the yellow snow pitfall of supreme humiliation'', you have gained 15 Experience. Thanks to your creation of ''Cold-fire ice'', a legendary material, you have gained 40 Experience. Awesome, freebies. Who knows how much Exp I could get by just applying the concepts and science of Earth on things in this world. Who knows, I might just get a bunch of Exp with everything I reinvent here. And best of all, I could hog all the credit for it. Living the scientific dream right there. Chapter 25: Copious amount of water and fire You know the feeling when you walked to your kitchen, rummaged through your fridge and have no idea why you went to the kitchen in the first place? I''m kinda having the same feeling but instead of a fridge and a kitchen, this feeling stems from an unfinished second floor and a bunch of distractions such as the gnomes, levelling up and an unwelcome intruder that has just dug its way into one of the tunnels of my unfinished second floor. Processing... Intruder? second floor? DUG its way through!? When did that happen? Doesn''t matter, I first need to assess the threat and have a look at what I''m dealing with. I zoom my consciousness towards the area where I''ve felt the intrusion. One of my previously smooth tunnels is now marred with a jagged and pitch black hole. Weirdly enough, there are no intruders in sight though. Did something come through already? Or did, whatever or whoever that did this, just break through and retreated to gather his/her/its strength before invading me? Both possibilities are equally disconcerting although I secretly hope it is the second possibility. If it is the first, I have an invader running loose, one which I can''t feel the presence of and that I would have to find by searching every single tunnel one by one. Or maybe... I was thinking of putting some flash flood traps throughout my tunnels so I can flush away annoying people. All of the water of the flash flood would converge in one location, thus cleaning out my tunnels. Despite the unfinished status of my second floor, with just some minor tweaks, I should be able to redirect all of the water towards the breach and flush out anything that invaded me. Quickly shattering some dividing walls and raising new ones in other locations, I quickly connect every single of my tunnels and make them converge somehow near the hole. To ensure the safety of the gnomes, I temporarily close off the entrance to the natural tunnel system there. I create large spaces above the start of my tunnels near the stairs leading back up to the first floor. Every single space gets connected to the tunnels by crude interlocking stone plates that will have to act as seals for the massive amounts of water that I intent to fill the spaces with. To test my idea, I start filling up just one of these spaces with water and keep an eye out for any leaks. When the space is filled to the brim with water and still does not leak, I quickly fill the other spaces as well. Ah, if only I had some epic classical music. I''m pretty sure that this would be more epic with, I don''t know, some ride of the valkyries maybe? Anyway, here goes nothing. Since the seals are just a rush job, I just reabsorb them instead of bothering with creating some mechanism for them. Thousands upon thousands of litres of water fall out of each space. Thanks to my foresight, the water flows rushes outwards, away from my staircase, thanks to the fact that my tunnels slope gently down and away from the centre of my maze. With a massive roar of displaced air, the water eagerly rushes through my tunnels. Thanks to the smoothness of the walls and the perfectly round shape of the tunnels, the water encounters barely any resistance, only slowing down a smidge when encountering a bend or a split. Still, the speed of the water when it all converges near the hole is impressive. Frighteningly so even. While the water was rushing through my tunnels, I took the liberty to quickly create a rudimentary grate in front of the hole that will catch any item, person or monster that might get washed away. When the flood of water is mostly gone and the amount of water that passed through the hole has slowed down to a trickle, I look at the grate to see if I managed to catch something. What I see there made me yelp, not going to lie. The thing that lies broken and hopefully drowned at my grate looks like a gnome had an incestuous relationship with an elder (Lovecraftian) god. The thing that lies there looks at first glance like a gnome. If you ignore the tentacles that grow out of its face and back of course. As far as I can tell at first glance, the gnome-thing''s body has suffered massive concussive damage when it was propelled forward by the water and hit everything in its path before hitting the grating face first. As I bring my consciousness closer to have a closer look, the body twitches and the tentacles start feeling around. With a totally manly screech, I ''jump'' backwards. The thing stirs some more and even tries to stand up despite its clearly broken body. Supported by its back tentacles, It eventually manages to stand up and starts an awkward shuffle/shamble towards one of the corners of my tunnels. Whatever this thing is, It seems like its quite sturdy and hellbent on reaching something.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Stopping to think for a second, I quickly recap what I know about the thing to see if I can devise a valid strategy for defeating it. One. Despite having a broken body and most likely having suffered massive internal damage, It can still move albeit with more difficulty. Two. The fact that one part of it looks gnomish and the tale of the gnome elder leads me to believe that this might have been one of his people. Three. The tentacles look like to be in charge, acting like some sort of parasite that controls a clearly dead and broken body. Conclusion. Some sort of zombie gnome that is infested with a Lovecraftian parasite. If I know my zombie and Lovecraft lore well enough, the thing is most likely looking for a new host to infect, hoping to spread its infliction. If this is the case, I need to keep it away from both the gnomish survivors and my own dungeon denizens. Who knows what would happen if it manages to infect my creatures. Would they still be mine? or would they be taken over and become uncontrollable? Thankfully, zombie and Lovecraftian lore agree on one thing. If it shambles and looks gross, it is most likely vulnerable to fire. Hans, get se flammenwerfer. Or better even, Musk, get the Not A Flamethrower. And bring one of your fancy tunnel bores as well when you are at it, It might come in handy when I''ve dealt with this invader to finally finish my floor. Seriously though, I need fire and lots of it. Fire needs three things to thrive. A fuel source. Plenty of oxidising agents. And an initial spark/heat source. If I were to fill my tunnels with something burnable and set it ablaze, the fire would die out quickly since it wouldn''t be able to draw in enough oxygen to sustain its fiery blaze. This means that I need something that is a little bit more precise yet capable of burning the thing long enough for it to get turned to ash. If only I had some napalm, then I wouldn''t have to worry about it burning long enough. Alas, I haven''t found the proper materials to mix me some. For now, I''ve decided to just trap it in a sealed-off portion of my tunnels so I can devise a device or way to thoroughly burn it. So. Fire. Burning. Fuel. Oxygen. Napalm? No naftalate and palmitate. Also no diesel and styrofoam. Molotov cocktail? Doesn''t burn long and hot enough. Also, don''t have the materials for it. Fire magic? Possible but since I have no experience with it, It should be a solid plan B. Back to chemistry then. Fire. Hot. Ash. Oxygen. Fuel. Bunsen burner? Bunsen burner. Thanks to the stone walls of the tunnel and the slabs of stone I used to trap the thing with, I now have a nice closed of space that I can burn the thing in. Ideally, I would turn that part of the tunnel in some sort of furnace but without access to electricity, I can''t create a muffle furnace to burn the thing until there aren''t even ashes left. So, I need to heat up that space and burn the thing while I''m at it. Problem is, I have no combustible gasses at my disposal. Or do I? So far, the only things I''ve been absorbing were either solid or liquid in nature. No gasses. With a mental shrug, I target the air in one part of my tunnels and absorb it. Congratulations! New materials have been added to your collection. Gasses: Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon-dioxide, Methane, Hydrogen, Helium, Neon, Argon and Krypton Problem solved, I guess. So without further ado, I create a fine stream of methane and oxygen and send it through a hole in one of the walls. With a mental snap of my non-existent fingers, I create a spark in the stream that sets it alight. The flame I just created is yellow/orange, a flame that we chemists call a tier one flame. I slowly increase the amount of oxygen in the mixture until it reaches the second tier. The second burn tier of a bunsen burner is a mixture of the first tier and the third, where the flame is blue at the bottom and yellow at the top. It also starts to produce some noise. With some additional oxygen, I push the flame to the third and final tier. It now burns completely blue and makes a loud, roaring noise. The hottest point of the flame lies just above the blue cone-like shape of the flame and easily reaches temperatures of 1900¡ãC and higher. Definitely high enough to torch this sucker. Let''s just hope that I don''t melt the walls first whilst torching the tentacled gnombie. Interestingly enough, I''m perfectly capable of observing inside my improvised furnace and thus have a front row seat to watch the thing burn. First, the hairs on the gnome''s body ignite and burn away with a flash. Thankfully, I''m incapable of smelling things and thus don''t have to smell the acrid stench of burnt hair. Next, the gnome''s clothes catch on fire and his skin starts to blister. The tentacles start to slow down with their movements and start to look dry and brittle. His skin then starts to char while the fat underneath starts to melt away, making it look like the gnome is melting away in front of my eyes. The gnome''s eyes first pop and explode because of the pressure and then melt away as well. When the first glimpse of bone can be seen, the tentacles finally burn away completely. As all of the flesh is burned away from the body, the bones become charred and brittle and eventually, breaking and turning to ash. In the end, even the ash is burned away until nothing is left of the tentacled gnombie. All I have to do now is to close up the hole and be done with it. Hopefully, the gnombie was the only one of its kind and I''m not dealing with some kind of monster lair.