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The Dungeon, Medea Island

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The following day began with unusual vigor on the part of the humans delving me. They were fired up, most likely from Mushu having been defeated. From what I overheard during their celebration last night, they expected the floor to be easier. I guess I have that kind of pattern, but it's more to do with conserving resources. Yes, my mana supply is effectively endless, but plenty of it is used by various enchantments and to raise new monsters to replace those killed. With fewer monsters on a floor, the expense lowered, letting more through that could reach the lower floors and speed up construction.

And it isn't like it was going to be a cakewalk, either, even with my focus shifting to the fourth floor as my frontline. On that first day, they delved, died, and survived. They won and lost; they pushed forwards and retreated. If the new Platinums were surprised to see Mushu again, they didn't say anything. That was disappointing, though perhaps they believed it was a similar-looking monster.

Over the next few days, the jungle became far more dangerous for the unprepared.

Much of the jungle was now filled with various plant- or insect-based traps in addition to the standard pit traps and ambush points.

I've been working on them in the background, and though I haven't entirely cracked making plant-based monsters, traps are much easier. After all, giving something without a brain autonomy is hard, but making something bigger, stronger, and faster is easy. The most obvious example is the Pitcher Plant, a carnivorous plant that fills its 'pitcher' with a sweet liquid, drawing in insects. It then closed the lid of the pitcher and consumed the insects within.

With mana, I could make the plant much bigger, the lid shut with greater force, and have the 'glue' it uses to seal the lid set faster and be more robust. However, it was still obviously a pitcher plant even when big enough to hold a ten-year-old with room to spare. The much larger specimens that could eat an adult whole were extremely obvious. So, I worked around that a bit.

The pitcher plants were set into the ground, leaving their rims poking out over the surface. The inside of their lids was colored to match the dirt, disguising their purpose. To anyone looking, they should look like an odd pond. Guilders are cautious; at least the ones who survive me are. They wouldn't approach anything strange without a considerable amount of caution. So, I needed to encourage them to... be a bit less cautious.

The second part of the pitcher plant is their nectar, the sweet liquid they use to entice their prey, then drown and consume them. For my enhanced pitcher plants, I had their nectar give off a tantalizing aroma and greatly improved the flavor and taste. It should act as the enhanced mandarins I'd given to my prisoners did. Not the original ones, but somewhere halfway.

They were yet to be encountered, situated in one spot as they were. I'll spread them out after the first time a guilder finds and survives them. Hopefully, that isn't the first person to find them.

Another plant-based trap was vines covered in an incredibly quick-setting glue-like substance that began retracting up into the canopy when disturbed. At a minimum, they would relieve the guilders of their weapons and, at most, hoist them up where the kobolds would have a much easier time fighting them. These I had no hesitation spreading out around the floor, replacing regular vines with these new ones.

And those are just two of my new traps. Maybe I can work out how to make plant monsters eventually. For now, these will work fine.

It was a beautiful, blue-sky day on the fourth day since the fourth floor had been breached. Gull and his extended family enjoyed the warm updrafts while the rats scurried around in the shadowed and cool rafters and walls. The fish in the reef continued to spread. Oh yeah, that was a thing. Even beyond the 'monstrous' examples that had left my dungeon, plenty of regular fish were filled with my mana. They spread and bred, slowly replacing the fish in the reef with ones that obeyed me.

It was this day, which had the Gorge Twins returned to my dungeon for the first time since the disastrous defeat inflicted upon them by Mushu.

They descended early; the third party allowed entry that day. The first floor was easy enough for the Platinums, familiar as they were with the crabs and their variants. The second floor was significantly more complicated than they likely remembered. Still, they managed to push through without losing anyone after an hour and a half of stumbling through the heavily trapped, shifting maze.

They were incredibly familiar with the third floor, evident in their direct route between the mini-boss arenas. That route didn't take them through the pitcher grove, but Matha tried to smack a vine out of her way and was hoisted into the air, screaming bloody murder. She was quickly cut down, but it still made my day.

They pushed forwards with determination, going down the hole into Mushu's boss room, prepared for a fight.

That fight did not go well for them.

While Mushu was technically weaker than he had been against the raid group, he was still more challenging than he was the last time these guilders fought him. The five attendants who fought with him were tough, and each linked to their own respawn crystals. They would only become more brutal with time.

They didn't lose another party member, abusing their teleport crystals to get as much experience fighting my boss before retreating in a flash of light. This would be the start of an irritating pattern.

Both the Gorges and the new Platinums delved and fought Mushu every day. The raid pushed through, then struggled to navigate the maze while fighting off increasingly dangerous Ratten. The Gorge party continued training against Mushu. Each fight saw them improve, but they could not land a killing blow even three days later.

Over that week, plenty was worked on. Construction continued on the Eighth floor, and I started putting together a small contingency plan, just in case.

On the eighth day since Mushu was defeated, a new wave of guilders arrived in town. These new guys... Well. Let's say that the contingency plan got upped in priority.

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Outside the Dungeon, Medea Island

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Matha Gorge watched the ships pull into port. Well, it was more of a glare, but that's semantics. She was furious. With herself, with the dungeon, with her party members... But she was particularly incensed with these new arrivals. They were yet to disembark, and she hated them with a passion.

They were latecomers, responding only when the bounty was increased to genuinely ridiculous proportions. Honestly, Matha wasn't sure the Grand Duke realized he was bankrupting himself with this move.

But that wasn't the point. These people hadn't fought or bled for the knowledge they were about to go and get from that albino bitch. They hadn't lost party members to the dungeon. They hadn't bled for the slightest scrap of an advantage over this insane dungeon.

They hadn't earned it. They don't deserve it.

But they'll get it and use it, no matter what opinion Matha has on the subject.

And with it, they'll beat the third-floor guardian and move on to the Fourth like the other Platinum's that had been taunting them by merely existing had.

Then they would explore the fourth floor, leaving Matha and her twin behind. It wasn't fair. They had been here longer than any other platinum! They had been the first to beat the second floor and the first to encounter the third floor's guardian!

She felt a hand gently land on her shoulder. With an angry exhale, she let her brother turn her from the port and back to face the dungeon. They were later in the line today. If they made it through the second quick enough, they might have enough time to reach the boss for another attempt before nightfall.

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The Guild Hall, Medea Island

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Layla Losat stood at the reception desk, waiting for the new arrivals to find their way to the Hall. She was nervous, of course. Some of the guilders that would dock in town today were powerful, their names known across the continent. These heroes of the guild had been Platinums since before Layla had been born.

She swallowed, her mouth dry. Where she couldn't do much but let the normal Platinums go about their business and hope the dungeon sorted them out, these were different. These were, unequivocally, some of the most powerful people in the land.

When the hall went silent, her blindfolded eyes turned to the door. The guilders that strode through into the hall almost made Layla wish she could squint. Bright was her first thought. They were practically overflowing with mana and potential. At least five times as bright as the Gorge twins and perhaps double her aunt and uncle. As they approached, she stood straight. Her right hand started shaking, and she leaned slightly on the desk with it in an attempt to stop it.

"Ah, You must be the local Guildmaster! Layla, wasn't it? Your grandfather was very kind to us when we passed through Laviet." The lead guilder asked though Layla found it almost impossible to see his features behind the blinding inner light.

"I am." She replied, her voice steady and clear. "Welcome to Medea Island. There are rooms here that have been reserved for you since I was made aware of your impending arrival. I have also provided books on the dungeon, and its monsters, written by both myself and various experts that have delved into our... unique landmark." A couple of the luminous beings in front of her nodded.

"Much appreciated, Guildmistress. We'll get it sorted then. I suppose there's a line we need to join?" Layla shook her head.

"We've known your arrival date for a few days now. Tomorrow's schedule is clear. You'll have the first pick of delve times for the day." She admitted. The lead man clapped his hands together.

"Well, that is indeed splendid. Thank you again, Guildmistress." She nodded, then turned away from the guilders. She walked, not too fast, to the staircase and up to her office. Only when the door was closed, and the anti-eavesdropping enchantments on the door engaged did she allow a heaving sigh of relief. She moved to her desk and poured out a glass of alcohol without hesitation. She wasn't quite sure what it was called, but it was smooth and smoky and left her feeling warm and comfortable.

She turned her gaze back to the reception, where she could see the guilders through the wood construction of the building.

This... is going to be highly stressful. If she wasn't already albino, she was sure that her hair would start turning white from all the stress.

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The Dungeon, Medea Island

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When the four new parties of Platinums delved individually and not as a raid, I admit I was surprised. They passed through the first floor effortlessly, the second with only a little trouble, and only the environment of the third provided the slightest complication to their relentless pace. And this was as parties of six or seven, rather than a raid group of about 26 guilders.

The first party swept Mushu aside like he was nothing. The second, third, and fourth parties all did similarly. Mushu himself almost seemed emasculated in the wake of this rapid series of defeats.

The fourth floor was where their pace slowed considerably. Idly, I cursed the books made about my dungeon. Too much was known about my upper floors for them to provide much of a challenge to guilders of this caliber.

Unfortunately for me, the cramped spaces only seemed a mild inconvenience to these people. They slaughtered my Ratten with ease. The only ones who did any damage whatsoever were the shadow clan, and the little they did was quickly healed after the guilders summoned a few sprites. It wasn't that the Ratten were insufficient as defenders, but just that the guilders were too experienced. They knew how to fight monsters like the Ratten and slaughtered them by the hundreds.

The parties all met up on the fourth floor, where they decided to push through the boss together. With that, any hope that they would be antagonistic to the others was extinguished. These men and women knew each other well, and the parties trusted each other.

The Boss was an enlarged rat from the Bruiser clan, a bully who clambered to the top by crushing his enemies. Here, that proved to be worse than useless.

They pushed into the fifth floor.

Thankfully, I've been preparing for this eventuality for more than a week now. We're ready for them.

As they emerged from the ladder-less vertical pipe, pushing aside the circular metal cover, my monsters were already watching and waiting.

They would not be allowed to progress further.

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