Aurora

I bit my thumbnail as I watched Roland. I had… suggested that he do a bit of practicing. A small, okay, not so small, part of me want to see his amazing body move. If there was one complaint that I had it was that he didn’t sweat. There was nothing like watch the slick skin of a man working out.

My enjoyment was cut short as I felt the dungeon shake slightly. I sighed as I pulled my eyes from his wonderful form. “It sounds like the goblins are back,” I said with only a small whine. It was sooner than I expected. It had only been a few hours. Other than Roland, I’d only added two new vampires to the dungeon from the spawner.

I climbed to my feet. Rushing over to Roland, I grabbed his onto his arm making sure to press my chest against his forearm. It might be a bit forward of me, but I didn’t care at the moment. Roland was just about the best thing to happen since this whole situation started.

“My Queen?” Roland asked with a crocked grin.

“Escort me, my knight,” I ordered. He bowed his head before we made our way down the passage toward the entrance. The sound of fighting reached as we got closer to the room. It was far more intense than the last fight since I hadn’t used Prism to pull the light from the room. The goblins were much more savage when they could see their enemy.

My vampires didn’t let that stop them. Even without proper weapons, they were managing to tear the throats from the goblins that got too close to them. Their claws were about even with the weapons the goblins sported. The vampires just lacked the defense.

“Time to prove my worth,” Roland said as he gently freed himself. He rushed forward and grabbed a sword on the ground before flinging it. The blade sailed true impaling a goblin through the skull. I didn’t want to just sit on my hands.

Focusing on the center of the twenty-plus sized goblin force, I used Death Absorption to transfer lifeforce from the goblins to the injured vampires. My boys were able to take much more than that of a normal creature, but even they had limits. It was my duty to save them when if I could.

Roland continued striding forward seemingly without a care in the world. He picked up another downed sword and the next moment he was at the frontline of the skirmish. He came in behind a vampire that was struggling with three goblins. With a swift movement that I felt was unreal, he flowed around the vampire and pierced the sword into the head one of the engaged goblins. When he pulled it free, the blade had been twisted by the force he’d used.

The two remaining goblins backed away from Roland with their weapons at the ready. He towered over the green humanoids by close to a meter. One of the goblins swung at him, but Roland simply reached out and caught the creature’s arm. The goblin stared up at him as Roland slowly broke his arm by tightening his grip.

The other goblin obviously wasn’t going to stand around and do nothing, but when he attempted to retaliate, Roland used the twisted piece of junk sword still in his hand to deflect the oncoming strikes. He made it all look so… easy. I decided that I definitely made a good choice summoning a Greater Vampire so soon. Even if my mana technically couldn’t handle the process.

“Stop playing around, Roland! We have other things to attend to,” I called since I could tell that was exactly what he was doing. It was like a switch was flipped. Roland suddenly moved in a blur and the two goblins he was fighting lost their heads. I saw that his hand was now free of the sword and covered in blood from his dagger-like nails down to his wrist.

With Roland and my siphoning off the goblins’ lifeforce into my vampires, we soon retook the initiative. Roland made easy work of the remaining goblins with my other vampires rounding on the now outnumbered goblins. Since I didn’t spot a captain from the start until now, I had a feeling this was another feeler to attempt the dungeon so soon after their last attack.

Once all the goblins were dead, Roland walked back over while licking his hand. I never thought that would turn me on, but I was certainly turned on watching the man. I had to look away to clear my head. I really had created a monster.

“I hope I have performed to expectations,” Roland said with confidence rolling off him. I could only nod, words escaping me.

Taking a deep breath, I looked back to the battlefield while being careful not to look at Roland. I felt odd. Not because of Roland. While that certainly was throwing me for a loop, I felt odd about the fact that I felt nearly nothing about all the constant death that had been happening around me. I mean there were even times where I enjoyed it. It made me wonder if I was always that messed up as a person.

We had lost another three vampires, but thanks to Roland’s intervention that number wasn’t higher. The ones that survived had already started picking up the bodies and moving them over to the absorption point. There they went through their gear to see if there was anything of value. I could pull up the Creation list, but it was already longer than I cared for. Knowing what to look for made it easier on me.

It looked like we were firmly in the crosshairs of the goblins. I didn’t mind since it meant experience for me and my dungeon. I just had buff up the place before the next attack. I waited until all the bodies had been removed and the dungeon absorbed the rest of the mess such as blood and guts that had been split. It was strange to me what qualified for the automatic absorption and what had to be manually removed.

I had sealed the natural cave up with a wall and door, but it was about five meters worth of space to block. My aura had expanded recently, so I decided to explore to find out if there was a better choke point. Calling for Roland and a few of my vampires, we set out into the caves.

The single tunnel continued for a while before we reached a fork. I was being careful not to bash my face in again as we walked so, we moved slowly. Heading down the left path, there wasn’t too much of interest. Just empty tunnels that seemed to go on forever. We had traveled close to a hundred meters before I reached my limit. That expansion was nearly three times as much as the last one.

I felt the barrier with my hand and called for a stop. The tunnel here was much smaller. It would be easier to seal it. Forming a three-meter-thick wall, I sealed the passage. I would worry about a door later. I backed away from the wall and thought that it needed something in case the goblins simply smashed it down.

Pointing at the ground, I created a pit fall that went as deep as my magic would allow. I didn’t have an accurate height, but I felt it was at least twenty meters deep. I went ahead and added spikes and an absorption point at the bottom. That way it would keep them from filling it up as well as keeping it free of bodies.

We turned back and made for the other path. I thought this path was going to be the same until we reached the end. Just on the other side of my aura there was a patch of red crystals seemingly growing from every surface. “Do you know what that is?” I asked Roland.

“I am sorry. I do not possess this knowledge,” Roland replied actually looking depressed by that fact. I wasn’t going to be upset, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have been able to resist that face.

I cleared my throat and shook my head. “Its fine.” I sent a mental message to Losa. He was my fount of knowledge. I’d rather keep him in the main dungeon, but this was too important to let sit.

The imp came soon after the call. We were only about two hundred meters from the pseudo entrance. Not exactly a far distance. “You called me, master?”

“Yep. Can you tell me what that is?” I asked pointing at the crystal outcropping.

“A place of power!” Losa looked up at me. “You are incredibly lucky.”

I didn’t know about that. In fact, all evidence pointed to the contrary, but I wasn’t going to say that. “A place of power, so… if I extend my aura over it, my mana gain will go up?”

“Not necessarily. It depends on the boon offered by the location. From the looks of it, the site is growing. Crimson Crystals. They are used in enchanting, metallurgy, as well as a few of the other crafting disciplines. They are a level two magic material.” He paused straining to look at the crystals. “Without overtaking it, there is no real way to tell what sort of boon we’ll get.”

I sighed, placing my hand against the edge of my aura. I couldn’t go outside it, but my monsters could. I might not be able to get the boon, but I could certainly get the resource. “Roland. Scout out the area. I want this place secured.”

“As you wish, my queen.” He bent at the waist in a bow before he turned with headed out of the aura with two of the vampires with us. Nodding with a pleased smile, I turned back to the section of the tunnel that was in my aura. I debated what to do since I didn’t want this part to be completely sealed off. I had to make it so that my monsters wouldn’t be slaughtered if they were taken unaware.

First off was to replace the walls and floor with the demon brick. The status affect it caused was worth the mana sink. I was concentrated then commanded the walls to change. Much to my surprise, most of the wall for roughly ten meters changed in one go. That was much further than before. It was a nice notion that my reach would expand as I leveled up.

After I changed the tunnel to demon brick, I thought about what sort of traps to employ. I thought that simple would be best. They would be easier to maintain for one. Less suspicious for two. While I was debating what to do, I was flipping my mana stone in the air. I enjoyed the stress relief that it proved, minimal it might be.

Glancing at the mana stone, I had a thought. Magic required mana. Perhaps if I tied in a mana stone, I could create a trap with the magic spells I knew. No better way then to find out through implementation. I placed the mana stone in my hand on the ceiling, easy enough when you had wings. I concentrated on my Prism spell. To my enjoyment, the spell snapped to the crystal instantly. I was even prompted to add details to the trap.

I set it to activate when any foreign entity was within thirty meters of the trap. Much like my spawners, it would pull mana from the air to recharge. While that gave invaders a chance to overwhelm the spot, I wasn’t too worried. If a force big enough to brute force their way deeper into the dungeon arrived, then the frontlines would naturally fall back to more defendable areas.

New Skill: Trap Laying – Using your materials and abilities, you have successfully created four traps. New traps unlocked.

Well… that was a nice bonus. I opened the new skill which was on both my character sheet and the dungeon menu. Two separate skills that appeared to operate the same. Ignoring that for now, I found all the traps I had made so far as I went through it. The pit fall, the absorption point, the spike trap, and the Prism trap. I was curious why the one trap I had created in the other tunnel was being counted as three different traps, but I wasn’t about to complain to anyone.

Rubbing my hands together, I got to work creating traps using all my magic spells. This dungeon was going to be feared. What other option did people have when all my spells were death related. I chuckled as I pictured the mayhem caused later on.