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The Guild Hall, Medea Island

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"Haythem Linus?" He heard a woman ask as she approached. He raised his eyes to look up at the woman. She was smartly dressed, and her green eyes shimmered in the torchlight of the guild hall's reception.

"I am." He replied, sitting straighter in his chain. The woman took a wax-sealed envelope from the folder she was carrying and held it out for him with a smile.

"Your results. Enjoy the rest of your day." With that, she turned and walked back to the desk. It was only when Bertram elbowed him in the ribs that he realized he'd been staring at the enchanting woman as she walked away. He felt a heat rise on his cheeks at his friend's snickers. Ignoring the man's teasing, Haythem inspected the letter.

The parchment was tough, though he could tear through it without issue. The seal was guild standard, legitimate and unbroken as far as he could tell. With a breath, he gently pried off the seal and pulled out the letter within.

"Guilder Haythem Linus, It is with great pleasure that we at the Medea Island Guild confirm your ascendance to Platinum Rank-" Haythem was cut off from his reading when Bertram and Flasa began whooping and laughing. He raised an eyebrow at them, then shook his head and continued reading silently as they began dancing around like fools.

'-ascendance to Platinum Rank. Per Guild Charter, we've sent your updated records to the central guild registry. Your new identification tablet is within the delivered envelope. Congratulations, and we wish great things for your future. Signed, Layla Losat, Medea Island Guildmistress'

Haythem carefully folded the letter and placed it in his pouch before again reaching into the envelope. With the small metal rectangle in his hands, he pressed his thumb to the outlined square. There was a sharp prick. He pulled it away to watch the drop of blood be absorbed by the enchanted tablet. The tablet briefly flashed with silver light, and his details filled themselves in on the rest of the previously-blank surface.

His name, day of birth, and rank. Haythem also knew the id would contain a record of his mana signature, so people know that this is, indeed, his card. He pulled his previous card from a pouch and held it out to his friends. "One of you want to do the honors?"

"Oh! Me!" Bertram said with a smile, quickly taking the card. With a quick inhale, golden beams were melting the gold-plated tablet. Flasa grabbed Haythem's hand and started dragging him off.

"C'mon! We need to celebrate! Drinks are on Haythem!" She cheered with a twinkle in her eye. When Haythem raised an eyebrow but didn't object, more cheers rose from the crowd that had formed around them.

He could already feel his coin-purse lightening. As he was swept away by the chanting, cheering crowd, he let his smile grow. Honestly, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

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The Fourth Floor, The Dungeon, Medea Island

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"RIGHT SIDE, RIGHT SIDE!" Matha screamed out as she released twin blasts of flame down two of the small holes littering the wall of the slightly too-small pipe. With vehement curses, the other two guilders not fighting at the front and back of the pipe shifted to stem the renewed tide of rats squeezing themselves through the holes in the wall.

They had delved today with the intent to finally push past the rats, to reach the castle beyond. They hadn't expected the new changes to the floor.

Holes everywhere. In every tunnel. From them, rats could pour like water. The 'normal-sized' ones, at least. Not like any of these monsters were the size of their un-altered cousins. The large ones were restricted to the same tunnels they were crawling through.

Matha paused in her casting and, after a glance down the charred and blocked pipes, she quickly shifted to two different ones. That's how things went for the next... however long it was. She felt like they'd been fighting for hours, but it could have been less than half an hour for all she knew.

When the wave of rats finally subsided, All the small pipes on either side were charred and blocked. Matha was breathing deeply, trying to recover her energy. She grabbed a potion, sipped it, then placed it back in her pouch. A glance down the tunnel showed her brother pushing the pile of rat corpses out of the way, a disgusted look on his face.

When the way forward was clear, Matha continued down the tunnel until she reached a 'hub' room. She eyed the hundreds of small pipes extending past the walls with caution.

"This isn't working," Litan said as their final party member entered, as bloody and covered in gore as her brother. "We're barely lasting through these waves. They're coming faster and faster, and we're running out of options." He looked between each member of their much-reduced combined party.

"I think if we try to take on another wave like that last one, at least one of us won't survive. If this is what we can expect from every delve... We're not going to be able to push through with our numbers. We need new blood. Might be worth it to pick up a few golds on the cusp and train them up." Matha sighed.

He wasn't wrong. She was exhausted, even after drinking that last potion. She glanced at the three sprites floating around them, keeping the small chamber lit with minimal shadows. She likely wouldn't have been as tired if she didn't need to support these and everything else.

But she had to admit, it's better than the very shadows they cast rising to slaughter them all.

"Back to the surface, then?" Matha asked. Answered with nods, she closed her eyes and touched the teleport crystal.

There were the customary flashes, but she knew something had gone wrong when she opened her eyes. This was not the exit pavilion on the surface. Panicked, she whirled around.

She was alone.

The walls were stone, identical to that found on the cliffs of the Third. Beneath her feet was a small teleportation circle, dimming until it could barely be discerned against the pattern of the cobbled floor. There was no door that she could see. No pipe or entrance big enough for her to pass through. At the center of the chamber, above her head, was a black circle. She dismissed all but one of the orange sprites.

With a sudden grinding, four equidistant points on the wall began opening. The slabs of stone lowered into the floor. From the shadows emerged more than a dozen Lizards, the monsters clad in stolen armor they'd customized with colorful fur and bright feathers. The lizards themselves looked different than others she had faced. They stood taller and somehow looked more refined. She was surrounded.

One stood forwards from the rest. This one was a mage, given the robe and elaborate headdress.

Potentially, their leader.

With no hesitation, she cast a tide of flames at the monster. The fire engulfed it. None of the other monsters around her reacted beyond tightening their claws on their weapons. When she ended the spell, she expected to see a charred corpse.

Instead, the monster stood, unaffected and unruffled.

"We were going to offer you a chance to surrender," The monster stated. That it spoke Phenocian was enough to make her eyes widen in surprise. When she registered what it was saying, she felt her jaw drop.

"However, now I see that you're completely unreasonable. Enjoy your last fight, Matha Gorge." With that, the ring of monsters closed in on her.

Her fire magic did nothing, the shields they bore would light up, and barriers extend from their edges, not letting even a lick of flame past.

She was hemmed in, further and further. Stolen swords swung and cut straight through her reinforced, armored robes. Unfamiliarly designed maces bludgeoned her, and darkness claimed her when one fell on her skull.

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The Dungeon, Medea Island.

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The Gorge Twins are dead.

Good riddance.

And with their deaths, the first successful test of my teleport-interdiction circles. Other parties, who had not gained my personal enmity, were discovering their teleport crystal no longer worked. The fact that the guilders could escape from a losing fight was too big of an advantage. And now, that advantage was gone.

They'll need to fight their way in and out from now on. Hopefully, this will prompt shallower dives and create a cautious attitude in the delving guilders. It'll take a few hours for the guilders to make it back up and out, and by tomorrow everyone will know.

The way I'd done it was pretty simple, in the end. The interdiction circles that caught the Gorges and their party members were copies of the circle on the surface. Those were already designed to 'catch' anyone teleporting through a nearby mana-stream, so by splitting the channel used by teleports into smaller streams and running them past much smaller circles, the teleport crystals would dump them out early in rooms of my choosing.

I can't precisely predict which mana-stream a teleporting guilder will use, but I think I have all potential channels covered.

The other part of my new feature was the thing that prevented the crystals from working in the first place.

Like the circles, it was pretty straightforward. There is now an invisible and intangible 'barrier' of magic on my entrance that is keyed to disable those Crystals. But how, you ask? Well, you could consider them... manufactured. Their design is standardized, and they have about three 'ports before they become useless. That means they're functionally identical, accounting for errors in the manufacturing process, though failures would probably never be sold.

That uniformity, in this case, is a weakness I can exploit.

The barrier is designed to detect the crystals and drain the mana from them as they pass through the first cavern. By the time they pass the carved warning, the crystals are completely exhausted, and since they can't be re-charged, they are useless.

The Gorges were the first party in today, and I activated the barrier when they'd passed through.

The rest of the day was quite entertaining.

The parties who hadn't triggered any 'hard mode' traps found their retreat through the dungeon challenging but doable. The others, well. They'd never needed to go the other way through the labyrinth before. It got quite a few people turned around, and I think another seven died.

I'm thinning out the population of guilders who want to kill me with record speed. The majority seem to have become resigned that they'll never be able to claim the bounty and have embraced the other reason people delve into dungeons. To get stronger.

The last man stumbled through the entrance of my dungeon, covered in blood and exhausted from being chased out by my overly enthusiastic crustacean guardians. After the man passed the final barrier, the various crabs retreated into their holes for the night. Though they lacked the intelligence of their ancestors, I knew they could still feel satisfaction through acting in my defense.

With a deep mental breath, I surveyed my dungeon. Mentally rolling up my sleeves, I got to work on the final tweaks I would give these floors before focusing entirely on the lower floors. The Starlit Caverns were as complete as I could make them, though I saw some space for improvement. I added various ruins throughout the caverns, matching the aesthetics of the one at the entrance. Those who looked close would find ominous warnings carved crudely, as if by terrified guilders. The Crabs filled their roles perfectly, and I gave about a dozen 'lesser' respawn crystals. Hopefully, they could act as lieutenants or mini-bosses, guiding their 'lesser' brethren.

The Flooded Labyrinth had seen the introduction of more coral and unaltered fish to better disguise the monsters swimming among their natural kin. These halls honestly looked as if they'd been long sunken and forgotten, nature having reclaimed man's work. The various fish monsters were as deadly as I could make them, though a sprinkling of toxins and venoms developed by the Ratten made getting injured here a lot more dangerous.

The Green Hell had been getting less and less effective as time went on. Routes were worked out to minimize the time spent moving between the various 'mini-bosses' of the floor. Shifting the vegetation in ways both subtle and not would destroy any familiarity they could have gained with the jungle. My plant-based traps were spread throughout and hopefully well-disguised. I can't wait for the first man overcome with desire for a pitcher plant's nectar to shove his head in one and have the lid slam down, trapping then drowning him.

Hmm. Little too bloodthirsty there. I should add the intent enchantment to the pitchers, at least.

The Ratten Warren was far more effective now, with thousands of smaller pipes between the larger ones to prevent guilders from turning the tight confines back on their ambushers. I won't know exactly what needs to be changed until more delvers find their way here.

The Fifth was working fine, for now. My new prisoners were all alive, seemingly no worse off for the lack of ambient mana. My older prisoners... Kataren seems to enjoy messing with the new 'cubes.' Not that they're cubes anymore. The healer... is doing better. He's not drooling against a wall but seems to be messing with his own cube. I'm thinking about allowing some limited interaction between my prisoners to keep them from going insane. The decoy skeletons are still wandering around the grounds of the castle. I made a couple of cosmetic changes to them to fit their environment better.

The Lava Caverns and Abandoned Mines are fine, though I'll probably need to mess with them later.

Construction on the Eighth, the... Storm-Swept Peaks was almost finished. The three mountains looked terrific, and there was sufficient space in the cavern around them to manipulate and hopefully induce some mighty storms. I'm going to test that capacity soon. Now I need monsters. I'm thinking four of five species: Yeti, Thunderbirds, Snowbolds, and some kind of Ice Fox.

The Thunderbirds were the first I turned my attention to. They could help manipulate and influence the storms, directing them against any murderous delvers who somehow made it this far. For the base, well, I wanted a specific kind of bird. Like I'd turned the Parrots into Phoenix and how the gulls remained 'disguised' on the surface, I based this monster on an eagle. I lacked a male, unfortunately, so I'd have to make do with the one female specimen I stole from the noble's manor. Hunting with eagles seems to be a practice enjoyed by the fabulously wealthy here, too.

Coincidently, they released foxes into the jungle to hunt. But I'll get to them in a bit.

Anyway, until I can get my hands on a male, this monster will be the only example of its species.

I began with upscaling the monster to the point she could grip a large and fully armored man in one claw and fly off with him, potentially dropping him and letting him splatter against the rocky mountainside. Next, I gave her the appropriate blue/white coloration; White beak, skin, and scales, with mainly Blue feathers, interspersed with black for some patterning.

She's regal and majestic. Perfect. Next, the magic. I want to give her ice magic, but I'll settle for Wind and water. This would also be my first dual-typed creature, so seeing how she works her magic will be interesting.

With a quick self-inspection, she screeches into the still air of the cavern and launches off. I directed her to the third peak, where I created an elevated point above what will become the 'boss' arena. For now, Pyry the Thunderbird will be my boss monster. After a quick hook into a respawn crystal, she's ready. With her exploring the floor, I moved on to the foxes.

These, I will be giving Ice Magic. No question. Since that will have to wait, I'll settle for setting up the base monster. Quite simple, compared to Pyry. I created the 'Alpha/Beta' of my future Ice Fox pack with a breeding pair swiped from under the noble's nose. Yes, I know foxes aren't typically pack animals, and the alpha/beta thing is a myth, but they're my monsters, and they work how I make them work!

For now, I have white foxes with black paws and noses and a size more typical of wolves. I envision large packs attacking delvers struggling through blizzards or inducing avalanches.

As I contemplated the Yeti, my attention was grabbed by the 'Hero' raid passing through my entrance.

Let's see how they fair now, shall we?

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