《Heart of a Dungeon》 Prologue: The artifact Prologue: the artefact I look back at the cave with a smile of regret. To leave behind such a great artefact, even though it was in the contract... It feels like a real waste. I''ve had the artefact for 25 years, just like my father. My grandfather was the one who acquired it and made the contract. It was a 50 year length contract, excluding the years he used it on his own. He didn''t use it for long since he was already 34 when he had acquired it and he wanted enjoy the time with his family a bit more. The power of this artefact is to tell you the knowledge of monsters and animals you encounter, it only works in dungeons though. It''s a really precious artefact for us adventures and I''ve heard this is the only one of it''s kind. There are crystals similar to this, but they only contain limited information, this one is learning. To absorb new information, all I have, or more like had to do, was placing the artefact on the defeated monster or animal in the dungeon, but since my father and grandfather had already done that a lot of times, there haven''t been lots of monsters that I didn''t have information on. There are also crystals that display your own status and not that of enemies, but once again, this one is better. To give you your status or tell you the information it has, it needs to be in direct contact with your skin, that''s why it is a necklace, with the front of the gem protected by a layer of iron and on the backside is a small opening with the gem touching the skin of the wearer. I''m calling it a gem and not a crystal, because even though it''s covered in worthless looking iron, the opening shows the most vibrant colour. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. As you might understand, it''s a truly wonderful artefact to have, so why am I leaving it behind you''re probably wondering? It''s about that damn contract. Honestly I want to give it to my son, but I can''t, for a very simple reason. If I don''t leave it, it''ll feed me wrong information, like telling the monster is weaker than it actually is, not telling certain skills or even not telling me anything at all. Information is a adventurers best friend, but incorrect information is his worst enemy. My grandfather told me this, after he asked the artefact what would happen if we were to break the contract... Nevertheless, I still regret it, leaving the artefact behind, glued to the ceiling of such a small and ordinary cave. I don''t know why that was part of the contract either, I just hope that it''s not destroyed by wild animal or something. I purposely picked out an abandoned cave in the hope that one time another adventurer just like my grandfather will pick it up instead of it getting destroyed and lost. That''s another part of the contract, not telling anyone about where I''ve left it. It''s the easiest rule to break, after all who''s gonna stop me after I''ve left it behind, but who will I tell it to? I''ve no real enemies except for the monsters I battle and I don''t want my son or my friends to gain it and die from the misinformation. Looking back a last time, I walk away from this cave, back to my family Chapter 1: A new home Finally, home! Or well, I will call it home from now on. After traveling for a little over 50 years, I''ve finally be able to start building my home again. It''s still a shame I had to leave my previous home, but it was definetely worth it. All the knowledge and information and let''s not forget the experience I''ve gotten from my adventure were definetely worth leaving my home. I guess I should start building again now, before I forget it and someone else wanders in and takes me away. Let''s see, I should start with taking over the area. Let me look for the skill, a yes, I found it.
You took over a [extraordinarily small cave], a dungeon has been created
Now, I should really thank that guy that left me here, this place is perfect. For some reason he left me in an abandoned cave, not even an animal nest is here, except for the few bugs, but that shouldn''t pose a problem. The first threat you face as a new dungeon after all is getting wiped out before you can defend yourself. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I most likely won''t have that problem though, even though my current dungeon is really new, only a couple minutes old, I''ve been a dungeon heart for about a hundred years now. I should start filling up my dungeon already. As a dungeon heart I don''t attract a lot of mana into my new dungeon yet, but luckily I''ve stored up plenty before. I should start with making a couple new rooms. I think the best design would be that this room lead to two new rooms, the entrances opposite of the dungeon entrance and those two rooms lead each to two new rooms as well, yes that should do it for now. No, wait, I need those last four rooms all to connect to a last one and place myself there.
You created 7 new rooms. The dungeon is now a [small cave
That should be enough space for now. Chapter 2: new furniture With enough space in my new home, I now should start thinking about decorating it. I remember my early days, after I was just born. I didn''t think at all and just placed everything I could, running out of mana within the first day and then I had to wait for like a week before I had enough mana again to place other monsters and animals. I had started off with the more expensive monsters and animals, without taking anything into account. Let''s first see my basicstatus overview.
Name ?????? Race Dungeon Heart
Level 0 Experience 0%
Status Small Cave
Mana 20/1000 Mana regeneration Not stabilized
It''s a good thing my skill mastery is still there, it used to cost me 200 mana per room, well, if it wasn''t there, I wouldn''t have been able to add seven rooms. In my excitement I forgot to check my skills first, it''s been so long since I had something to work with. This little fault did prove efficiently that my skills are still in effect though, so at least I gained something out of it. It''s somehow funny that I almost made the same mistake as when I just started, this time I ''only'' almost exhausted my mana. Well 20 is enough to work with for now and my mana regeneration should stabilize soon. The backlash on full mana consumption is too heavy, it''s a mistake you normally only make once. It takes a huge toll on your body and you can only start using mana once you''ve stabilized, for which you need your whole mana pool filled. Let''s open the summoning menu for now, I''ll check out my skill list later.
Animals Mana Cost Monsters Mana Cost
100 snails 1 Slime 20
99 ants +1 queen ant 1 Goblin 50
100 spiders 1 Small Golem (mud) 75
100 worms 1
100 grasshoppers 1
Expand List Expand List
Extra Options
Option Description Mana cost
Giant Animal only, bigger version, especially effective for insects Base cost for one animal times ten
Nest Settle place for allocated animal Base cost purchase times ten
Breeding place Upgrade from nest, species automatically breed if possible Base cost purchase times ten, needs nest
Spawn Automatic spawn, no breeding necessary, can only create selected spawn Base cost purchase times ten, needs breeding place
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.With 20 points of mana, I can place a whole bunch of small fry animals, but no monsters. I need them anyway, so it''s just as good as any other option. The only thing is, which animals do I want? I do want a [nest], so I can upgrade it to a [breeding place] later. It''s not necessary for animals, but for monsters it definitely is. It is still helpful for animals as well, you''ll be sure that there is a constant supply of newborn and if your animals evolve due to all the mana into a monster, it''s quite handy to have them a nest already. I can''t take any predatory animals right now, and with my lack of even dungeon moss, I think I''ll have to go with the worms. A nest for worms would be 10 mana and I''ll get 800 worms, 100 for each room, with the nest placed in the first room.
Warning, you''ve less than 1% mana left
Mana regen has been stabilized. Your current regen is 0.5 per hour
Oh, that warning I''ve never seen before, probably because the first time I just spend it all in one go and afterwards I made sure to never go under 10%. My mana regen is... low, as expected. Luckily, that''s only my passive mana regen from my surroundings. Having animals, even though they are just worms, should increase my mana absorption a little. Not that I can count on it to make a huge difference right away, after all standard insects give me about 1 mana per million insects per hour. It''s one of the titbits of information I''ve found out in my years of travelling. Even though I could''ve bought millions of insects straight away and wait for my mana to regen, I was too excited and it was also of more importance to create rooms. Each and every room means more safety, after all a Dungeon Heart like me is worth a lot of money to humans. Also both monsters and humans want to create contracts of labour with Dungeon Hearts. Now, I''m not against those contracts, but I want to be the boss. In my early stages I''m still quite vulnerable and it''s easy to overpower me, making those that create a contract with me now a Dungeon Master. Later on, once I get more powerful, I''ll make them a Dungeon Lord. The difference is that a Master gains control over the Heart and a Heart has control over the Lord. As you can see, it''s really important to be on top of the chain if you want to survive. Luckily, animals aren''t able to form contracts. Monsters now it from instinct and also know how to gain more out of it than humans. I''m really glad I left my previous dungeon and posed myself as a valuable artefact, otherwise I would''ve never learned the differences. It''s was a really tough decision, after all I had to leave my self build home behind, but it was definitely worth it. There''s a lot of things you can only learn if you travel. I must admit, I didn''t really travel, I was more dragged around, but at least I got to see something of the world. I was always curious to the outside, why things, as I used to call them, seemed to be interested in my home, or why summoning costs mana or many other things. Back to my created rooms, I''ve 8 rooms in total, a [nest] in the first one, and 800 worms in total digging around in all of them.. Next thing two things I want is first upgrading my [nest] to a [breeding place] and second, getting a partner to talk to, my very own Dungeon Lord. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/N: I put this on the bottom, instead of at the top because of the possible spoiler. Are there any great suggestions/request for a Dungeon Lord? You can make it as big as you want, no limits, I''ll need my time to work towards it anyway, so I''ll have something to aim for. Chapter 3: Even more work A/N: Well, I just went with something for the Dungeon Lord I found interesting, I''ll see where it will take me ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Dungeon Lord, it''s not just your protector, it''s your partner, it''s your friend, it''s everything you want and need. If possibly I want a dragon! They are really hard to get though, so I''ll have to settle for something smaller first. Luckily I can have more than 1 Dungeon Lord though. Somehow humans believe we Dungeons can only have one Lord. I''ve to admit, it''s not that weird, I used to think the same thing, but why do we think so? Only because no one has ever seen two Lords in the same dungeon, doesn''t mean there can only be one. It''s even possible that there are several Dungeons Masters of the same dungeon, however only humans do that, but still, it''s possible. I''ll need 10 mana for the upgrade, the contract forming costs no mana, but I''ll need to add a core at the very least. Cores are really valuable and important. It''s what allows me to control the monsters and animals and also helps them evolve. A core in itself is worthless, but it''s powers start to manifest once implanted. The core will start to accumulate mana, giving the body more power. The maximum amount of mana that can be stored depends on the species and on the core size. Once it reaches full capacity, the core will start to fuse with the body! Generally, you can place the core in two different places and depending on where, the effects of fusing differ. Placing the core along with the heart (or a similar organ) will result in a physical change and placing it in the brain will result in a mental change. Of course, it''s not limited to that area, but since that''s where the core fused, it''ll focus on it''s respective aspect. It is possible to have two cores in the same body, but only a few species have it, such as the dragon. It''s really costly to place a core, but it''s worth every single penny, or mana point actually. The cost is about 100 times the cost of the creature itself. It''ll start to appear permanently on it''s own in their bodies, but only like 3 generations after the original core owners. That is, if every generation in between has gotten it by shear chance and passed it on.
New possibility added to Extra options from Summoning Menu, Core, due to knowledge about the subject.
I nod wisely, or that''s what it feels like, I still don''t have a physical body that I can move. It seems I need to explain the knowledge before the system recognizes it. It feels sort of weird, after all why can I not place it when I already have the knowledge? I know why though, even if you know something, you still need to be able to explain it before you fully understand it and control it''s aspects. It''s just another part of the knowledge, and you need the complete information, otherwise you might just create a dummy core. Placing cores is all in the future, with just worms I won''t even be a proper dungeon. I do wonder what kind of evolution path worms have. I made my decision, my first boss monster will be worm based! Wait, wasn''t I thinking about my Lord? Well, I do need a better base than just a worm for that. Maybe if it evolves later, I might use that, but for now, let''s focus on getting more worms and upgrade my dungeon. I got lucky! It''s been two days since I''ve set up my worms and already I''ve been able to get some new animals in my cave! I''m now the proud owner of 3 bats, they''re wild though, not placed, but it''s perfect. They''ll grow accustomed to the mana in the air and they''ve a food source ready. The mana regen I get from predatory animals is way better than that of insects, the only problem is, if there''s not enough food, they''ll die. They are constructed by mana, but they''re still real creatures with basic needs after all. With 2 days passed, I''ve now 26 mana in total, of which I need 10 to upgrade my [nest] to a [breeding place], leaving me with 16. I''ll get another [nest] and, from the animal list, mice. They were under the expand option and cost 1 mana for 5 of them. With a new food source for the bats, they will more likely stay and even attract others, while the mice will feed on the worms and grow accustomed to the environment. I will place 25 mice in the room with the [nest], another 15 in the room next to it and 10 in the entrance room as more attractive food for the bats than just the worms. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Now for where to place them, I think I''ll go with the first room on the right side for the [nest] and the first room on the left side for the other mice. It might be a bit confusing to state it like that, let''s think later about how I''m going to keep things organized.
Warning, you''ve less than 1% mana
Yes yes, I know, I''ll just from now on ignore all the warnings I cause myself, way easier than having it pop up all the time. I''m spending a lot but it''s good to get myself a proper base first. I could sustain my creatures with mana instead of food, they''ll grow hungry nevertheless but they won''t need the energy from it. The major problem I have with that approach is the upkeep that will keep growing. Monsters and animals in my dungeon give me mana I can absorb, if I use that mana to feed them, I will only get more mana if I get invaded and either the invaders or my defenders die. With more rooms, I''m no longer afraid of animal invaders, they''ll only benefit me, because they are not able to threaten my Heart anymore. Instead of a unknown threat in their possible habitat, I''m now a vague appearance somewhere deeper within, while the total first three rooms are totally safe to settle in. I''ll get more mana regeneration, based on absorption of their excess mana, more animals that I can evolve into monsters and more protection, because humans are even less likely to travel. Currently my extra mana regen is pretty worthless, I''ve to wait 38 hours to gain 1 extra mana. The benefits at this point is meagre, but imagine what happens when I''ve millions of insects and thousands of all kinds of other beasts. Being a dungeon is a lot of hard work, but even more it''s a lot of waiting and planning. With all the waiting you do, you''ve plenty time to plan though. Another way to instantly get mana is having creatures die, and having them die by your dungeon animals gives you experience, especially if you direct them and control them. Leveling up is always a slow business, there''s no easy way of getting a few levels really quick. When you''re low leveled, you don''t have the mana nor the regen to create predatory animals enough to threaten both invaders and defend yourself. Even if you somehow manage to accidently get a wolf or even a bear in your dungeon, how will you control it? Even worse is that a strong animal will attract attention, smaller animals will tend to avoid the area, your animal will have to hunt further away so you won''t get any mana at all. You might even get wiped by humans who will then discover your Heart. Later on, you will have plenty of mana and mana regen, but since you''ve already amassed a lot of experience, the effectiveness will deteriorate and you will still be leveling in a slow manner. With my worms and newly gained mice and bats I''ve a small ecosystem in place. The dung from the mammals will be nutrients for the worms who in turn will be the food for my little mammals. I don''t have to worry about any of them dying out, after all the natural birth is still an occurrence. It''ll be slow but experience will start to accumulate along with mana from the kills. I guess I should start already with trying to start creating my first Dungeon Lord now. First I''ll have to give them cores. Luckily worms are quite cheap, after all their size and structure doesn''t cost that much mana to construct out of all the particles. Even though they aren''t costly, mana itself is not to be underestimated. Now, I''ll start by giving 1 worm a core, which will cost me 1 mana in total. I''ll place him in my Heart room, where the mana density is the biggest so his cores can suck up the mana at an increased range, and even more important, it''s easier to contact him through his cores. Right now he''s just a meagre worm though, so it''s also important to prevent him from getting eaten by the mice and bats in the front rooms. To help preventing that, I should also use the giant version option. With 1 mana I can upgrade 10 worms to their first giant version, making sure they''ll still be able to reproduce and not only with standard worms. Of course, I''ll including the cored one. It doesn''t cost me anything extra to enlarge a cored animal or core an enlarged animal, so that''s something I save on at least. The downside is that a cored creature doesn''t give me any mana regen, since it collects it all into its core. It all costs me 2 mana, 1 point for the core and another for 10 enlarged worms, bringing my current total down to 4. I will call it a day for now. I can''t do a lot more with my current mana towards my goal of Dungeon Lord. Chapter 4: Waiting room Sorry about the slow update guys, also it''s a bit of a short chapter. I''ve some stuff going on in rl that keeps me distracted. I''ll try to update it regularly. If you''ve any questions, pm me or leave a comment. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A day has passed since I implanted the cores, giving me approx 12 mana, it''s actually slightly more, but I can''t really count the benefits yet. I want to place more [nests] for my worms and also upgrade at least two of them into [breeding places]. I need 7 [nests], and I want to upgrade 3 of them into [breeding places]. The Heart chamber will hold one [breeding place] and two rooms in front of the Heart chamber will each hold another [breeding place]. 7 [nests] will cost me 70 mana, if it''s for the worms, and the [breeding places] will cost me 30 mana, bringing it to 100 total. That''ll take over 8 days to regen that amount, sadly enough, so I''ll leave that for later, once I get enough regen. To increase my regen, I need to either level up, or attract stronger creatures. Both will be the best honestly speaking, but I''ll have to focus on one of them for now. It''s mana cost wise the most efficient to focus on leveling. I''ll just need to implant a core in either a bat or a mouse to start gaining experience. My cored worms are non predatory at this moment, so I''ll have to core another animal. The amount of mana to core a bat is a wopping 500, while one mouse costs only 20 mana. The difference is of course because of how high they are in the predatory scale. I''ll wait another 8 hours before, so it''ll be evening once I''ll have enough mana to core a mouse and have some spare mana left. Then I''ll just wait a whole week, while coring another 4 mice. 168 hours for a week will leave me with 84 mana from my passive regen and another 5 from my absorption, if you take into account the bit I already got from waiting a day. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. In the week while waiting, my cored giant worm fully assimilated with its core. I''ll refer to it as Worm from now on. Also, I''m currently at 30% towards level 1. Another 3 weeks passed. Nothing happened. Another week later.
You''ve reached level 1
Finally, it took ages, but I''ve reached the next level. I''ve 353 mana from waiting and not spending and 13 left from coring the mice, having a total of 366. Now that I''ve levelled up, my passive regen is 1.25 per hour with a max capacity of 1100. Waiting is horrible, but there''s nothing to be done about it. I can now get all the planned [nests] and [breeding places], I''ll also get a [nest] and [breeding place] for the bats and mice. In total I''ll have to spend 240 mana, but it''ll be definitely worth it. Of the spare mana, I''ll use 100 to fiddle a little with my giant Worm. Let''s start with making it predatory. For that, his digestive system and more important his mouth need to be adapted. I can use the information I have on wolves, bats and some other predators to give it teeth, changed intestines and a different sense of hunger. It''s not dangerous enough to eat anything but worms, but it''ll get used to hunting this way. My plans are slowly progressing. Slow and steady wins the race. Now, it''s even more waiting! What a lovely way to spend your time. Chapter 5: Musings A/N: I really like showing of status screens and such, I love to read them, they give a nice overview, but I feel like they might obstruct me, so I''ll have to see how it''ll work out in the end. I planned on the content of this chapter earlier, and I''ve seen people asking for this (I like explaining things). Also, I would love it to get more reviews/comments, please describe the good and the bad points, I want to improve and delivering a better story. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Waiting itself is just a waste of time, so I should try to do something useful with it. I''ve already a general plan on how I''m going to spend my mana and first level dungeon lay-out, so I''ll have find another way to amuse myself. I do have some information I''ve collected over the years, I could try to put it together and see what it means. After all, it''s about mana and dungeons. I first of all know that mana is a form of energy, most distinguish or talk about it as a blue form they can see, if sensitive to mana. It was just one of the forms of energy, but it did have the most potential. It allows to reconstruct molecules by breaking bonds and reforming them. That''s also how a dungeon can create rooms, simply by destroying the bonds between molecules. It also allows for the construction of animals and creatures that have been researched, by knowing how molecules are placed and constructing the bonds. This allows for even a fully adult version to be created, including instincts, but excluding memories and training. That is one of the reasons I prefer [breeding places], young ones will be born and grow. It would take some time, but the benefit is that there will be more personal experience, familiarity with the environment and a build of memory. Next, all living creatures are sensitive to mana in some way. Some may actually sense it and control it, most just have it run through their body without any noticeable effect. How can a dungeon, or more like a Heart, such as I, control mana? After all I''m a jewel/stone/crystal. My conclusion is that I''m not just a stone, neither is any other Heart I''ve seen. I also have a conscience, which also indicates that I''m more than just a stone. That does raise the question what I actually am, if not a crystal. Now it actually gets interesting, I''ve never really put it all together before, after all I was busy getting entertained by travelling the world and collecting all kinds of information. Analyzing it was something I did in the moments I was not depended on, but I focused on monsters, animals, plants and other directly useful stuff for my dungeon, but now I¡äve the time. I¡äve partly crystal, partly biological and another part I can only guess at what it¡äs called. I do know what the functions of each part are. The crystal and unknown part are for mana collecting and being able to work with mana, the biological part is to actually use the mana. The unknown part is a remainder of an unknown civilization, seemingly complicated and non-biological. It also makes use of energy currents, apart from mana there seems to be another energy current possible to be used. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.An older Heart told me that he has seen a different type of dungeon, non sentient, without the biological part in it''s Heart. It seems like it was made by that civilization, for some purpose, infusing mana in everything. I suspect there was a certain event which resulted in the need of mana. To keep it in control better, biological parts where infused in the crystal, or maybe it just happened by accident. It did allow for the now Hearts to be able to multiply. Split of a tiny part, let it fuse with a tiny part of another Heart and the crystal will grow by accumulating mana, changing and adding to it''s structure, developing personality. Either way, due to the unknown part, you can ask for your status and other overviews. It keeps track of almost everything. Both the crystal and the biological part are not able of such a feat, I''ve never heard of something of another biological existence being able to view the status by itself. There are stones, most likely based on Hearts, which are capable of displaying the status by injecting mana into it while being used by a biological being. It also makes sense why the control of a dungeon is so big and excellent. Most information will be processed automatically, the unknown part does that. The biological part is responsible for the ability to grow and control. The crystal is for the attracting and storing and the like of mana. A Heart can be kept alive if taken away from its dungeon, as I''ve proven, but that''s only if the Heart cuts all connections with its dungeon, and since that is basically your own body, it''s not something that''s likely to be done. Cutting away your own body, especially if you know it''s not sure if you will survive, is a very scary and unlikely course of action. Therefore I suspect that I''m the only Heart that has ever done this. I didn''t know anything, not even why my dungeon was restricted to only dog related species. It pushed me to take such a extreme decision, I wanted to know more, wanted to know everything. As the saying goes, knowledge is power and I needed power the most to survive in a cruel world where I was continuously being hunted by humans. I just wanted to live in peace, experiment, mess around, have fun and just enjoy my life, but the humans kept coming back, slaying my monsters, invading my body as a virus, destroying everything I wanted and worked for. I was far too weak, too unknowing, and all that obstructed me in living my own life. ... It''s funny how I got so much of track, instead of just revising my knowledge, I ended up ranting. I really need to get someone to talk with soon, or at least someone that I can ramble on to. I''ll grow crazy without it. Great, it happened again, I really need someone to keep me on track. Let''s see how much mana I got by now. ....................... That''s.... a lot more than expected, how long did revising take...? Chapter 6: Update time A/N: Shout out to RexZShadow and Growl for their tips and critisism! It truly helps to have some other opions on it. Please never hesitate to comment or let me know. I want to improve my style before I try my hand at some other ideas I''ve waiting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Looking around, I realised lots of things have changed. The bats multiplied enormously, they were covering the whole ceiling of the first room. Every cranny and crook was covered with bats and there were furious fights for the best positions going on all the time. There was one bat in particular that attracted my attention. It was bigger than average for a carnivorous bat, almost a foot in length, but that was not the most important thing. It was the way it interacted with all the other bats, as if it were their king. It took up the precise centre of the ceiling, surrounded by a small empty space of about an inch and then several bats facing outwards, as if they were guarding the kings space. I suspect that with the adaption of mana it tried to establish dominance over the surroundings, for enough food, partners and space, especially now it''s so cramped in there. I should allow them to further venture into the cave, assuming the other creatures must have had a similar growth. Most of all I''m interested in my Cored worm. With a quick look over the rest of the rooms I decided to lift all restrictions towards expanding their life zones for all animals. All regular worms and all mice multiplied nicely and there were even some new insects around. I saw fruit flies, regular flies, cockroaches and several spider species. I placed a couple [nests] for all the new insects spread around the rooms, then checked upon my lovely creature. As expected, it grew even larger and fully fused with its core, while also turning carnivorous, preying on smaller worms and even weak mice from time to time. Surprisingly enough, it had mated with regular worms which resulted in an even more interesting kind. Several mice and even the giant worm were infected with what I couldn''t describe as anything but parasitic worms. The mice were slowly being eaten alive, but the parasitic worms seem to use the fused worm as sort of home. My plan was to use a giant human eating worm as first line of defence, after all if it''s cleaved in half, it might just survive, but now I had a different idea. I would link the minds of all the parasitic worms to some sort of hive mind, and add the fused worm as a part of it, both as hive and as living creature. This way the little ones would protect the big one and vice versa. That might even be done without the linked minds, but I feel like this would be a better option since I''ll use the combination as a boss. To make sure the hive mind stays intact, I''ll make the "queen" take place in my room at all the time, especially once I further expand. It''ll turn into my own small zoo, I like the idea of that. I''ll use bees as a base for the hive mind, mixed with ants. For such a chance, a small bit of mana has to be spent, but it''ll all be worth it, without a doubt. To see the effects, it''ll have to take a while most likely, because I''m changing their ways of interacting with each other. Before I forget it, I should make it so that they still eat other worms, as long as they don''t belong to the hive, might run out of a food source for them otherwise. After this change, I did another round through the rooms. It seems that the mice build their own [nests] in small gaps in the walls, creating comfort zones. Wondering how they found those gaps, because I certainly didn''t make them, I kept looking at them for a while. After some moments I saw a mice digging into the stone wall. Nodding to myself, I noted that they too had adapted to the environment thanks to the abundant mana, this time by hardening their claws to create a safe haven. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.Happy that all creatures had some adaption of some kind, I released their mental block to cross rooms. An established ecosystem would benefit me more than regulating it all the time. It''ll take a few days most likely for them to realise they could move, after which the new order of things should be established. After all, not all mice were used to the frequent bat attacks for example. After I solved that, I created a pathway all above the rooms. It were steep downwards tube like paths, with the highest point being above the current heartroom. It was very similar to a boulder path, those that you drop a marble on and it keeps rolling until if falls down a hole in the path. I created it exactly like that. Unlike marbles or boulders, I placed a [spawn] at the highest point, destined for slimes. I wasn''t too much of a fan of slimes, but they did their job and that was all that mattered. The good thing about slimes is that they can still acquire evolutions with a [spawn], as the only exception of all species. I didn''t want to keep bothering with them, but having slimes drop out of the ceiling didn''t seem to bad of an idea as a defence, especially since those could possibly evolve. I also made the assumption all the other creatures would be able to either hunt or escape from the slimes, adding them to the ecosystem. After all, so far they did very well in adapting, so why would they suddenly stop with a new creature in place. I need to prepare all my defences before I get invaded, so there wouldn''t be mercy on anything. I won''t amass all my forces in the first floor in case of a wipe, but I wouldn''t gradually increase difficulty either. Humans are certainly a danger with their greed, but I fear more about fairies. They act like helpers, approaching a young Dungeon, offering their "help" and "expertise" and then make a contract. They sign themselves as the Dungeon Master, keeping the Dungeon under their control. That''s why Dungeons get options to choose between species. Sure, it does have some benefits, in the beginning they''ll share their mana regen to help you grow and help with how to design a dungeon, but they''re even worse than leeches. Ever wondered why mana cost keeps increasing the more rooms you add, the more floors you get, the more experienced you become? It''s because they leech of your mana, they steal it from you. If you get more experienced, shouldn''t your control get better and your costs reduce after all? They do, but the fairies steal your mana, they''ve that control as Dungeon Master. They restrict your possibilities, keep you as a pet or as a slave and there''s normally no escape. The only way is for either the fairy to resign from being a Dungeon Master, which will never happen, or for the fairy to be slain, which still doesn''t happen that often, but sometimes it does. That''s how I got my freedom, after which I sworn to never be a slave again. I must say, sometimes a dungeon gets lucky and a non-experienced fairy accidently makes the mistake to assign itself as a Dungeon Lord, but that happens even less than a fairy getting slain. I might still be safe for now, but I should focus on growing more. After my mana has returned that is. Chapter 7: Plans and opportunities I made some plans for developing further while waiting for my mana to return. First of all I focused on which species I wanted to protect me. My first thought was something like a dragon, after all they''re known for their strength and near immortality, but it would take too long for it to be grown enough to protect me. After that, I thought of insects. There are many species so a lot of variety, they''re perfect to keep humans at bay since they seem to have an almost instinctive fear for insects and a lot of them are either poisonous or venomous. I know of spiders deadly enough to kill humans with a bite, even though they''re tiny. There are also species of ants known as natural disasters, destroying everything in their way. Best of all, due to the sheer size I could harbour a lot of them and they would be ready right from the start to protect me. Of course I would still make them more versatile to deal with fairies, but the base would be perfect. I couldn''t very well leave it all to bugs though, since in general they''re on the lower part of the predatory ladder. I''ve already mice, bats and slimes to add a little more to it, but I''ll need something else as well. Snakes would certainly help, but I need something more environmental. Golems, treants and murlocs for example would help, but before that, I would need plants, water, a cycle of light and all. Tentaclegrass would be really good.... I noticed I had enough mana to create a room, so I did, below the Heart room this time. It was connected by a small hole about a foot in diameter that led directly downwards. I made the walls of the hole extraordinarily smooth and steep to prevent anything to scale it.
Small cave has been upgraded to small cave system
I would just let the upper floor take it''s natural course from here, excluding me adding a couple of mosses to increase survivability of the smaller insects and keep the predatory cycle intact. This new floor would become my true playground. Tentaclegrass would be my first goal to plant all over the place. It''s a predatory kind of grass, using it''s leafs as whips to both smash things out of the air and grab them, after which they''re moved to its "mouth". This "mouth" is merely a small acid pool covered by some of its resilient leaves. It can keep itself alive purely by taking up the necessary minerals and other molecules by absorbing them via its roots or through the leaves, but animals were needed for racial growth. For it to be able to grown, I would both need nutrients and light. I could easily take care of the nutrients, they would come from some insects I would set loose, the light however would be a bigger problem. I would need to create a lightcycle stone, for which I need a lot of mana. Back to planning the rest of the layout then. Other than tentaclegrass I should also add trees so I can have treants walking around without being noticed. The whole forest feeling would give all my lovely insects a boost in their survivability and deadliness. It would also allow animals like bears, wolves and several types of birds to settle down. The best way was to upgrade my whole second floor into a giant space without any secluded rooms, giving enough space to the bigger creatures to move around and smash possible intruders to their deaths. I should not forget to create a lake or something similar and make it a place for murlocs to live as well. The third floor would be best turned into a maze, having golems moving around. After all they''ve the best affinity with just plain stone, making it possible for them to overcome the natural limitations that a maze brings. I should totally add rockeaters as well. Rockeaters would seem like a pretty bad choice with golems and stone all around, but the opposite is true. They''ve a certain type of acid that turns living beings into stone and that''s the only type of stone they eat. To multiply the mix their acid with normal stone and another excluded liquid, which they only do if the food source is abundant. The fourth floor, I''m thinking about a full underwater area. A sudden environmental shock will prevent any proper preparation for the change and will become just as deadly as the creatures themselves. Depending on how big I make it, I could possibly even add a kraken. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Of course, every floor would have its fill of insects, holding at least one different kind each, which without a doubt should be venomous. It will take a while to actually be able to do that all, but it''s good to have a plan. For now I should focus on increasing my mana regen. It''s already a lot better than at the beginning, due to my creatures increasing in size, variety and numbers, but it''s not enough yet. To counter that, I''ll actively be luring new creatures in from now on. It''ll increase my chance to be discovered, but with my snakewormparasaticwormhivethingy I''ll be fine for the most extend. I''ll benefit from any animal that wanders into my dungeon because STOP WHISPERING FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!! .... .......... ............... Who even whispered to begin with, there''s no one here but me. Am I starting to hear things? Am I slowly turning crazy? It''s probably nothing, I mean, it wouldn''t be the first time someone heard a really regular sound like the wind or just some animal noises and it would sound like something else. It''s nothing I''m sure of it, how can it be something else after all. No doubt, it''s nothing, it''s truly nothing. Since it''s nothing, back to business, I''ll just take control of one of the ordinary bats. It''s not truly taking control however, it''s more slightly warping it''s instincts. I make it so that she feels like there''s better food outside of the cave, but that it''s not safe to eat it outside, or even kill it. Safe enough to hunt, not safe enough to consume so to speak. If this works as well as I suspect, she should start bringing in small insects and the like before she kills them, giving me more mana. With a bit of luck, she might also get a parasitic infection which then might spread, giving me even more mana regen and experimental subjects. I might transform another couple bats like this as well. It''s not much of a cost after all, I''m not even changing its instincts, just redirecting it. Warped words, I''m aware, but the only thing that matters is that the cost is low and thus it''s a beneficial change for me to make. Meanwhile I''m also spending mana on expanding my second floor room into a true cavern, at least in size. I''m also creating ants of different species and even the same species but assigning them as different colonies so they can prey on each other, giving nutrients to each other and the floor. Of course that won''t be enough for the long run, but it''ll be interesting to see the interactions and it''s better to create a foundation early on. While I was busy with changing a few other bats and expanding the room into a cavern, I noticed something. First I should check upon the King bat, to see if that explains what''s happening.
King Bat A bat that''s stronger than the rest of its species, depending on several factors among which experience, is able to rule over and direct it''s brethren
Haha, so that''s why! I suddenly noticed a single bat flying through all the rooms and circling around the hole leading to the second floor before returning to where the King Bat was waiting. It seems like he wanted to know what was happening all around so a scout was send. I will expect many great things from the King Bat from now on, being able to control others to send them to scout. Okay, it might only be one bat that scouted but I''m sure it wasn''t because he could only control one. After all, he did have bodyguards of some sort already. Content with all the actions made, I orbed the King Bat. If it already made such a amazing progress with just the regular mana flow here, what else could happen? Chapter 8: Messing around A/N: I''m looking for someone who wants to help me edit/proofread and something for a cover. Also if you''ve any suggestions, don''t hesitate to share. And as last, I truly need someone with a better naming sense than I have..... Please let me know if you''re willing to help me! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To prevent myself from getting bored while waiting, I decided to play a little game called Forced Evolution. I designed it myself. Pretty much it was just setting up several creatures and making them fight each other till death or till I get an interesting evolution. To create sufficient room, I extended the shaft that connected the first and second floor, making it so that if one isn''t able to fly, he''ll just fall past the second floor to his death. Softly laughing I created a couple spikes of earth at the bottom of the pit, while making the room circular, with a diameter of 10 yards. The spikes were only directly below the hole in the ceiling, which was in the exact centre of the room. Once again starting with the food sources of worms, flies and moths, I started to grin, a matchup taking shape in my thoughts. Why would one ever set up a one versus one match, or even a one versus one versus one match. It''s way more interesting to create small wars. It''s way more chaos and thus way more fun to watch. Setting up a hive for bullet ants, one for a certain string of worker ants called Pogonomyrmex maricopa, another for isles hornets and a last one for black widows. At first I would just let them settle in, manipulating their instincts with mana to prevent them from attacking each other. The room itself was circular, giving them no corners. Instead, they all occupied exactly a quarter of the space, with their hives in the centre against the wall, having roughly 45¡ã of their quarter to each side. Even though I keep saying hives, the black widows didn''t exactly have a hive, more like a giant area covered with webs. To help them slightly more I lodged out a few spikes from the walls and the ceiling. To give all the species the same starting point, I covered the whole room like that, occasional spikes coming up from the walls and ceiling. It seems that the hornets also like this better, creating their hive between several spikes. Even though normally they would need more natural materials, I did help them all by giving them mana to create their living structures. For the fun of it, I also added a [nest] and a [spawn] for mice in the exact centre on the floor between the spikes for piercing intruders and placed around fifteen bats. I warped the instincts of the bats so that they wouldn''t normally leave this room and warped the instincts of all other animals to only attack the bats if they get preyed upon personally by the bats. Happy with my stage, I watched them for a couple days, seeing if it was enough to already force some evolution. Sadly enough, the only thing that happened was that the bats died, not even from getting killed by their own prey, but because of the high amount of toxics and venoms their prey contained while being eaten. Either way, it was time to loosen up their bounds and start my game. Oh, it''s wonderful, truly majestic! No evolution so far but this little war is the best! The moment I loosened the bounds, hell broke loose. The mice, being used to be preyed upon by four, former five different species, now suddenly had some breathing space. The black widows, having the worker ants on their left side, the bull ants on their right and the hornets across of them, were the first to expand their territory. Being more of a solitary animal than the rest of them, being cramped into a space with a lot of their own wasn''t truly a good thing. Their spread for more space however triggered the instincts of defending their hives from the mindhived creatures. Having their territories invaded, the already aggressive natured animals, turned even more vicious. Swarming out of their respective hives, they swarmed the black widows unleashing their venomous bites and stings. However, this also signalled that the hives could attack each other, securing food and protecting the hive. Watching gleefully, I watched as the war unfolded. The air was the domain of the hornets, perhaps later they would get obstructed by webs, but at this point, it was just too little time for the black widows to set them up. The bullet ants flooded out of their area to all sides, washing everything away in their path. The thing was that both the hornets and spiders quickly learned that the sky was a way better place to be, at least they were the only ones who could hold themselves up. Even though the black widows didn''t have time enough to make whole webs, just a thread or two to fall down from the ceiling or between to spikes to climb was very well possible. The worker ants however were furiously fighting with the bullet ants, even though they were about twice to thrice as small on average. They did however posses a more potent poison. Due to their natural lower aggressiveness they mostly stayed inside of their territory, but inside of it nothing stopped them. While slowing advance forward due to the sheer size and sacrifice, the bullet ants lost two of them at the very least for taking out one worker ant. While taking heavy losses on that side, they easily managed to overcome the black widows which had invaded their territory, overwhelming it by numbers, biting it to dead before it could even bite back. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The hornets just dived on top of everything they saw, stinging it with all their might. Sometimes one got stuck by the few threads and bitten to their demise, other times they just died by being overwhelmed the moment they got close enough for an ant to rise up and grab them. Soon the hornets, spiders and bullet ants learned to not engage fully with the worker ants, which on their turn only scavenged the remains of the dead, not bothering to fight. The mice were currently the same, at least scavenging their newfound food source instead of it being their predator. The idea of combining them all into one force came slowly into my mind. Bullet ants as offensive ground troops, worker ants as support and defensive ground troops, the isles hornets as air troops and the black widows and spies, scouts and assassins. While a bit unrealistic as it stands, the possibility is there. After a while it settled down, the new boundaries of territories being established as well as the predatory order. The spiders gave up on their own area, however infesting everything in return. Now while they had not their own racial territory, each had single black widow had now their own turf. The bullet ants took over most of the side of the spiders, now striking 150¡ã of the room, while the other 30¡ã got added to the area of the worker ants. The hornets didn''t increase their territory size, but they did expand their hive, taking up almost all of their wall, slowly building onto the ceiling. Their hive, being greyish from colour, almost reached the three yard high ceiling, while only extending one yard outwards from the wall. The hive of both the ants were mounds. They were relatively short, only standing around a two foot high, but like hills they covered their respective whole area. Their official prey, the mice and worms especially, had started to dig into the spikes and floor, trying to escape the immediate danger. Flies were now flowering with enough carcasses to feast upon and lay their eggs in. There was still a fierce competition going on, as I liked it, but it was now more similar to natural conflicts rather than an actual war. I decided to add several fungi spores as well. Just the spores itself wouldn''t really take a toll on me and at least there would be a greater biodiversity. Having done this, I returned to my first little project, my Dungeon Lord. I had given it the chance to develop it''s hivemind, which I now should be able to see. The bigger kind, the hiveworm and the smaller ones, the mutaworms as I decided to call them for now, until I thought of a better name, did now have a hivemind. I first called them parasitic, but they aren''t truly that, more like mutualistic. Slowly, taking into account the characteristics of the mutaworm, the hiveworm and the regular worm, I shaped the worm queen. Orbed, around a foot long and an inch thick. Also making it possible to give birth to all three of the kinds, while being able to breed with the hive- and regular worm. I set the mutaworms as unfertilized, while the hiveworm would be a fertilized version. To make this possible, I did create the option for the worm queen to just basically fertilize herself, which would could as "unfertilized". Regular worms would be birthed from both unfertilized and fertilized eggs, but could be influenced to start growing by hormones the queen could give off. It all was only possible if she had enough nutrients to both sustain herself and the initial growth of the young. The whole process took a large drain on me, having to adjust so much and tamper with the normal biological ways of the species, but it was needed. All done with my changes, I urged the queen to move to my Heart, to confirm the pact with her as a Dungeon Lord. Once I felt her physical appearance coming closer to me, I sent out small strings of mana. These strings slowly dug into her, binding her to my will, while also giving me access to her consciousness and thus her senses. Since she was the head of a hivemind, I suddenly gained a lot more information to process and work through. All the details of the earth to start with. Slowly getting used to this stream, I categorized it all, bundling it into the more three-dimensional view I had of my area. I certainly knew how the earth was for example, after all it was part of me, but even then it''s difficult to distinguish between all the tiny differences. This new view added to my own, completing it further. I had to admit, my mind shuddered slightly by forming the bond, thinking back of when the same happened to me, being forced to obey a fairy. The difference was however that I did not prey on those who I contracted, rather I prey on those who aren''t contracted to me. I couldn''t yet truly communicate with my new Dungeon Lord, but I was finally not alone anymore! It would be just a matter from time with both the regular mana and my personal mana feeding her before her mind started to develop into a slightly more sentient version Celebrating my victory, I decided to ignore the soft whispers, after all it was a moment of celebration, not a moment to listen to the fluttering of wings and whatever moves around in my dungeon. Chapter 9: Exploration It took another two weeks, but finally my Dungeon Lord can be reasoned with, or at least that''s what I had hoped for. While becoming more intelligent, it turned out that the wormqueen only placed me on a higher level than herself and is willing to follow commands, simple ones that are understandable that is. The good news was that there were some mutations in my war pit. The most useless one was that of the worker ants. It became able to release pheromones which made the bull ants protect them, seeing them as the same species. Those two were slowly integrating tanks to the pheromones. The bull ants increased slightly in size, but more importantly their pinchers were now able to rip through stone as well, and not just biological tissue. Their deadliness turned up a notch thanks to it, and they were also able to extend their hive, developing further. The hornets changed their poison, slowly letting the infected victim rot away alive. Gruesome to watch, it was truly effective. However, the most gruesome mutation was that of the black widows. Their reproduction method got downgraded, it now only lay one to three eggs in total. However, the survival rate bumped up to almost a hundred percent. This was possible due to the spider laying her eggs in the head of its victim. The hatched spider would slowly infest the brain with its poison, turning it into an obedient slave. The spider would grow while feasting upon the living host while the host would consume its food like normal, which would further become growth material for the spider. The main interactions of the brain were kept intact, mostly the pain signals were blocked. At least at the first stage. How longer the host was kept alive and part of its group, the stronger the hatchling spider could get. Only after it would outgrow the possible living space inside of the host, would it take full control over it and move it to a secluded place. By ripping open the host, the spider, no longer a hatchling, would crawl out and feast one last time upon its host. The downside was that this method would most likely only be effective on either hiveminded creatures or solitary ones due and not on creatures which have a individual mindset but live in societies. The most interesting change however was not any of that, but with one of the prey species that I set up. The mice did have something as well, but they just became a little more resilient against each type of poison. No, truly the most intriguing change was with the moths. Ah, this is the true joy of building your species. Sure you can follow the set out lines and rules, but discovering and creating is way better. I never imagined or heard of a moth species that preyed upon their natural predators. I saw it even eat mice. Due to the overload of poisons, venoms and all sorts of pheromones and who knows what else being released all the time, it seemed like this moth had started to produce its own. It was applied by secreting it from the main body, letting it cover the wings and would be spread during the flight. The poison would paralyze the area it fell upon as well as create an open wound, on which the moth would feed. It didn''t truly feed on the flesh, but on the blood and other body liquids instead. Both mutations on their own, or even together were not that rate, the ability to create a poison and feeding on body liquids. However the real catch was with a prey species turning into a predatory species, and even a universal predatory species at that. It did not specialize, but optimized. ******************* "Hey guys, it seems there is a new exploration quest up!" Marvin called to the rest of his group, while he was looking at the request board. As the leader, it was his job to find any good quests, even though they all together would decide if they would accept it or not. "Bring it then" "Just pick something finally" "Woop woop, exploration!" "..." His party replied, all over the place. While sitting in the pub, it was not like their noise stood out, even more it was barely heard by Marvin. Grabbing the post in question, he brought it back to their table and sat down, laying it in the middle. "As you can see, it''s a low ranked quest but the reward is not all that bad, but it''s an exploration one guys, exploration!" Marvin explained enthusiastically. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.His party, existing out of three different kind of mages and two melee tanker/fighter doubles, was only partly as hyped as he was. Adrian, their healer/buffer, was just as frantic as Marvin for the exploration, urging to finalize this pick. The two tankers however, Iren and Steve, had a different opinion. "Of course you two want it, you''re not going into the unknown headfirst. I''m not too fond of face checking caves, or especially not unknown dungeons like this one" Iren said. "You''ve it especially easy, you just spam everything and be protected Marv, and don''t have it as your job to get attacked on purpose" Steve added. "Well, maybe you shouldn''t have chosen to be a tank then and spent all your time training your body and earning enough money for that ridiculous plate armour of yours, I mean, why would you pick a lime green one?" Adrian added, as he felt his much wanted quest being endangered. "James, what do you think about it?" Marvin asked, turning his head to the last guy sitting at the table. "To be honest, I don''t care, as long as it pays" James replied, shrugging at the same time. "Iren, Steve, it''s up to you guess now, both Adrian and me want it, James withholds his vote" Deeply sighing, they both gave up on resisting, accepting the quest as the one to go with. They both knew the reason why Marvin and Adrian were so excited, themselves even were as well. Exploration quests came with huge awards, especially if new discoveries were made, but even more it was the promise of adventure that brought forth the excitement. Due to it being afternoon, they all decided they would spend the rest of the day preparing enough gear and consumables and that they would start tomorrow morning at sunrise. The request asked for an exploration in the mountain range about one and a half day away from their current town, Majei. Their party containing three mages was a bit unusual, but not that rare. The standard party required a rogue and/or an archer to stay true to the stereotype, but a mage could do the same thing in most cases, if trained. Assassinate high priority targets? Send an earth arrow. Gather intelligence? Have a mage cast invisibility and silence on himself as well as a sense spell. Sweeping tracks? A combination of earth and wind magic could cover that. Another reason why the party formed like this, was because they had all get to know each other during several raids of dungeons and bodyguard quests. They preferred being unusual over teaming up with unknown people, which after all could be a very dangerous business. Marvin, their area of effect wave clear mage was designed as their leader, mostly because everyone else couldn''t be bothered by it. Adrian was designated as the healer, while James got the role of rogue/scout assigned. Iren and Steve were the tanks, rotating between that and damage dealer, depending on what was needed in the situation. The next morning they all stood outside of the town just after sunrise, all in a foul mood due to waking up so early. None of them were morning people, however they did know it was necessary to do so to reach their designation in a reasonable time. "Okay, before we start this and be on our way, I want to get the contents of this mission clear one more time for everyone" Marvin said, holding out the quest in front of him. "There has been found a mana anonymity in the Majejie Mountain Range, which is suspected to be from a newfound dungeon. Investigation is required to confirm or deny the hypothesis. If it is to be found a dungeon, bring proof of the type of dungeon (three different monsters, or if not possible, monster parts) and submit its estimated ranking. If it found to not be a dungeon, find out the reason and report this to the guild. If dangerous and possible, erase the abnormality. Expected difficulty, unknown. Required rank, at least 75B. Reward, all spoils found, all expenses covered. Extra note, spoils to be found dangerous by the guild will have to be yielded and will be compensated estimated worth plus ten percent" Looking each of his party members shortly in the eyes, he asked "Do we all agree?" Nodding at each other, they all confirmed their willingness to take on this quest. They didn''t speak much, because the first one to open up his mouth except for business, would most likely get punched by all others. They were a brunch of moody, cranky adventures waking up too damn early after all. Chapter 10: Intruders The joy of having created a new species is indescribable, the only thing I hate is thinking of a new name. I could just fiddle around with the characteristics, poisonbloodmoth would work for example, but it just lacks a certain punch. I''ll just work on the names later, it''s too bothersome. I''ve slowly begun to build my second floor room and got enough room in my room, sounds funny, to start my lake. I had some plan with nagas, but first I''ll just place some stone fishes in there, once it gets deep and wide enough. Probably have to fiddle with either the water or the species, to make it possible for them all to live there. Well, my plan with the bats is slowly bearing fruits, there are some new small insects like grasshoppers jumping around, accidental drops work. Oh, I just realised, I do have a sort of theme for my beautiful dungeon, it''s venom. I mean, it''s the most effective way to kill invaders. Sure you can smash their heads in or stab them through the heart or whatever, but if you add poison to the mix, even scratches can kill. It''s all about effectiveness. I need to kill everyone who comes here to protect myself after all. Meaning, I totally should give everyone access to the first and second floor. Be free my little beasts! I''m just enlarging your playground. Let the predatory cycle continue! The bats should be fine, at least the ones being lead by the King Bat. My hiveworm on the first floor shouldn''t get hunted either by all my new little creatures, there''s easier prey after all. Just need to grow more tentaclegrass on the second floor, grow grow grow it should be. BE QUIET IN MY HEAD!!!! ... I truly should start paying more attention, I''m just slowly starting to talk like a newborn Heart instead of a grown up one. It must be the fact that I''ve no one to talk to, degrading me slightly. I''m definitely not hearing illusions. I still have to admit, childish me does have good plans. I do need to focus on expanding and developing my second floor, and enlarge the hole leading from the first to the third through the second floor as well. I''ll make it two feet in diameter, no, wait three. This way, the bats will have no problem flying through it. They''re slowly growing in size, at first they just had a width of two inches, but by now the King Bat, as the largest, has a fully spread out width of around one and a half foot. As a bonus, bigger creatures, hopefully humans, might just fall into it all the way down instead of just tripping over. A day passed since enlarging the pit as I have come to call it and though chaotic, the second floor is lovely. The first floor however has been left to the worms and no other species, not a useful one at least, has taken up residence there. The slimes are still spawning, but they sometimes just fall down the pit to their demise. A lucky few make it to the second floor by bouncing between the walls and just accidently getting on the ledge leading to the room. It''s become crowded in there, with all the species being there. I did keep on enlarging the floor, but it''s a constant battlefield nevertheless. I did manage to place several lightstones, basically just mana holding stones which shine brighter the more mana they hold and don''t shine at all below a certain threshold of mana. I made them in such a way that they can contain a certain amount of mana, after which the stone breaks due to the heat of the light and slowly loses its mana. After a while, when the stone has cooled down enough, it''s able to store mana again. It drained me to place the lightstones, but progress has to be made. Due to the light, there has been some changes. The King Bat has caught several worms and seems to be using them as slaves to dig out a crevice in the walls for a dark cool place during the "day". It just started, after all I didn''t implant the stones long ago, but it''s fascinating. Now, the worms weren''t actually slaves, they were just not eaten and instead placed on the wall to eat their way into it. The black widows seemed to cluster around lightstones with their webs to catch everything that flies to the light, which not surprisingly quite a few insects do. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. The hornets were active on the second floor, but just like both ants, they kept their hive on the bottom of the pit. Apparently it''s way too much effort to build up a complete new hive in just a day. It''s so bothersome to assigns [nests] to all species when I place them in a new location and what else not, there should be a different way to this... Fiddling around, I forgot the time, until I realised I had intruders. It couldn''t have been worse, except for it being a fairy, but this was almost just as bad. Humans. I''m not ready for them at all, go away, shoo. I must be accidently really close to a town at the very least, maybe a city even. It was a party of five, two in the front, three in the back. They did give me a nice boost in mana absorption, but I rather had that they hadn''t come here. The two in front were obviously tanks, of the three in the back I wasn''t too sure. I warned my Dungeon Lord to take control over the hiveworm, but that''s all I could do, except for trying to figure out who or what exactly invaded me. I just hope they won''t burn everything down in some kind of petty conviction. It didn''t seem likely though, by going on how they haven''t lit anything on fire yet. They advanced way too rapidly! Well, no surprise there, with nothing to stop them. Still, the slimes were good for something, it seems like two of the three back liners were mages, one specializing in area of effect damage and the other in single targeted damage and reconnaissance. It warned the others of the slime falling out of the ceiling even before it dropped after all. I''ll just assume the last guy is a healer, because if you don''t have a healer in your party, you''re just dumb. They took the nuclei from the slimes while slowly progressing. The diverting paths didn''t throw them of at all either. I had at least hoped people would get frustrated by it, but just three rows of rooms and the last row all leading to the same room isn''t really confusing now that I rethink it. I couldn''t even finish my thought properly before they faced my Dungeon Lord! Or more like it''s pawn. It was awful to watch. The two tankers just swapped it away with their weapons while the two mages sent fire bombs and mana missiles at it. The only thing the hiveworm got going was that it once managed to bite into the hand of one of the tankers, but that was healed almost directly, I knew the last one was a healer. All in all, the fight didn''t even take five minutes. I''m even just trying to uphold my pride by saying it was a fight, instead of a butchering. I''ll have my revenge on them, they killed my precious guardian, I''ll kill them for that, they deserve nothing less. They all gathered around the pit, trying to look down by sending a lightball into it, but it couldn''t hold up a stable light with all the mana in the air and dispersed quickly. Based on their arm movements, it seems like at least one of them wanted to go down, while I was silently praying to who knows what that they would just fuck off.
Title acquired: Weirdass Dungeon
Just fucking great, they''re calling me weird things, I hate titles. They stack, and they only make you known by that name to the general populace. Can they please now go away, I don''t need them to go down and do who knows what to my poor little creatures. AARGHHH, they did leave the room, but STOP BURNING MY FIRST FLOOR TO DEATH!!!! LEAVE THEM ALONE!! THEY''RE JUST WORMS, NO NEED TO BURN THEM!!! It hurts to see all my creatures burn and wriggle in pain, undeserved for they did nothing wrong. Fear not my deceased, I Will take revenge... I will kill them all, all that have hurt you! Chapter 11: Faa I commanded my wormqueen to breed another hiveworm again, however this time I wouldn''t have only one at the first floor. I also dispatched a decent amount of poisonbloodmoths to the first floor to apply a constant debuffing zone. I was suspecting that that party might revisit soon and I wanted to be ready this time, so I better change my way of handling things. I needed stronger creatures and I needed them now. However I had to be careful with my mana, because I would need it to advance. That brought me to several conditions needed to be fulfilled. First of all, the creature had to be dangerous. Secondly, creating it couldn''t be too taxing on me. Thirdly, it had to be resilient. That brought me back to some of the creatures I already had, like the isle hornets. They fit the description perfectly, in an unusual but correct way. The problem with them would be how easy they were to wipe out if expected or seen. It''d be best if most magic elements wouldn''t effect it, but only creatures such as the dragon were impervious to elemental attacks, and even that depended on the kind. .... Why had it to be an actual dragon to start with? I could just give it properties similar to a dragon! Two species came to my mind almost directly, for the same reason. The komodo dragon and the dragonfly. The komodo dragon was already fine on its way to become a possible dragon, it was a huge lizard already after all. The dragonfly however, also picked because of the dragon part in its name, was just a meagre insect, not even having a poison or venom. I could fiddle around with the dragonfly, the original cost would be low, but the amount of fiddling I''d have to do would be extraordinary and it would still lack the visual impact. The komodo dragon however wouldn''t need that much. The biggest thing I''d have to do was making it warm blooded and let it inherit either a ice element or a fire element. Both would also work, but as the drawback of the komodo was its huge base price, it would be too much at this point. I realised something, how can I even try to plan when I''m not even fully aware of what''s going on? Sure, I was able to figure out what that group wanted, but the price was too heavy. I losT EveRY CReAtuRE I HAd AT THE FIRST FLOOR FOR FUCKS SAKE. I NEEDED TO LET THOSE FUCKING FEEL HOW I FELT. Calm now, calm, think happy things, their guts splattered all over the floor, the moths feasting upon their flesh, the spiderlings crawling out of their eyesockets, their eyeballs eaten away. Yes, happy thoughts, now to plan for that. I needed more intelligence, more information. I could see them through the eyes of my creatures and their senses, but none of them at the first floor had good hearing... I couldn''t truly risk sending the bats out either though, because they would just get burned away.... The solution however was really simple, I just had to fuse the worms with the bats, this way I would have both the hearing and the ability to hide in the walls and remain undetected, at least if I arranged it so, which I hadn''t done before. I''m so fucking stupid, I could''ve easily saved them by making them hide, by giving them instincts to hide in the walls when faced by humans!Stolen novel; please report. Okay, the base should totally be a worm, way easier to manipulate and already used to digging through the stone. Now adding the hearing capability of the bats to them. Since that''s based on ultrasonic sound being released and reflected back, I should make it something similar. How about making them sensitive to vibrations, which they can differentiate between species. That should work, yes. Now, this new sort, I''ll call them earworms, since they''re just my ears that are worms, I need to add it to the environment. To complete it, I made sure that my worm queen could also produce them. This way I''d be sure to never run out. It might take a while before they turn out to be useful, but I should have at least a day or two. Nooooooooo, I can''t even create a komodo dragon, I don''t have the necessary predatory cycle for it. There would be no food for them and they would starve (or just feast upon my mana, but can''t let that happen no). Those damned adventures, they really are horribly annoying, even after they left, I can''t even think like I normally do. Onto my next guess then, a bear should help at least. The benefit from a bear would be that I could bind my dungeon to him as his ''home'', while he could go outside to look for his own food. The komodo dragon was capable of this same feat, but not fit for the outside area, therefore impossible for me to use right now. I could use the extra mana from not having to turn the komodo warm-blooded for increasing elemental resistance. It''d be the best plan for now, even though it would drain me a lot. ..... Wrong wrong wrong, with my poisonbloodmoths, I needed to make my bear immune to their poison, otherwise he would only suffer. Guess I should do that first and with the leftover mana slowly raise his resistances. I surely hope that''s the last thing I forgot. My plan clear, or at least clear enough I hoped, the bear was created. I affectionately decided to call it Fluffy, or as I secretly called him, Death to all shitpieces of adventures. Faa would be a better name than Fluffy now that I think about it, and even the abbreviation makes sense, yes Faa would be his name from now on. As I bound Faa to the dungeon, I made the call to do nothing for a while. Can''t do much with my mana drained after all. Doing nothing however was just a way to say I won''t spend mana at this moment, I was going to do something at least. Boredom is an eternal enemy, and since I''ve already enough enemies, I should keep this one at bay at the very least. I decided to overview all my forces and what I had at this point.
Species?? Subspecies
Worm Worm queen, Hiveworm, Mutaworm, Earworm, Worm
Mouse Mouse (poison resistant)
Slime None
Bat King bat, Guardian Bat, Bat
Ant Bullet Ant,Worker ant(Pogonomyrmex maricopa)
Hornet Isle hornet
Spider Black Widow (hostbreeder)
Moth Poisonbloodmoth
Bear Faa (named)
I decided to make it so that only creatures that were either mutated or could actually damage a human would be displayed, otherwise I would drown in all the species and subspecies of flies, grasshoppers and who knows what else. It was quite a list already, compared to what a Heart should have based on dungeon age, but it should have thousands of species, not even listing all the subspecies, before I''m done. Next time I will organize it further, putting similar or related species together to have a more logical overview, but with only this little, it will do for now. I can''t wait for those dirtbags to return and not have them call me something like weirdass dungeon. The system part of my Heart actually recognized the mana with which they called me that horrible title, and could sense that that was what they would call me from now on. That''s why I hate titles, they do nothing except for making you known under the name of the title. If this continues, they might just place a sign outside, saying "Be warned, for this weirdass dungeon might confuse you by how weird it is!" The humiliation would kill me, if however I hadn''t killed them already by then. The best thing I could hope for now was getting a title that would override my current one and would actually help me out by having people fear it instead of laughing at it. I truly need to kill them, the sooner the better, I want revenge for that possible humiliation as well! Not a chapter Hey guys, sorry about the silence, got a new job last week, and oh man, it''s tiring. I''m exhausted most of the day, if not all day long. I wanted to (and even had ideas) to write the next chapter, but once I wanted to start... I blanked out. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. It''s certainly not on hiatus, or paused, just the posting is a bit messed up. I will try to get one out asap, hopefully two or so to make up for it Thanks for reading and still sticking around! I appreciate all the reviews, comments, readers and everything Chapter 12: Fuck them! It seems they returned earlier than expected, it was only two days. Faa had returned several hours ago to rest, the evening nearing, so that was a good thing, but the question remained. Why where those fuckers back so early? There was something amiss with their formation, there were only four of them now, one of the tankers was missing. Most of my creatures were still not replenished, however both the earworms and poisonbloodmoths were doing their jobs. They all looked kind of itchy, scratching their heads, or any exposed skin really and I could hear them. Once specific line caught my attention. "Fuck this dungeon man, why did Steve had to get bitten by that thing? We need to capture one alive, since Adrian can''t even heal it, what the fuck was that thing. It looked so useless." Most of the rest was more complaining about how they could''ve be gone and got their reward instead of having to return to this place. Confused, but delighted, I inquired the wormqueen what is was that she had done. I too shared the thought that the hiveworm would be useless against them, no matter how much I hate the thought, but it seems I underestimated their usefulness. It had bitten into him and at that same moment a couple of mutaworms had been able to find their way into the humans bloodstream. Most likely they were now infesting the human and giving him his deserved pain. Dead was unlikely, at least immediate dead, but with a bit of luck, not like I had any, the mutaworms would multiply as well and invest him further, eating away his body. Because of the fact that only the hiveworm would count as their home, they were now just living in a prey and could eat away all they want. It also explained why the guy couldn''t be healed. Sure, his wound could heal, even the inner ones, but as long as the worms remained, they would continue eating, laying devastation to his body. Oh boy, I liked how this turned out, I will still slaughter all them, but at least they did make me find out something more of the abilities of my creatures.
Title acquired: Bearass Dungeon
FUCKERS!!!! WHAT DID THEY DO THIS TIME!!! Fuck them, they saw the bearmarks Faa left and named me something ridiculous again. It seemed like a joke to them, they even were sniggering slightly after they gave me that curse. Fuck all adventures, awake from your slumber and go kill them! Prove that you''re worth your name you worthless, humilating bear! That''s the least you could do.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. I should have never made this bear, it''s only getting worse. At the very least the faces of those retarded mongrels stopped smiling once they saw Faa approach. Not wanting to risk anything, I also recalled some black widows from the second floor to attack. Small, but since even the hiveworm was useful at this stage, a creature made for infesting should totally be. This fight was way more glorious than the one against my hiveworm. Faa charged at their tanker on all fours and just swatted him away, immediately going for that annoying firethrowing mage, must have felt my hate for him. That tanker didn''t seem damaged truly, since he was already running back after being smashed into a wall, but it was too late. That piece of shit already caught a bear to his face, most of it being ripped away by the teeth, leaving nothing but a deformed bleeding mass of goo and a scream. How lovely that was, they''re getting what they deserve. Faa did suffer for it, the tanker stabbing his sword into the left hind leg and catching a mana missile or two to his back. His attention now turned to the tanker, he tried to stand up on his hind legs to smash the annoying fly down with his front legs, however he fell down again. It seems they know how to fight, just fucking great, hitting the critical places. However they were still a bad position, they only had one tanker left, facing a bear, their aoe twat was down and their healer had to focus on either the tank or the twat. Pleased by the thought they would least at least one of them, I noticed something even more satisfying. Pest number 1 was not as flexibly moving as he could, must be the poisonbloodmoths. I saw some even land on pest number two on his face and infesting his wounds even further while slowly feasting upon him. Pest three was focused on healing pest one and pest four was damaging Faa, but his massive vitality helped. Due to the poison, the fucker couldn''t dodge or block my little bear of death properly and kept suffering damage, slightly more each time since his armour was getting destroyed. Faa however was also in a bad state, his left hind leg damaged, his whole back and front covered with holes, slashes on his face and his snout almost cut away. The black widows had arrived, so I assigned them to just lay their eggs wherever. The attention of both parties fighting focused solely on each other, none of them saw the spiders crawling against their clothes, neither did they feel them, either because of the thick fur or the paralyzed skin. A couple decided to bite into the still screaming body on the ground, it would certainly be a good breeding ground. The spiders managed to also lay their eggs into the neck of the healfucker before piece of shit four shouted something annoying, but wise, but still annoying. "Retreat, there''s something else attacking us! PULL BACK, WE CAN''T WIN LIKE THIS!" There seemed to be some discussion going on about leaving the one dying, they seemed reluctant so I decided to help a bit by having Faa charge while they were distracted. It was not a beautiful charge, not even devastating, the hind leg slugging, but it worked. Forced to retreat, they left my possible first victim behind. They do seem pissed about it, as they should be, they need to suffer even more than I did. Cry and weep, hate and feed, feed me with your attempts, feed me with your mana and bodies. I''ll grow stronger the more you hate me, the more you fight me, the more time passes. They still gave me that FUCKING TITLE, but Faa redeemed himself for that at the very least. I won''t help him, since it''s his fault, but I won''t kill him either, as his reward. Damaged, he brought back part of the newfound body, whos screaming was slowly degrading to a small whimper, especially once his legs were torn off. Somehow Faa seemed to know what was a wise part to eat, and what not, namely the infested areas. None of the black widows on his body seemed to find a good place to lay their eggs, even not in all the wounds he had, maybe they just don''t like bear? Instead, they were fighting each other, trying to lay their eggs into the other. I know had a beer with flees, spiderflees, eating each other. I was tired after all this, not physically, since how can I be, but mentally. My creatures got destroyed, I had to rebuild, another fight happened and all that under the stress of being insulted by MERE FUCKING PINKSKINNED APES. At least there had been no annoying wind sounds the last few days, time to get some rest, I decided after hiding the entrance by a few slabs of rocks. Faa should still be able to get out, but at least there wasn''t a gaping hole anymore. This should hold out well for a couple of days while I just come to my sense again, slowly developing further on automatic spending. Chapter 13: Ideas The little hatchlings coming out of the body from the dead adventure were several times bigger than their parents, around two inches on average. Even though this would give them a huge advantage over the other insects, they still weren''t the apex predatory species of them, mostly because it was a single minded organism versus a hive minded organism. Faa had survived, which was a relieve since now I wouldn''t have to creature a new strong creature for a while, even though he''d become handicapped. His hind leg hadn''t healed properly, making him limp slightly and there were several bald patches on his back from where he got hit by mana missiles. His snout was almost gone, but it was more of the outer aspect than that his sense of smell had suffered. It was not optimal, he wasn''t nowhere near it, but he lived. He was still in a good enough shape to gather his own food outside, and in return from being damaged, he did get battle experience. Overall, I was satisfied with it, he wasn''t worthless yet after all. He had been lucky with having a food resource nearby, namely the now dead adventurer. His screaming had become boring after a while, but I can''t really blame him, being eaten away alive by the hatchlings and poisonbloodmoths. He was also being eaten by Faa, but by then he already died to all his wounds and pure suffering. With the mage dying and the battle, lots of extra mana was released in the air, which had been used to develop the lightcycle stone on the second floor. Unconscious spending wins, otherwise it would all have gone to waste. The room itself was pretty vast already and now with a lightsource, I could truly begin. Tentaclegrass began sprouting all over the place, while at the same time, the lake began expanding as well. The room being hundred yards long, around twenty yards in width, being oval in shape and twenty-five yards high at the centre was good enough for now. The lake was in the exact centre of the room, at the end compassing a diameter of twelve yards while being seven yards deep, being circular. The habitats of all my little creatures had been settled, which meant, all over the place. With tentaclegrass being among the predators and not just prey for the current population, I needed something more... harmless. Or better, harmful. I had a skeleton, which is a walking empty shell of a human basically. I could fill the "empty shell" with the grass, covering him like a skin. I would need a food source as well for them, something that won''t whittle. Or something that would regenerate, regrow. I could use the mice population, make them live in his chest, along with flies and the like and all that die will become food. Even their faeces would be helpful. For the fun of it, I should make some spiders live in his eye sockets as well. It would definitely be a more harmful creature, but this one in particular wouldn''t solve the upcoming food shortage by predating upon everything else, but add to it by predating on the same prey. I had a lake, I could add things like frogs and toads now easily, there were enough flies and the like to feed them. Yes, that would work, operation food started! Adding a bunch of [breeding places] for the flies and a couple [nests] for toads and frogs and done.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Guess I''ll have to make all my water creatures attuned to sweet water instead of salt, let''s start with some plankton, as a preparation for all my other little creatures. Make it also so that they can clobber up to some size, as a boss of some sort. Not that a plankton boss would be worth fighting, but it''s fun to play with. Half an inch tall, oval body, four limbs serving as arms and legs and sensory organs a top of where it''s ''head'' would be. Make it appear randomly and it''s a fun way to play hide and seek, if only it wasn''t too easy for me. I internally sighed, agreeing with them that being alone like this is way too boring. Wait, who did I agree with again...? There''s no one else but me, NO ONE I SAY, THERE''RE NO VOICES, I''M ALONE, FINALLY FREE, NO FAIRES, NO VOICES!!! I could still feel something around, nagging at me, but that was just the wind, the stress and pressure of being assaulted. They had not been the strongest kind of party I had encountered compared to my previous existence while I was enslaved to that arshole of a fairy, but currently they were dangerous enough, so it was understandable I was hearing non-existent things, very understandable. It happened to humans all the time, even going as far as them being possessed. Now, I as a Heart, could of course not be compared to lowly life forms like them, but it would be ridiculous to push aside a simple explanation as being overstressed, understaffed, in danger and all that. I guess I should put my tentaclegrass covered skeleton, or skelegrass as I would call it, at the second floor, due to the food source and having a second more suited opponent there. Hoarding up everything in one location is a bad way of management. Sure, it''ll make it almost invincible to conquer, but it''s only almost. Once they would make it past that, it''d be a walk in the park for them. The trick is to make them waste resources, energy, mana and whatever else they can to make it easier for yourself to win. Make it always more difficult than they can handle, but only by a small margin, and keep increasing the difficulty per area. The other way, to ''train'' invaders, is to make it slightly easier than they can handle at their max, but that would put me in trouble after all. Hell, I won''t keep it to a small margin, but I will still keep the difficulty increasing. The undead have a very good point in them being inexhaustible, making them very suited to assault and warfare, thus increasing difficulty, but without a way to naturally replenish them, it''s just another expense. The best way to do that, would be putting them in an area thoroughly travelled through and either make them infest the yet living or make it so that bodies naturally turn undead. Or, of course, both. I think I just got an idea for my third floor. It will be a gigantic poison filled area, with a mixture of a magic formation and mutated spores. The magic formation would turn everything that died there into an undead, while the spores would infest everything that would die later on to turn it into a sort of zombie, making it return to the third floor by the ''instinct'' of the spore. The poison in the air would kill living beings, which would turn undead, killing more living beings. By the time they found a way to bypass the poison, and even later, to get through the undead, the spores will have infected them and weakened, so they''ll die quicker later on. I like planning so much, it feels great to think about how I could become, how I could grow and what I could do. The pit would be a separated room on the third floor, since there would be no benefit in letting people accidently access it, or actually, let them die for all I care, I just couldn''t let my little ants and hornets die. They need to kill and grow after all. The entrance will be hidden on the bottom of the lake, to prevent any leaking from water and/or poison air, the path should be a gooseneck, about two feet wide and I''ll just figure out the other details later. I still need to fix this, can''t be procrastinating creating more immediate doom in favour of later doom after all. Chapter 14: A new goal About a week in building the third level while enhancing the area of the second floor, I got a bunch of visitors again. This time however it were not the filthy humans, but an even filthier species, elves. Sure, humans are all head over heels for them, admiring their ''beauty'' and ''grace'' and who knows what else, but they''re just filth. All going about how they should protect nature and uphold the balance, while destroying everything that gets in their way. This time they even had a couple of goblin slaves with them. Oh how ''mighty'' and ''just'' they were. They cried rivers of blood, or created rivers of blood if one of their own gets enslaved, but they, the ''righteous'' are exempt of their own rules. By the looks of it they came to investigate, a party of four with three slaves. I suspect the slaves are for sacrificial needs by the looks of them. Goblins aren''t the strongest nor the most intelligent species around, but this is just pathetic. Starved, almost on the brink of death, it cannot be said they are for fighting, especially not with an amputee among them. This along the fact that they were dressed up in war gear while at the same time setting up camp would lead me to conclude it''s investigation as for why they''re here. Most likely has to do with the annoying freaks from earlier. When it became night time, they made the decision to send in the amputee. Just him, so most likely the first recon, although it won''t necessarily give much information if he doesn''t return... Or it gives only the information I want to be known. In a hurry I called upon all the creatures spread around the first floor to hide themselves, except for Faa and the slimes, he could stay in the former heart room while the slimes could just do whatever. It would be weird for creatures first there to suddenly disappear. The gob might not pick up on that, but the filthy elves-s will. I don''t know their party formation, but I guess I''ll have to focus on the backline which most of the time has the healers and the ranged damage dealers. Pain in the ass, both of those. It was quite unsettling to just let the gob run around, even though it almost got itself killed by tripping over a rock, not properly being able to catch itself with only a left arm and basically landing face first in a slime. Must be one of the unluckier few as well, belonging to one of the tribes without night vision in a cave this dark. It was quickly able to get back on its feet again, I think the melting away of the face by acid did help with the speed at which it was accomplished. Really courageous, or just plain dumb, to continue after that though. Must''ve been thought properly to never disobey an order. It did scurry back as fast as it could after seeing Faa seemingly sleeping. Mission accomplished or something along that that line of thought most likely. They didn''t come out of their camp though, but I guess it''s all fine, gives me some more time to prepare. I suspect they will wait for morning to come, take some rest this day. My guess was wrong, they just went in slightly after midnight, I could hear them now that they were in range of my earworms, but it wasn''t really interesting. Something about it should''ve been a... 70B party like them at least or whatever nonsense they''re spewing. Seems some sort of ranking about how strong they are, no use to get worked up over that since it won''t hold any meaning in here though. Strength isn''t the only factor in a fight after all. The slimes still got wiped, one tank, one archer, one healer and one mage, the standard set up basically, with some green mules following, picking up the cores of the slimes. I had learned from my last encounter to hide all my worms, and even though three hiveworms were following beneath the rock, it still counted as out of sight and hidden. As gobs were slowly getting behind, due to them having to split up and picking up all the cores, I sent out the signal for the first floor black widows to drop down from the ceiling they had clung to and snatch them away. Each one now the size of a hand in pure body size, there were thirteen of them in total. Four to each goblin. It wasn''t a fight, just an abduction. They all got bitten and tied up, in that order. It was really settling to see how my eight legged creatures crawled slowly over the faces of the fear stricken boogers, which were flailing their limbs all on instinct. It didn''t matter however, as they were nearly not quick or agile enough to hit the black widows. Wrapped up in a slightly reddish pulsing kind of silk, they were stuck against the walls, scraping against the rough floor with their heads.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. It didn''t take long, however it was more than enough for the main group to reach the final room of the first floor. I didn''t give Faa much of a chance this round, last time was more luck than anything else. The bastards tried to land a hidden attack by launching both an arrow and a firebolt, assuming my little bear had been sleeping. However of course he wasn''t. Faa dodged the bolt going for his head and caught the arrow with his paw. Not caught as in grasping it, no, caught as in purposely letting it strike the paw. The fight officially had begun. That tanker, a rather bulky treesucker, was shouting some more bullshit, something related to Faa''s mom not being able to be given shade by the world true due to her size. I guess normally it might''ve been effective, but glorious hate for every invader beats a meagre taunt. Growling Faa declared his challenge, slowly walking forward, trying not to give away his weak limb from the previous encounter. It was both easier and more difficult with another hurt limb. At one side, the limping could be accounted to the new wound, at the other side, he now had two injured limps to work with. At the same time, the bloodsuckermoths at the ceiling began fluttering their wings, making the poison rain down in incredible amounts. A shield however was erected quickly by the only twig looking one, the healer. The first load had landed though, and the moths fluttered around, continuously spreading more poison, forcing the healer to keep his shield up. It all did do some wounds and caused some blisters and the feeling of burning skin, but it didn''t hold them up. Within a mere two seconds, their focus was all on Faa again, the fat barklover didn''t even needed half a second. Smashing his mace against the ground along with his rectangular shield in a rhythm to keep the bears attention on him, he didn''t make a beginners mistake to slam his shield and weapon against each other. Normally, that would be a better idea, but in a cave, it''s just plain stupid. The archer took a sip of something weird and mana seemed to swell up all around her. Oh, I can use this, mana, come to papa. It didn''t diminish the effect of the drink, but all the wasteful mana was already mine, let alone the mana on release. The mage and healer seemed to have switched roles of who''s upholding the shield. Now free, he started to chant, which caused a yellow aura to envelop the stickshooters bow while a slightly greenblueish glow surrounded bark. Bark smirked, making his ugly mug even worse and started to talk. "Oi, you piece of shit, I know you''re listening. You filthy shit of a fairy, keep your dungeon in line. We''ll just walk through this garbage and sliiiiiiiiiiightly chip the core, just as a warning because of..." Kill him, kill the bastard, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill. I''m gonna fucking murder them all!!! Saying I''m still a fucking slave to those pissdrinking donkeyjerking asskissing pieces of bartlosiaaelfiajdlakadfj. I let the hiveworms come out of the ground, two of them biting into the healer, the third into the mage. At the same time a widow scurried over to each treefucking piece of shit, with four extra on the tank. Faa charged, only going half as fast as originally, but it''s still around eight hundred and fifty pounds moving towards you at a dangerous speed. Stickshooter managed to shoot that fucking charged up arrow before reloading and running while shooting at the spider assaulting her. She managed to shoot off two legs, both on the same side with a single shot, but it didn''t stop the black widow. The concentration broken, the shield came down as well, the countless of moths descending upon their prey. They were however an easy target for that damned rotten thing called a mage. Blasting his firebolts along with mana missiles, the moths started first to fall by tens, then by hundreds. Once his hands and face were slowly being eaten away and sucked dry from his blood, the chanting of spells transitioned into the chanting of pleas of mercy. Bark rolled out of the way of the charge of Faa, time enough to try out a slash, but having other priorities, he ran towards the healer. "Esreal, Himera, I see a hole here! We can get out of here right now and rest up at the safe spot at the start of the next floor! We don''t need to defeat the floor boss to move on!" That damned archer, noticing something like that in the middle of me trying to slaughter them. Bark yelled something affirmative back, so I had Faa focus on him as I sent out two more widows to deal with that archer. What I did not expect to happen was to see the healer being flown through the air, smashing into the archer who even more unexpectedly caught him. They started to ran towards the pit, not minding it, I only issued the order to continue chasing those two until they actually went down. Bark pulled out a different flask than seen before, splattering it all over the mage and hauling him around his shoulders like a scarf. It slowed him down, but only barely noticeable, so either he had immense strength, or it had something to do with that flask. Even with all the years, it''s not like I had seen everything there is to be. Shaking away those sight thoughts, I made Faa go after bark, but in slightly wider arc than necessary, giving the feeling of a slightly bigger path towards the objective. Faa growled again, restating his challenge and charged towards the opened path. "Jump already you fools! Don''t wait for me" he yelled his legs pumping, moving his body forward in a death race. Another aura, this time pink of colour, surround bark as the archer and healer jumped down towards their escape and towards safety. Bark barely managed to throw his mage in as well before the paw, still holding the first arrow, slammed into his chest. Panting, heaving, a slight smile crept upon his face, feeling as he had achieved something, saving his teammates. "Now it''s just you and me you piece of shit, I''ll teach you why you don''t mess with my friends" "ESREAL, HELP ME. IT HURTS, IT HUUUURTS. IT''S EVERYWHERE, IT''S INSIDE OF ME, HELP, HELLLLLB" "ES, ME FIRST, HELP ME. IT HURST SO MUCH, AAAAAAAAAARGH" "AEAGEAHDOAFIJELKADFAOIH, AOEIJALDFKJAOEIDJFALK. LIAJEFKDAHEOIFDAELF" Shocked, no, stunned, the horror on his face was apparent. It was such a soul calming sight. It''s what you deserve. As a small game, I decided to let Faa stand by for now, seeing what would happen. "What''s going on everyone? What''s wrong?????!!?? It should be a safe zone right?" He pulled out a round bottle, around two inches in diameter, opened the lit and threw it down the shaft. A small light illuminated everything, including his party members being impaled while there was a wave of black surrounding them and washing over them, colouring red on places where his friends should be. At the same time, the buzzing of the sea grew louder and louder, descending upon the places where the bodies should be, the screaming transformed into a muffled sound, as if the mouths were stuffed. "no, no, no, this can''t be, this should not be, what''s going on here?!?" mumbling to himself, broken by the unexpected, by the horror of watching his friends being eaten alive, he had fallen to his knees on the edge of the pit, the whole scenery still illuminated by the orb of light. "I... we... it was wrong, we should''ve... no, just... it''s.... no, no, no, gon-e.... Himera, Slemar, Esthina.... you... ........ no... not gone, just... illusions, yes, illusions, must be... too strong, illusions, yes, all fake, still safe there" The fool kept rambling on and on, but I could make up that he doubted my abilities, so I Faa just pushed him into the pit. He laughed, he laughed and laughed and laughed as he was eaten away, as if it was nothing. This form of entertainment isn''t bad either, breaking their minds. It gives interesting interactions. The swarm of ants and wasps kept on eating, feasting while I kept on enjoying and they kept on screaming for absolution, for the end. Must be painful have a wasp dig into your thigh, slowly corroding your muscles while at the same time ants were eating away your liver. I urged them to save the brain, heart and lungs for last, since those would kill the intruders a lot quicker once gone. Oh, blood, tears and the broken, a feast for the mind. I had a goal, a goal except surviving, no way I would want to miss out on this experience again. The sweet taste of revenge, how good would it be to get a fairy like this. They say revenge is a dish best served hot, and they same the same for cold. I wonder, why not make it a full course meal, why only settle for one version if you can have it all. Chapter 15: A goblin? The time to prepare once people enter the room with the entrance to the next floor I deemed too short. It only had seven rooms before the former heart chamber, with four of those rooms directly having access to it. I caved in those previous pathways, and made the outer two rooms each have a two tunnels to two different rooms and each room after that had access to again two new rooms. This way, I had a set up of one room, two rooms, four rooms, four rooms, eight rooms all the way up to sixty-four rooms. Two of those last row traced back to the first row with four rooms. After all, only half of those were connected to new rooms. Hel, this is confusing, even though I know the lay-out by Heart. The last change is having those both rooms connect to the stair room, even though it lacked any stairs to the next level. The tunnels connecting were hidden beneath a slate of stone, made out of slimes. It was kind of iffy to create the new slime [spawn] in such a way that they would form a wall like that, and even more to let them recognize Faa as one of their own, letting him pass through. I was satisfied about the set up of the first floor finally, a total of one hundred and thirty-two floors. I had put more normal slime [spawns], again in a network above the rooms so that the slimes would randomly drop, hopefully on the faces of idiots invading. The light from outside didn''t protrude much farther into rooms, only slightly illuminating up to the second row of four rooms, after that, it was complete darkness, for creatures with normal sight at least. My black widows were mostly unaffected, not because their vision wasn''t impaired, but because they had other ways to deal with lack of sight. Their webs cast out and waiting for disturbances and the hairs on their body picking up air movements were reliable tools for them. The worms never had eyes to see with, so to them it didn''t make any difference at all. I didn''t rely on just those species however. It has been proven that, even though possible, it was lacking to properly take out others. Nothing new there, it was to be expected, but a reminder has to be given. I started with creatures already adapted to the dark. I let more bats take nest, along with moles. Given the rock, I made some modifications to the moles, along with a taste for more than just worm meat. The moles would be digging tunnels and small pits near the surface which would act as traps, so they could eat whatever fell into it. With both their teeth and claws hardened enough to cut through rock, iron would be possible as well, let alone leather. I also decided to create my first goblin creature. It did cost some heavy modifications, but it was enough to set the body up for a Dungeon Lord. A creature like this was well worth the costs.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The main body would be hidden once again, but unlike with the worm queen, there was no hivemind. It took direct control over the creature, almost as if was the same individual, which it was at some level. First of all, the basic species had only three changes, necessary but nothing interesting. Just being able to act like air was water, or water was air, however you see it. The second had to do with the skin. It was half transparent, half grey and another half pink. I changed the pink into grey and dark purple, to more go up into the colour of the cave itself. I made one last change to the base creature, this time to the digestive track, adapting it more to meat in all its forms, which was necessary in my dungeon, based on survival. The new Dungeon Lord I gave two heads, next to each other, I also slightly enlarged it, while turning the skin into having steel like properties. The original skin was already rough and similar to sand paper, but more painful, but now it acted like proper defence as well. It looked flabby from itself, so I tightened it into hard, dense muscles, making it more agile as well. It had no need to use vision, as it would act on smell, hearing and an organ to sense minute changes in the electric fields generated by all living creatures, this was true for the base species, while it was enhanced on the Dungeon Lord. I should''ve brought Faa directly down towards the second floor before tinkering with all the slimes and waste mana, but it had been two days already since I began messing around and I did not expect this development. I underestimated my own genialness. I made a platform out of those modified slimes, this time temporary disabling the recognition, which was now an easy feat due to the tinkering, and let it descend once Faa stepped on it. Once Faa was on the second floor, I enabled the recognition again, and place them in front of the access second floor. The recognition would count for all dungeon creatures, successfully covering up the pathway. Back to the goblin creature, I only had one thing left before creating it, which was naming it. The base species was a goblin shark, so I guess I could go with Goblin Shark Overlord. Creating several goblin sharks to roam around through all the rooms except the first four rows, with the Overlord version roaming in the stair room and the rooms giving access to it and the rooms connected to that. At the same time, I had four new bodies for my third floor. Picked clean, with small scratch and bite marks all over the bones, I had them transported to the second floor and turned two of them into skinskeletons, skelegrass version, while leaving the other two as regular skeletons. The skinskeletons weren''t compatible with my idea for the third floor, they were however stronger than the regular ones, while also having natural camouflage, if laying down. The third floor was slowly being created, now spanning over hundred and fifty yards long while being ten yards wide. It wasn''t a straight corridor however. The walls were roughed, the ground mostly uneven, rocks, stalactites and stalagmites obstructing the way, while also being sometimes loosely attached, prone to fall down or be knocked over by the slightest touch or disruption. It was never a good idea to just have some sort of straight line however, thus it was mostly bait. Most basic undead even have trouble facing off on uneven ground, due to their inability to control muscles, or even own muscles to control. Every so often, a couple yards, or even just a couple feet apart, small corridors would be placed. Some hosting a skeleton, I had two already to place, but others leading into a room filled with whatever undead I can think of. Most of that still had to be done, mana expenses were ever growing, just to finance my frantic building, but so far it has been proven to be worth it. The miasma and spores were slowly being created, filling the air, soaking through the stone. Slowly, over time, the air would become poisonous, turning the living dead and the dead unliving. The first spores were the original ones, mostly. A tiny bit of messing made it so that the infected creatures would turn really undead, but the targets were still the original ones. All insects, mostly ants, but also the a few for the hornets. It was unlikely that one of those would be able to come to the third floor, but you never know what might happen. It might very well be possible that a few get dragged along with some savages invading, accidently giving me more power to kill the intruders. I should create a lich once I''ve the body of a necromancer. I could create it myself, but in return it would take my mana to create summons. If I used a ritual, mana costly, to create a necromancer into a lich, it would be able to regenerate its own mana due to depending on the death energy from its own body. It had to be living before to convert that energy, as well as familiarity with the dead and death, as well necromancy. I would gain access to an ever-growing source of minions at zero cost over time. Investing once a giant amount of mana or investing smaller amounts continuously, in the end the former is more cost-effective. Intermission "I advocate that we change the current system of party ranking. Currently it''s ranked S, A, B, C, D, E, F, G with S being the highest. I find it inaccurate to display the actual power of a party. I was part of an B ranked party, we could face a minotaur with ease, but other B ranked parties I''ve seen were having trouble. I''ve also seen B ranked parties who could face up to five minotaurs at the same time without trouble. This happens in all the ranks, even item dependency makes a difference. Some parties rely heavily on items, while others do without. As long as there are items they can depend on, it makes no difference, but once they run out? If it''s an expedition and they can''t refill, their power is heavily restricted. I vote for a combination of two different rankings, depending on battle power, and the item dependency. Item dependency will be rated with S, A, B, C, D, E, and F. S will stand for 0% of the strength coming from items A will stand for 0-20%Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. B will stand for 20-40% C will stand for 40-60% D will stand for 60-80% E will stand for 80-100% F will stand for 100% This can be tested by giving a party or person a certain amount of items while they applies for an upgrade in rank and seeing how much of it has been used by the end of the test. Having someone like a field alchemist in your party can up your rank by one, due to being able to refill your items at any time, but not more than one rank, no matter how good that person is. After all, once the provider of items dies, they will no longer have access to the items produced. The combat power will be ranked from 1-100 with 1 being the highest rank. This will be based on how many parties of their calibre are needed to defeat a low grade adult dragon." "Excuse me speaker, but how would you prove that part?" "Dear councilmember, that is fairly easy. We''ve several documents and witnesses and reports on what forces are needed to defeat such a creature. Not only by humans, but also by goblins, minotaurs, ogres and many more creatures. Being able to face ten goblins would be awarded a rank 100. The demands on the adventures might be higher this way, after all they can less easy become one, but this will in return protect them better. They will be better trained and less prone to die like this. We will provide training of course for all those who want to join, against a price. We too have to keep existing. The overall quality will go up, the deaths will go down, there will be a more accurate way to judge strength and also be more specific in requests. No longer will a ''A rank'' party be asked to complete something far away from all civilization while they rely heavily on items. The right party for the job. This is what I advise and suggest, ladies and gentlemen of the council, I hope you accept my submission." The minutes of the proposal to change the ranking system of adventures. Chapter 16: Skeletons family Thinking about undead minions, I recalled something quite important when it comes to regular skeletons. They''re fairly weak to blunt attacks. The effectiveness of stabbing and slashing was heavily diminished, since there was a lack of tissue to cut, but maces, hammers and even axes had increased effectiveness. Such a obvious weakness should be covered. The skelegrasses didn''t have this issue, partly because the roots of the tentaclegrass would keep the bones together, but also because the fact it was actually a skeleton was being hidden by that same grass. The same approach wouldn''t work on my third floor, because of the poisonous air and the lack of camouflage while also if someone even was able to get to the third floor, they had learned to deal with them. Pondering over how to negate the blunt weakness, I recalled slimes. They had a pretty high resistance to physical attacks, while it was lower to stabbing than the rest, due to their nucleus. Their goo itself would stop all slashes and smashes, while a stab could penetrate it, but not reach that far. Their weakness was mostly in magic which could easily obliterate to goo and destroy the core, or beings strong enough to force their weapon on. Now, normally that last wasn''t much of a challenge, since most slimes were low leveled, being the weak creatures they were, but in a protected environment or just with a chance to protect their nuclei they could grow strong. By combining a slime and a skeleton, I would be able to cover up the weakness of both, the remaining question was, what would the base be. I decided it to be the skeleton, due to the floor it would be on, but also because of the movement benefits it had compared to the slime and a slime would be killed once it''s core was broken. A skeleton was only actually killed once it''s magic connection was gone, even when it was broken. It would normally break the connection, getting crushed, but placed inside a slime, it would be kept together while the slime could provide naturally generated mana to keep the magic connection intact. The nuclei would be placed in the skull, which would be slightly thickened to prevent it being crushed easily. There would also be some goo in the skull, acting as brain fluid for protection with the nucleus as brain, similar to what a human has, to prevent rocking it. It being placed in the skull would also mean it wasn''t a clear nor easy target, which also meant that magic''s normal effectiveness against slimes was greatly reduced. If you can''t destroy the core, it will continue existing. As a benefit, the slime was corrosive to anything it didn''t recognise as its own body or as ''friendly'', such as the ground it needed to walk on. This would make it even more difficult to fight the creature, since it could, and most likely would, accidently sling slime around while swinging it''s weapon. This was the second creature is my skinskeleton line, and I named it slimeleton, by lack of a better name.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. While I used one of the two skeletons available for this experimental creature, I was wondering how it come I hadn''t heard anything yet from those related to the adventures. It was clear that both parties had some sort of connection to each other, most likely belonging to the guild, therefore it was unusual that there had been nothing for the last couple days. Possibly they thought it just took longer to finish, but come on, I killed them, they won''t return. It is weird that they haven''t considered this possibility and thus deemed me as weak. I shall teach them the cost of underestimating me. Sure, normally I would like it, but who likes it to be mistaken for a fly when you''re a goddamn tiger for fucks sake. It''s not even in the same class, and that''s what bothers me the most, they will pay, with their blood of course. Meanwhile, there has been an interesting change in the bats on the first floor. They were sticking to the goblin sharks, almost as if they were remora. Basically this divided the bats on the first floor into two types, the remora type and the flying type. The remora bats still could fly, they just rather stick to the shark and move around like this, picking up the remains of the food. Due to it being a commensal relationship, it wasn''t like the goblin sharks didn''t benefit. Their natural ability to sense minute changes in electrical fields only applied to a relatively small radius, while the bats had a rather large range, therefore acting as scouts. Relatively small still meant a couple metres all around them, after that it became less accurate the more distance it was. The remora bat colony was quite small compared to the flying one, because the amount of bats on a shark was limited, not by space but by the amount of leftovers. This caused all goblin sharks to have between five and fifteen bats on them. The Overlord didn''t have any bats on it, I suspected it had to do with them being far too weak to gain some sort of consent and ending up as food instead. I had also gained an idea for my fourth floor, but I would put that on hold until my first three floors would be completely finished. Since I deemed the first floor done with the introduction of the goblin sharks, there were only the second and third floor left, with the third floor actually being the easiest one to finish. Half a week passed again and this time around I had visitors once more. It had been enough time to finish my third floor, doubling the length of the corridor while filling it with crooks, paths and more structures. The air had fully become lethal and the magic formation to turn all the fallen in undead was set up as well. The only exception to it was necromancers and priests, they would be exempt from turning undead by the automated process. Both had their own powers over the undead and specializing and refining them myself would turn them much more useful. Anything else would turn into an undead, with skeleton as the base. They would first be zombified skeletons, which had two benefits. First was the infection benefit, biting living people would infect them, which would slowly turn them undead, firstly by stopping the body processes. This was useful since an infection could turn a living person in an undead admits their ranks, while skipping the actually being dead step. It was a slow process however, taking up half a day up to several, but why would it be a bad thing to have. The second benefit was that the skeletons were basically meat skeletons, part of the skinskeleton family. It acted as an armour against blunt attacks. It would still rot, making it less effective as armour but more to being poisonous. Meat skeletons would rot less quickly and be more agile than a zombified skeleton, which had no control over the flesh surrounding itself, literally dragging dead weight around, but both were inferior to slimeleton in armour qualities. The second floor now had a couple of trees and greater flowers. The flowers were actually both smaller and bigger versions of the venus flytrap. The smaller, more ordinary ones were basically the same as one could find in some regions. Along with it was a family member more accustomed to swamp like areas, placed near the lake. The bigger version was up to three feet high and the clamping leaves were disguised as its flowers, making it all the more beautiful yet deadly as well. The clamp was a tad over a feet big, with enough speed to shut itself within a second after something touched it. The stems were reinforced as if they were bark, to prevent them from being cut down instantly. They weren''t the plants most suited for combat or annihilation, but they did to their name just. It was a trap. The trees were mostly ordinary trees, elk, oak, pine, just nothing special. The only different tree was related to the treants, but yet not one. It couldn''t quite be called sentient but it did have some sort of awareness. Placed in the middle of seven surrounding flytraps, it would protect them instinctively as they belong to its ''domain''. Nothing better to see someone trying to cut off the trap and then seeing the realisation dawn upon him at the same time a branch dawns upon him, smashing his skull. It had cost me quite some mana to transform an oak tree into this trent, but it would be a surprise, since it was unlike the other creatures. With all this, I think I''m ready for these new arrivals. Update note, hiatus until further notice Iapologize my readers. I''m sincerely happy to still see you guys follow my story,and even see that the count is slowly increasing, however, until further notice I''ll have to stop writing. It''salready beena while due to several personal circumstances, of which job problemsanda break upare two, but now it''s gotten even worse. My laptop doesn''t properly workanymore. My left shiftand mya keyaren''t workingany longer. If you''re wondering how I''m typing this, everya you see isa combination of ctrl+v. If I''m typingand want to pasteana, on here it''llautomatically change it into bold text,and in word it''ll change the text colour, size, lettertypeand change it into boldas well. Italso prevents me from typinga capitala. Thisannoyns me greatly, making it impossible for me to write, since everything has to be changed. If Iaccidently missclick, Iaccidently opena new tab on hereas well. I trieda couple things to fix my laptop, but I''ll just need to replace the whole thing for it to workagain, since I cannot even connectan extern keyboard (or mouse for that fact).The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. However, this does not mean I will quit the story. The ideasare there, I''m still making notes, reviewing what I''vealready writtenand planning on rewriting it to changea couple things I''ve learned thanks to theadvise of youall. If you''veany suggestions, questions, wishes oranything, justask me here. I''m debating on if I should releasea ''bundle'' of poemsand the like I''ve written. I''d like your guys opinion on that, for which I''ll puta poll in (wish I could have the option to show it in the end instead of the beginning). I thank youall for your supportand I love you guys. Keep on reading! Chapter 17: Invasion Sending out a couple of ear worms to scout, I learned several facts worthy of notice. First of all, this time it wasn''t just a regular party that came to explore, but a whole expedition. Several parties, all higher than the previous ones as they bragged, along with several support divisions. It seemed they even brought people to build a wall, to prevent both people accidently wandering into the dungeon but also to prevent my creatures for streaming out. I wondered how they thought a wall would stop me, most of my creatures weren''t even bound to walking on the ground. Only the skeletons and Faa would possibly be stopped by the wall, and that would only be so if it could not be destroyed. After a second, I recalled something one of those tiny fuckers said to me ages ago. It had to do with that none of them had ever allowed a dungeon to let their creatures roam free. Only those with a core could go outside. Even the dungeons broken free from influence, or gone mad normally adhered to this rule, because it was a lie they had been fed for their whole existence after all, for which I''ll pay those abominations back. I called my ear worms back, deeming I had learned enough for now and not willing to risk a possible discovery. If they were building a wall, they would not likely take half-assed measures in preparing their camp. I was slightly worried how they would fare against my goblin sharks, since they hadn''t seen a battle yet, and being the only frontal attacking creature without experience the invaders could face. all others were either ambush reliant, or had experience coming from their own battles and the earlier attacks. They weren''t at a risk of getting wiped out though, since I would allow them to flee towards the second floor and because of the sheer amount of rooms I had. also because I basically allowed the whole room they roamed through to be a [nest] for them. It took another day for the adventures to actually gather in front of the entrance, something like a speech was going on before twenty-eight people entered my dungeon. At first they moved in an orderly fashion, organised and holding ranks, but after they passed the second split in roads, they backtracked to the first room, having killed the occasional slime which was sliming around. They stationed what seemed like a full party, five men, at the pathway towards the right room, the way they had gone so far. It was looking like they would act as a stop hold for possible minions of mine. Not that it would work, but it was the best thing to do. In the next room they again stationed a party to block the right path and the first party came to the room as well, blocking the way they had come in. It certainly would prevent attacks in the back by regular minions. The occasional slime still dropped but as I had expected, it was more of a surprise to suddenly get a mass on your head than anything else. There were things to look forward to though. In the previous ''empty'' third room on the same level, one of my goblin sharks now surprised the seventeen people. Her head snapped out at the closest tanker, who was too late to raise his shield, and thus lost an arm. I snickered at his screaming, pleased with the performance of my shark. It didn''t bode well for her though, seeing how she now received full fire from both the mages and the archers. Most arrows, while hitting her, were deflected or just caused minor injuries. The spells however did more damage, devastating amounts truly. It pissed me off, how do they DARE to invade me, act righteous and then GODDAMN CURSES MINE.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Your creature goblin shark gained the title abdomination.
Those metislus rotten healers called my shark an abdomination, her beautiful maw ugly, her pets pests. While a sole remora bat managed to get away, a couple others got burned, frozen, fried, electrified and just outright killed, together with their shark. Mages, pesky mages, but oh, the juicy mana. I ordered several sharks to hide against the ceiling of upcoming rooms, near the entrance. Hopefully they would be able to take out either a couple mages or the healers of the main body. In the meantime, I had other sharks gather in the pathways not taken by the group, stocking up a force. I would use them to attack them in the back. Sure they had a party guard them, but they most likely wouldn''t stand a chance to a surprise attack of double their own amount. I would lose at least two to the mage of the party, but it should be enough. However, before I could spring my trap, they started to pull back. Apparently they didn''t like the surprise I had for them. I decided to let them, seeing how they weren''t that far in. It also gave me more time, which is never a bad thing for a Core. The obvious weakness of my creatures to magic was known and expected, as I didn''t have the mana yet to overcome it. All I could hope for was that they gained some sort of resistance through natural evolution for now. I used the burst of extra mana from all the spells cast to create a small extra crystal on the ceiling of the second floor. This crystal would give of mana to the air, which it first has absorbed from spells cast, thickening the concentration of mana, which would both increase the rate of growth for my creatures and prove poisonous to creatures not attuned to me through my own mana signature which I used in creating and shaping. This of course includes offspring, since a mana signature is similar to DNA, it''s passed over to the next generation. I kept track of the invaders with my worms, but it was basically just more degrading language about my dungeon. I am definitely going to carve something nice out of their skulls, no doubt about it. They made it to their camp, having faith in non-existing rules and their wall that they would be safe now. You''re never safe, nowhere. The air vibrated from all the creatures moving, in anticipation and reaction to the laughter I emptied, before I called out to the worm queen, hornets and black widows. It was a simple plan, slaughter them all. The worms would take care of the digging, and after that, every one they could find was their prey, in a first come, first served manner. No infighting allowed. Sure, it will attract more people, a stronger force, but who cares. Free food delivery, the best hotels for my minions, living flesh and mana. My target wasn''t humanity at first, they were just fodder, obstacles, but I changed that now. They were just as much to blame as those darn zxenw. Rotten pixies.... As the mutaworms started digging their tunnels, I made a last change in my commands. They were to leave the priest alive. I needed one. a follower, a believer, a priest of my own. Those lowly creatures believed only what they believed in was a god, but they didn''t know the truth of it. Everything can be a god, if one out of two prequistes are fullfilled. after that, all that is needed is a believer. Something needed to either have a sentience or the ability to absorb offered mana. If one was existence, the other could be developed when mana was offered. There are three forms of offering mana, first is the prayer, a small amount of mana is offered in the form of thoughts, wishes or whatever. The second was sharing your own mana pool to your god, the god would gain access to your pool and regeneration, while your pool could be refilled in the same principle. Most priests were like this. The third, and the what I conveyed, was the gifting of the mana pool. The believer would sacrifice his/her own pool, losing access to it, but the god would gain it all permanently. The believer could still cast spells, if allowed, but that was by borrowing the pool of the god, and not sharing. Only the most zealous did this, since it''s lost forever. To me however, it''s pure power. One priest to rule them all, if all lowly forms surrender their pools to me, I grow in power immensely. While dreaming about my future, it seems the tunnel is almost complete dug out. The air was buzzing with the sound of wings, the earth shaking by the wriggling of the worms. I kept them on hold, using my earworms to check how it was at the camp. The laughter THEY DARE TO LAUGH IN FRONT OF ME, THEY SHALL BURN ensured me they were still mostly up, urging me to wait a little longer before I would start my assault. Chapter 18: Assault I realised something as I was waiting, I forgot to send my moles along with the assault force. Better late than never, I ordered them to create a bigger network of tunnels beneath the camp, with small potholes as traps, also extending in a perimeter around the camp in case the filth would try to escape, which was a given. The bustling noise in the tunnels was a stark contrast to the almost death like silence in the camp, as if they were aware of what was to come. However, it was irrelevant if they did, since none of them would have the capabilities of stopping my slaughter. It seemed as if they were on a night watch, a proper time to strike. After issuing a command to locate the priest first, I sent the attack order. The earth made to move as if it was skin with bugs crawling under it, the moves showing, bobbling out, which it all basically was. The screams started, first it was surprise, being disturbed during their watches and sleep, then it became horror as the first bugs move from the skin of earth into the skin of flesh, crawling once more deep inside. The small tents, fitting up to four people, were neatly arranged in a circle with an opening both facing the centre as well as the outside. It would¡¯ve been to prevent becoming night blinded if one had to get up quickly, however this was useless as most tents just collapsed due to the shift in weight and the tunnels undermining them. It was saddening to see that none of them broke anything, but a laugh of glee escaped when the moles bore their claws into flesh for the first time, getting them to taste blood at last. None of the adventures that were trying to don their armour proved to be any kind of resistance. The hornets just striking their fingers, neck, arms, everything exposed, just like the worms would tunnel through the feet in a spiral going through the legs further upwards. The fools trying to use cloth to swat down were only marginally more successful. No, the only danger to my beloved creatures were those disgusting mages, having access to wide spells. The first one to cause damage ignited the tent he was in by accident, killing his companions, as well as a couple hundred of my minions, while he himself stayed safe. A mage that looked to be part of the watch seemed to be preparing a more less friendly fire spell, thus I sent some of the hiveworms in aiming for him. Bigger, stronger, they would be able to not only pain the threat, but disrupt his casting as well.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Bullet ants latched themselves on, ripping piece of flesh from the mage as a hiveworm wrapped itself around the left leg of the mage, to contract himself. The shin shot through the skin, along with a scream perforating the air in a similar way. The open wound was immediately infested by mutaworms forcing themselves further inside, the first wave of the spell of cold extinguishing within mere feet from the mage, and weakened enough to only kill tens instead of hundreds. The blood of insects, moles and filth gradually soaked the earth, creating more of a mudpool than the previous grassland, the crunching of bones being broken and chitin being trampled creating another layer of sound to the screaming, ripping of flesh, the mumbles of mages and the pure delight of laughter. Finally realising the futility of attacking anything smaller than a hand, swords and daggers started to find moles and hiveworms with an increasing rate of accuracy, being the threat to their only hope of defense, yet at the same time the first straggler was heard to be running away, only to yelp out as he tripped into one of the potholes. Every orifice was quickly intruded upon by the widows, perhaps even creating another widow depending on the brood stove. A warm body, broken, unable to move, yet able to feel everything before the brain shut down. There was some yelling about how it was supposed to be impossible for my creatures to get out, in between the screaming of pain and despair, yet it was promptly ignored as I found my soon to be priest. The total of tents amounted to fifteen, and counting from the one closest to my entrance, he was in the seventh one towards the left. He too had come out of his tent, yet stood fazed in front of the opening at camp side, the slaughter and shock too much to handle. The art of stupidity as one of the others from the tent pulled him back, away from the fight only eared my ire. Sending a command to a group of moles and hiveworms to chase after them, lead by the Worm queen. I would not let him escape, any other could stir slowly in his own blood to choke on, but this one should be caught. Still more of my minions crawled out of the pits of heaven into heavenly pits of flesh, finding purchase for their claws, stingers and eggs in marrow, soft eye tissue and yummy liver. Occasionally a mage was able to pull of a spell, only to die even quicker to the focused onslaught he attracted. Slowly the screaming turned into a constant whimpering, and more focus came upon the chase of the priest. The potholes and collapsing tunnels did a proper job of slowing this escaping party down, as the Worm queen led the charge, gaining on them. The other pursuers didn¡¯t truly gain distance, but they didn¡¯t lose it either. Using mana as fuel to spur my queen forward, along with a swarm of hornets to molest every other except the priest, there was once more the pleasurable sound of pain. One of the other escapees had been stung, his wounds rotting away, leaving gashes in his neck, on his calves, his hands and a nice see through hole in his cheek. Left behind by the remaining two, them even trying to speed up, the piece of flesh cried sweet tears. Brimming with pleasure at the sight, yet feeling a unsatable hate, my queen received another burst of mana, finally making her able to wrap herself around the right leg of my priest. There was a moment of hesitation of the last runner as he heard the yelp and see his companion fall, yet in the end it was only more fuel to run away. Sending a couple hornets after him, my focus was fully on my target. Moths arrived, spreading their poison to paralyze him as the hiveworms started to arrive as well, slowly wrapping themselves around my priest, and they started to drag him towards me.