[Level Up!]

[You’ve reached Level 3.]

[Leveling increases your Mana Cap, Maximum Size, Minion Cap, and Mana Regeneration.]

[1 Trait point awarded.]

[New Trap and Minion options appear as you Level Up.]

[Mana refilled.]

[Experience Gained!]

Yay!

I didn’t even have to kill anyone. I’m just happy to see it confirmed that just having people delve into my depths still grants me experience. Yes, that sounded very wrong, but if I don’t accept the fact I’m now a multi-level deathtrap filled with undead and weird faeries and dog-vampires then I’ll go crazy. So jokes and puns ahoy!

Although one thing I noted was that both John and Dutch had ‘rewards increased’ by my Rules but didn’t seem to get anything… Either I had no drops yet and it didn’t generate them from the ether, there wasn’t enough to really trigger extra rewards yet, or I just wasn’t able to see what they got.

Hopefully as I added loot later on it would be more obvious.

But for now I had impending wolf packs to deal with. Since they couldn’t be negotiated or reasoned with, I simply needed to up my ante. I had full mana now as well, in addition to a significantly larger mana pool.

[Status]

Name: N/A

Status: Undamaged.

Mana: 100/100 (+49 per day)

Thus far my mana and regen had doubled each level up I’d achieved. Which meant exponential growth, and though I’d had a bit to get used to being rather frugal, I could easily see how trying to manage even three floors would require significantly more mana than what I had to worth with right now, or a much larger timescale. One I couldn’t afford to follow right now.

I could only imagine the costs even 10 floors would incur, but those were thoughts for future Dungeon self. Right now it was time to purchase some new friends and boost some others.

I finally had a chance to check some of the rooms and the number of creatures allowed counts, and it wasn’t completely terrible. There was a correlation between the room's size and the count as well, meaning it was possible to make a single, labyrinthine floor and still populate it fully. Although I’m sure first floors were meant to be easy, as a means of luring adventurers deeper, it wasn’t a hard-coded rule, and my first floor could be as large and difficult as I wanted it to be.

Truth be told, I wasn't really going to stray from the likely usual Dungeon strategy (what I’m assuming it is, anyway) because I did like the idea of being able to focus my efforts on improving later floors more and more. Helping people grow stronger was also kind of difficult if I didn’t do that. Plus, there was always the mental component of satisfaction from a job well done, or a fight well fought.

To those who fought past stronger and stronger creatures and earned better rewards would feel accomplished. Mental health was important too!

Granted, if I was really worried about people's mental state my Dungeon was probably not the place for people to go. Screeching undead horrors and all that.

Moving on, I decided it was time to stop wasting my regeneration and get me some new monsters.

I added a second [Ghoul] to each room, with paralytic venom they would help incapacitate the wolves as they entered, and their faster speeds meant they could actually do something beyond trapping their prey in a horde of gnashing teeth.

I added an additional pack of [Zombies] to each room as well, since until the [Skeletons] were upgraded to be a little more durable, they weren’t very effective meatshields. I threw in an extra set of [Ghosts] to roam the halls as well. Their effectiveness should be pretty high unless the wolves know some kind of mana strike to affect them. I doubt that’s regular though, so… Here's to hoping.

That dropped me to 75 mana remaining, still a healthy amount. Like I originally planned, I decided on a [Cursed Sword] in the swamp room because it would be a pain in the ass to deal with. 65 left.

I still had a boss room to populate too, though I’d nearly forgotten about it. I suppose I could try out my ability to upgrade my monsters now!

Oh, but before that, let me look at my Experience upgrades… I’d gained two Experience from John and Dutch’s little dive, and while I could boost my mana more, lowering the cost of upgrading monsters actually sounded pretty effective as well.

It was only for a specific category, but I figured most Dungeons with their specific focuses (if they were smart and didn’t spread themselves thin, that is) would benefit nicely from decreased costs.

Rather than being grouped by Mana Alignment, they were grouped by types, such as humanoid, insectoid, undead, etc. Naturally, I chose the undead option and invested both of my Experience points, as it reduced the cost by a single point of mana each time.

In my mind's eye I could see the future path of unlocks, and though the first few were cheap, one mana investments, I could see them grow slightly more expensive as they were invested into, until eventually they evolved into something new. What that was, I wasn’t sure, but it looked promising.

I dumped both points into cheapening undead upgrades. I’d glanced at their costs beforehand, and though they weren’t absurd, if I tried to spread them out across all my minions now I’d go broke before I finished. And that was assuming they couldn’t be upgraded multiple times.

Now I had to think up a fitting boss fight with my current monsters. If it was possible to upgrade them multiple times, I’d be set. If not, I’d probably reach a point later on where I gained stronger variants to start from, but I couldn’t be sure how that would pan out yet, so I just had to deal with what I knew.

Namely, that undead boss fights were very rarely ever one super strong creature against the enemy party. So I started with that idea and decided to work my way down.

First, I ensured the ghosts from the hall were able to roam into the boss room as well - they were. That would be a nasty surprise in the midst of heated combat.

Second, I spawned in [Ghoul]. They were my strongest single unit that wasn’t just a floating weapon. Naturally, a boss deserved to be more than just that, no matter how tough they were. Maybe someday I could give a [Cursed Sword] to one of my units as a weapon, and wouldn’t that be interesting. Oh, and speaking of gearing up my minions, I needed to check out that ore deposit later!

Note to self.

Ahem. Moving on, I focused on the Ghoul placed in the center of the room and pushed my mana into him, granting him the needed six mana with which to upgrade. On average, it seemed like the cost of upgrading a unit was double their base price. Mostly not terribly expensive, average 6-10 mana for me, but reaching up to 20 for the cursed weapons. By picking the [Ghoul] I was also saving some mana if upgrading wasn’t as good as I hoped. Wasting 30 mana on a failed investment would be ouchy.

The [Ghoul], which looked like a more alert, attentive zombie, with extended, unnatural claws and razor sharp fangs was already quite the sight. As the upgrade pushed itself into and throughout its body, I learned that I had only seen the beginnings of true horror.

Its claws lengthened, growing several inches until they matched the length of the original fingers, if not longer, and appeared quite sharp. As that feature finished growing, understanding sprang up from deep within my Dungeon instincts - those claws would be perfectly adept at fending off and potentially penetrating basic adventurer’s gear. Leather and cloth would part like water before them, and iron would cave after a couple of strikes, for the claws' durability exceeded even their sharpness.

Dripping fangs grew from its mouth, overfilling it and forcing its jaw to hang open slightly at all times, drool and poison glinting in the dim light. Oh, and not just fangs like a vampire, no this was every single tooth it possessed. They were clearly meant to rend flesh and strip it from the bone with ease, while simultaneously applying the ghoul’s stronger, more potent paralytic.

It began to resemble a zombie less as its flesh filled in ever so slightly, previously tattered flesh regaining a semblance of normalcy, though it remained incredibly pale and obviously undead. Its arms lengthened as well, giving it extra reach and striking power. When the transformation finally finished, its new status presented itself to me.

[Alpha Ghoul]

For a first evolution, I thought it was pretty terrifying, to be frank. Already I was pretty confident it would utterly trounce John in a fight, the poor lad, hopefully he would never have a reason to face this monstrosity. Worse, I had the mana to do it several more times. Heh. This was going to be a boss fight to remember.

I was at 53/100 mana now. I could upgrade some [Skeletons] next but I worried my lack of proper equipment would hinder them. After all they can ‘Wield equipment’ and the only assurances of them spawning with some were the basic form and their rusted items.

As I mentioned, equipping them with cursed or blessed weapons was an option, I think, but that was very expensive for me at the moment. Instead, I decided to theme the room after its new boss.

I carved out a couple of rooms, more like closets really, on each side of the boss room, about halfway between the exit and entrance. Pre-selected triggers were something the Dungeon system was capable of, so it was with ease I added some ‘doors’ if they could be called such, and made them open once the boss was engaged.

For a total of 26 mana with cost reductions included, I spawned in 2 packs of [Zombies] and upgraded both. Their transformations weren’t as dramatic as the [Ghoul] was, but that wasn’t surprising. The [Ghoul] was both an individual unit and the recipient of more mana focused on itself than the pack of [Zombies].

Their shapes all solidified a bit, as mass returned to them, giving their horde tendencies more power and making their grips stronger. There were some individual changes, surprisingly enough, and I realized once I spawned in the pack [Observe] no longer looked at them as one unit. A quick check confirmed that for the purposes of respawning mechanics and adjustments, like if I decided to move them into a new room, they were treated as ‘one’.

Even though my upgrade targeted the group of five each, the upgrades they received were all different to an extent as they proceeded down various paths that zombie-like creatures could follow.

A couple of the zombies' heads simply… disappeared. They were tagged as [Headless Zombie] and were apparently higher in strength than average, and harder to kill since their head was… already gone. Others became [Draugr], growing rusty (even worse than the skeletons) gear with randomly, horribly mismatched pauldrons, greaves, chest plates, boots and helmets all over the place. No weapons, it seemed, but the armor provided some protection at least.

Others simply gained titles like ‘Foul’ or ‘Noxious’ and seemed to very lightly seep some kind of noxious fume. They had increased chances of spreading nasty diseases and other undesirable things with their bites and claws.

Altogether they made for a rather nasty ragtag crew of monsters, which would be quite effective at surprising anyone dumb enough not to notice the two doors in the boss room and not wonder what they were for. Dutch would probably handle them with ease, but he was a cheater pants who was clearing easy mode content for his level. Bastard.

Hopefully nobody else was like him and wanted to actually kill me because if that was the case I was kinda fucked…

I made sure the lighting was suitably ominous and shadowed my [Alpha Ghoul] with the dancing flames. His trigger radius ensured nobody would simply be able to walk by him or really investigate the room too much before initiating the fight. Granted, there wasn’t really anything to explore, but still.

All that was left to do was name him! I'm normally terrible with names, but I happened to have a random memory that gave me an idea. Ghul-e Biyaban was both a mouthful and kind of redundant, so I decided to trim it down to just Biyaban.

[Biyaban the Alpha Ghoul has been designated as your First Floor Boss! Congratulations!]

With my 27 remaining mana I had a choice. My first floor’s main defense was fairly well done, in my eyes. Anything more difficult would appear lower down, and while I might add or adjust how rooms connected, I thought it was a fair challenge as people progressed. I still had a lot of changes to make and other monsters to add so people who just wanted to get a little experience didn’t have to face my gauntlet of death, but beyond that it was time to add a little reward!

To those who achieved victory and surpassed my almighty Biyaban in mortal combat they would get… One moldy chest! Ok fine, I’ll get the normal, not moldy one, but the crummy one is gonna go in the Orchard.

I wasn’t exactly sure what rewards it could even give people, but it was fairly natural to assume the nicer the chest, the better the loot. They would respawn after a set amount of time, averaging around once a day it seemed. The nicer ones took longer.

The chest sat in the hallway right after Biyaban’s room, which would then, after I finished moving into my second floor, become the entrance to that level. The moldy chest lay shortly behind the [Budding Tree], requiring the room's inhabitants to be dealt with before it could be looted.

My exertions had depleted most of my mana so I began work designing some of the second floor rooms. Since my theme was… Well, Death, I kept up the same vein of ideas from before. My first room was a mist-filled tomb of sorts, with skelly boys popping out of said tombs, my second room was a mist-filled swamp of sucking mud and irritating ghosts, and the boss room didn’t really have a theme. I guess ‘Boss Room’ is a theme of its own, but it didn’t feel too special. I’d have to spruce it up for Biyaban later…

So, for my next room I didn’t want to be unoriginal and keep doing the same thing, which meant I had to get creative. Where else were dead things found?

Caves, I suppose. Dank, nasty smelling, dark caves. Hmmm….

What else was there though? I was going to have several rooms. Though if I’d read the room size to minions allowed ratio right, I could also go the ‘one really big room’ route. How I’d light that up though would have to be a question for another day.

So… Ideas. Caves, Check. Mausoleums and swamps, check. Perhaps a room that looks totally normal and has undead doing mundane things, dressed perfectly normally, that only aggro once they get close enough? That would be creepy. Hard to do, but creepy.

A land cursed so that things were all totally normal until the sun turned red (or some other creepy color) and everything revealed itself as some terrible undead monstrosity? Also… really hard to do. Naturally filled with mist once the change happened too.

Maybe a large cavern, to go with the smaller cave system, that housed a clearly visible colossal horde of undead? Heavy on the mana cost, but maybe it would be worth it for intimidation alone. Normally, I would of course, add mist to this cave, but the point is to see the horde, so…

Well, some of those ideas were feasible at least. I’d just go with the cave idea for now, normal sized and maybe see how things go in the future as my mana regeneration hopefully improves.

…

…

Time passed, my mana slowly filled back up, Biyaban stood there and looked particularly intimidating, though it did occasionally wander around and sniff at things. Timmy still roamed the halls, looking particularly ridiculous as always with one vaguely normal sized head and 4 tiny ones, and my delvers approached the source of their apparent desire. And mine, if it held what I thought it did.

It was kind of hard to tell when each day ended, but my entrance was exposed to open air, so as long as I checked back every once in a while, the sun’s presence could tell me whether a day had passed or not.

I think several had gone by, but with expansion and designing time really flew by. My core had been moved to the second floor now, just kind of… warping there in a flash of light. I’d managed to begin populating a couple of rooms, though upgrades were sparse between them. If something managed to clear out Biyaban, I was likely still screwed, unless they were heavily wounded and weak enough to fall to my remaining hordes.

Dutch came by and visited each day, seemingly to check up on me, even bringing me small offerings. John would come by and clear the Orchard with his help, delighting in discovering the moldy chest I’d left for him. It apparently spawned really common materials, though even some of those were fairly rare at ‘Home’ as I gleaned the village was called.

An example of Dungeons being amazingly exploitable resources was that they could make things that had absolutely no right being present in that part of the world. For example, if you lived in the Arctic circle, a Dungeon would still produce heat, potentially food, and other various things that were impossible to obtain because, you know, literally everything was frozen outside.

Cloths and fibers, leathers, crafting ingredients that appeared literally nowhere else and were required to progress in levels for those professions that used them, ores, and a wide variety of other things.

Granted, it could be fairly random, but even a low level dungeon had a few floors and would typically have several chests lootable quite frequently. I bet an entire city could be founded around large enough Dungeons, if it was farmed properly.

I was glad to already be of service, and I left a couple of welcoming messages around that hopefully reinforced the idea I wanted to help. Granted, if anybody walked down the primary defensive path at all, they would likely think I was a filthy liar, but what can I do? None of my Life-Aligned monsters were worth a damn!

Speaking of, I still had a trait point to spend too. I was taking more time to peruse my options, to see if there were any synergies I could potentially exploit or mechanics I hadn’t yet acquired.

In fact, I was in the middle of doing just that when Box politely informed me someone had entered. I focused my attention towards the front, only to be met with an unexpected sight. It was neither Dutch nor John that had appeared, but instead a young woman that marched down my steps.

She wore a pretty, if basic dress in a deep shade of blue that hung down to just above her ankles, contrasted by the thick wave of red hair that spilled down her back. Her features were quite pretty, if my memories were anything to judge by, though that was offset by the blank set of her features. Not the face of one who was merely indifferent, however, because that would have been preferable, but something else. Something indescribably wrong.

I wasn’t sure what she was here for, but a quick [Observe] told me she wasn’t likely trying to bring me harm. At least not in the physical sense, but words could still hurt my poor little crystalline self!

The strange woman approached my donation bowl and gently settled onto her knees before it, which I thought a little odd. “Hello, Dungeon.”

Hello, random girl who just walked in.

“My name is Katrina Desdemona.”

It's a pleasure to meet you, Katrina. I’m not sure why I’m responding to you since you can’t hear me, but it helps keep my sanity intact by the slightest of margins, so I shall continue regardless.

“The man who fell into you was my betrothed, one of the Gargaren scions, not that you’d know about them.”

Oh. Well this is awkward. Sorry for killing your fiance… I guess? I mean, it just kinda happened, not much I could do about it.

“They are quite wealthy and powerful where we all originally came from. I’m not entirely sure why they decided to leave their seat of power and come out here, but it must have been something serious, and they’ve been a landmark of Home ever since.”

Double shite.

“But I’m not here to talk about them.”

Oh? Do tell.

“I am here to thank you for freeing me from my oaths, and likely saving my life.”

What? No, seriously, what the hell. You gotta say more than that.

Katrina went from kneeling to bowing, forehead precariously close to the ground, before my donation bowl. I mean, I guess it kinda looked like an altar? I’d messed around a bit to make it more ‘me’ and added a small statue that held the bowl, with a more angelic half, perfectly divided with a skeletal side on the other.

Still, I certainly never meant for someone to come and prostrate themselves before it like I was some kind of twisted god.

“I’ve held onto a secret for as long as I’ve lived, and somehow they learned of it.”

While these juicy details are cool and all, what the hell is going on here?

“Did you know? My existence is a cursed one. I thought I could escape from it all when I came out here, but fate is a mistress of most cruel designs.”

I didn’t know that, but it makes me double check what I saw earlier. When I use [Observe], how much information it displays is actually kind of determined by how focused I am. If I use [Observe] while intently wanting to learn about one thing, it actually uses some mana to fuel itself. Which is something I decided was worth spending in this instant.

[Observe]

Name: Katrina Desdemona

Title: The Queen of Misery [Source: ???]

Active Effects: ???

Level: 3

Stats: [+]

I’d done something similar to Dutch to see exactly how strong he was, after my first cursory glance. He also had a title slot, though his actually explained where he got it from. Turned out Dutch was a fucking badass of literally epic proportions, though that was a memory for another time.

This though… This was something else. Her stats were nothing special lower than Johns' by a decent margin, even, making her title and hidden effect all the more worrisome.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here. I managed to overhear some of what the Gargaren family was ranting about, after they had a closed-door meeting of the village leaders. It was mentioned, in passing, that though you’re young, you’re intelligent. These signs I see support that from what I know… So I’ve come with an offer for you.”

This entire encounter was just a tad too strange for me to deal with right now. I’m just a Dungeon trying to figure out how to be helpful, OK? This is a little much for me!

“My family perished long ago. I am the last of my line. I have no desire for it to continue. Life has nothing left to offer me anymore. I do not seek to meaninglessly end my life, however. Instead I offer it to you. I know Dungeons grow in strength when humans die inside of them so… Use me. Show me what to do, and I will do it.”

Alright, look now, as much as I appreciate getting free things, I’d much rather it not be because someone wanted me to kill them. I haven’t even actually killed anybody yet! I’m totally not including the dude who fell in because that wasn’t due to my direction, just a mere unfortunate chance. This would be something entirely different.

“Perhaps you think I am being dramatic. Perhaps you think me stupid. Tell me, Dungeon, what am I to do? We are the only settlement on this side of the mountains. I cannot leave, for I am not strong enough to survive. I cannot stay, for the Gargarens will find even less pleasant methods of controlling me than mere marriage. I had to claim I was leaving to arrange a lady's monthly herbs for them to even contemplate letting me leave the house. My mind and body are scarred, Dungeon.”

She really seemed to buy that I was intelligent, and was correct in thinking that, though I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do. Killing her just… didn’t sit right.

“I once thought I could survive this curse… But it’s taught me better now. Running to the ends of the world wasn’t enough, so please Dungeon. Just do what you will with me. I am too tired to go on.”

At some point she’d sat back up as her plea concluded, and her face was thoroughly saturated with tears and redness from crying. The worst part was her blank facade, that might be less of a facade than I thought, was still in place, even as tears streamed down her face in a veritable deluge.

It was hard to imagine the circumstances that would have made someone so young into such a dead soul… But losing one's parents young led to a severe loss of agency in life. Choice was stripped away as the adults did as they pleased, whether they were doing it for a child's benefit or not. And though she never really outright stated the specifics, there were very few ways I could see leading to someone becoming so… dead inside.

Long term physical and mental abuse, some magic or other tool used to control other humans that I just didn’t know about could replace drugs and other mind-altering substances that I was familiar with. Sexual abuse likely wasn’t off the table. Anything that told her ‘your worth less than the dirt under your feet’ and ‘nobodies coming to help you’ would eventually lead to… Well, something like this.

Someone so just dead inside, but so convinced they needed to be doing something for someone else, that suicide wasn’t as an option but dying to the local Dungeon was, because then she was being useful and she would get to be free.

How disgusting.

Was there some Dungeon mechanic that let me bond with other humans, cause that would be neat right about now. I could just, you know, continue to not be able to talk and pretend like I had no idea it would happen. Heh.

Unfortunately I didn’t see anything like that in my menus, so I was -

Scrabbling claws over loose dirt and gravel could be heard above us. Timmy had appeared at some point, observing the strange girl, and was now growling at the stairs, his long, agile tail whipping through the air in agitation.

Katrina looked over at him in confusion, and I could see dirt raining from the ceiling as something heavy trod through the Graveyard above my entrance.

Fucking hell, what terrible timing.

Ok, based on sounds it's not a villager, more than likely it's the wolf pack finally arriving. Which means they’re going to go straight for my core, probably. So I can put Katrina in the Orchard and just make sure my skelly boys and vampire dog behave themselves. But what if they don’t? The tree has mana fruit hanging from it… They might go in there and my defenses are not good enough to protect Katrina from multiple wolves, even with the tree.

Sure, I could hope they wouldn’t notice her and go straight for me instead, but that was no guarantee.

Agh, all I had was terrible options.

Screw it. Timmy, grab her, bring her to the core room! I have faith that my defenses will hold!

Biyaban… Prepare yourself.

Mana flooded the Dungeon, filled with intent and impressions.

In this world of magic and gods, intentions can shape reality itself.

A Dungeon spoke to his monsters as though they were his children, full of his hopes and dreams, and inside their cold, dead hearts, something new sparked to life.

The first floor boss of the unnamed Dungeon stirred. It ceased its idle pacing and sniffing, turning to face the door its foes would enter from.

Biyaban didn’t know much. Its growth into an [Alpha Ghoul] was fantastic, and the Dungeon was truly the most supreme of entities, but then it was gifted with a name. Not just any name, no, the name of an ancient terror that once roamed an old land, using cruel cunning and outstanding violence to slaughter its prey.

In a world of magic and gods, names hold power.

Biyaban was the first, the progenitor. The strongest. The most feared predator dwelling amongst the sands of the Arabian Deserts.

The new Biyaban had a reputation to uphold.

But that wasn’t enough for Biyaban. No, Biyaban would not just honor its name, it would tear it from its roots and carry it to new heights!

He would carve his name into history with his bloodied claws and proclaim for all the world to hear!

Here dwells Biyaban, First Floor Boss of the Dungeon. Hear ye, hear ye, and fear his name, he who rides the desert winds and fears not the taste of Death.

Katrina Desdemona was incredibly confused.

The firm conviction that had filled her faltered, if ever so slightly, when the entire feeling of the Dungeon changed in an instant. She could feel it dwelling on her like a physical weight, the sense of idle curiosity, and then horror as her tale continued, and she asked for it to take her.

Perhaps it was just in her head, because Dungeons simply didn’t do that. Have feelings. Gained intelligence, sure, but that was a far stretch from actually having feelings, as compared to a clinical understanding of what they are.

But sounds emerged from above, and dirt rained on her head. Immediately the horror and curiosity transformed into fear, then panic, then grim determination.

Just as suddenly, the small, incredibly strange multi-headed creature of bone began to tug on her dress with one of its tiny heads that looked curiously like a bird skull. Maybe it was just fulfilling her request before someone could stop her?

She stood, following the creature towards the right-most door, merely labeled ‘Where Evil Dwells’. Fitting, for one such as her. Far better than the Orchard, at any rate.

The red head swiftly turned her head at the sound of scrabbling claws and the appearance of large paws taking the stairs into the Dungeon’s main entrance. Wolves? The Elder had posted a notice that nobody was to leave the village without a guard of a certain level…

Was this what he was worried about? Dirt continued to rain down as what sounded like an entire pack began howling above her, declaring their intent upon the world.

The tugging of the bone creature grew frantic, as more heads joined the first in pulling her away. The door pushed open, and she was pulled into a dark, misty room full of stone coffins, and the stench of rot and decay hit her nose immediately, making her gag. Undead surrounded them in large numbers. Zombies, flesh hanging down in strips or entirely missing. Skeletons, hissing and clicking at them as they walked past. An ethereal light outlined a vaguely humanoid figure that chilled her with its mere presence.

All the horrors of a Dungeon, and they parted like water before her presence, allowing her passage deeper into the depths of the mausoleum. As she stumbled past the coffins, pulled sharply by the boney monster, several lids let out loud CRACKS as they were shoved aside, and more undead emerged to reinforce their brethren, but she lost sight as she was pulled into a second door, not given time to process anything.

A winding passage appeared which she ran down, full speed ahead, utterly confused and lost as to what was happening. From the door behind her she suddenly heard loud thumps and collisions and bones snapping as something began to fight the undead horde. The bone monsters tugging grew even more insistent, if that was even possible, and she hurried along the stone passage. After a short while it became dirt, narrowing and curving back around.

She was forced onto her hands and knees as the tunnel became increasingly claustrophobically close, but she pushed through. The sound of claws scraping on stone warned her that something else was behind her, and a quick glance showed a monstrously sized wolf. On four legs it likely reached her upper chest in height, and was bloodied, numerous gouges and scratches marring its silver-gray fur with matted blood.

The moment it saw her it began to sprint down the hall, and she faced back and crawled as quickly as she could. Surely its greater size couldn’t actually fit into this small space?

Sounds of claws on stone disappeared as it reached the dirt section, and Katrina threw herself forward in a desperate lunge, as it had gotten much closer much faster than she thought it would.

The snap of teeth and a brush of wind along her feet told her she’d narrowly avoided having a foot removed by a far slimmer margin than she desired. She wanted to be useful to someone that didn’t despise her, not die meaninglessly to a dumb wild monster!

Pressing forward, it was only once she could stand again that she glanced behind her, seeing the oversized canine slowly mauling the dirt blocking its path forward. The strange bone creature remained beside her, letting out a vicious growl at the monster behind them.

Katrina broke into an all out sprint towards the next door that was visible further along the passage. She was never the most physically active, and she wasn’t spectacularly fast. Just over halfway to the door, she heard the ominous noise of dirt crumbling in large amounts and an all too victorious sounding bark.

The final Desdemona risked a look back, and to her terror saw three wolves rather than one, the other two near in size to the first. The strange bone creature ran ahead of her and turned, making an odd combination of noises, as though a dog’s bark was infused with the higher pitch of a bird’s chirp.

She was so close! The door was nearly in her grasp when the odd bone creature leapt past her in what could only be a delaying action. The sound of a pained yelp and a victorious chirp confirmed it as she slammed into the door, flipping it open but pausing to look back at her savior.

There it stood, not quite as tall or long, but squat and solid, with its much longer tail of solid bone flipping through the air as it planted itself between the three monstrous wolves and her. There was no way it could win, they were far too large!

But if it turned back now, they would catch it, then her. One of its heads turned towards her and she swore it made a ‘go on’ gesture as best it could.

“I’m sorry. Thank you.”

Katrina turned and ran. The sounds of crunching bone and vicious snarls followed her.

Tears streamed down her eyes - the earlier emotional dumping after years of holding everything in had already taken a toll, but now seeing the strangely dog-like creature that led her to safety and protected her undoubtedly face its death was enough to reignite her misery. Sure, it was rather monstrous and odd, but there was one point in her life where she was told to care for the family's dog, and it was her sole and best friend for many years, until it passed away and the bone creature had reminded her of it incredibly in the short time it had dragged her around.

That, or her emotions had already been put through a metaphorical grain mill and were just an utter ruin of the control she normally held. Maybe both.

Katrina’s foot sank into ankle-deep mud and reemerged with a wet sucking sound. She realized that sound was being repeated all around her, as once again she was faced with a veritable horde of the undead, who also, once again, utterly ignored her.

A gleaming sword of decent quality with red glowing runes inscribed into the blade floated by, an aura of malice and anger surrounding it, as she continued her journey towards the far side of the room, the false sun failing to pierce the dense fog covering the ground but providing enough light to watch where she walked. What she assumed was a ghost beckoned her towards the next door, and she plodded on with tenacious steps. Once again, the sounds of combat emerged from behind her but this time, she refused to look back.

Either the wolves had grown weary and bloodied, or the monsters in this room were stronger, because the battle sounded far more pitched than the first had, as angry, pained yelps emerged from the fog and the sound of flesh parting under claw or blade was heard.

Finally making it, she burst through the door and raced down the final hall, which wound a little bit but stayed stone the entire way through and maintained a uniform appearance the entire length.

After learning how the doors worked prior, she simply barreled into the entrance, the door flapping closed behind her as she entered the large, rectangular room. There was only one monster standing in the center of the room. As she approached it warily, loud bangs emerged from her left and right, startling her as more zombie-like creatures appeared and began to mill towards the center of the room. They all had varying appearances, but were undoubtedly undead.

Forcing her attention back onto the monster before her, she noted it stood much more at ease than the others had. It wasn’t more… human, per se, but more emotive. Its stance was one of calm patience, while most of the other undead lurched or moved with stiff, sharp movements, as skeletons were wont to do.

Its arms were crossed, incredibly long claws carefully held to not scratch itself. She carefully stepped past it, and while it followed her with its murky eyes briefly, its main focus remained on the door behind her. Katrina let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, turning to escape the room with the creepiest thing she’d seen yet, but right as she went to push open the door, the System emerged with a notification.

[The First Floor Boss hasn’t been defeated.]

The door didn’t open. She couldn’t open the door. She was, decidedly, quite stuck.

Though the Dungeon hadn’t tried to hurt her or do anything remotely bad, she was now stuck in the room that was likely to devolve into a fight very shortly. The chances of her getting hurt were quite likely, she was hardly an adventurer.

As she thought that, the horde of various types of zombies began to surround her, and panic briefly seized her, until she realized they weren’t doing anything just sort of… were they guiding her? They weren’t surrounding her, merely taking up the space between her and the door, though they were a little close for comfort. Also facing the wrong way if they were trying to fight the wolves currently invading the Dungeon.

Taking a step back, they all followed suit. She took another. They followed. This repeated until her back was against the wall, at which point they backed away slightly and turned to face the entrance into the boss room.

None too soon, either, as the door practically was broken off of its hinges, and several ragged-looking wolves made their presence known. One was significantly larger than the others, likely taller than her by an inch or two even while all of its legs were on the ground.

Both parties merely stared at each other for a moment, until the strange looking, long clawed zombie pointed at the biggest one and made a beckoning motion. It growled in response, so loud and vicious Katrina could feel her chest vibrating in response.

The biggest wolf made a gesture with its head and a couple short yips, and the three remaining wolves made their way towards her and her phalanx of zombie protectors. It was one thing to know that monsters' intelligence was high, it was entirely another to see them giving and following commands.

There was no time for idle thoughts, however, as battle was immediately joined. The three smaller wolves bodily threw themselves forward, attempting to shatter the defensive position the zombies had taken around her, something Katrina never thought she’d be thinking in a thousand years.

These undead were different, however, from their brethren that she’d passed earlier in the Dungeon. Blessed by their creator, underlings of the First Floor Boss, they had a point to prove and a master they could not fail.

Though the Draugr variant zombie lacked a weapon, it had gained a shield. With movements far surer and vicious than Katrina had seen previously, the shield-bearing zombie leaned forward and met the first wolf’s blitz with a bash of his own, and the sickly crunch of bone told her who came out on top of that exchange.

Others stepped forward, headless but apparently none the worse for it, they grappled the wolves and made openings for the others, who employed the only weapons they had available.

It was grotesque and utterly horrifying, watching the pack of 10 undead fall onto the three unprepared canines, biting, clawing, and tearing at flesh until the creatures agonized howls and thrashing ceased.

Once they were certain they had perished, every single one stopped and turned as one to face the apparent boss of both sides.

The wolf, despite its size, was deceptively fast and agile, almost moving faster than Katrina could keep up with.

If it was fast, however, then the undead boss could only be described as untouchable. It moved and swayed with ease, bending at angles that would have snapped a man's spine in twain.

It lashed out with razor-sharp claws, biting into the large wolf’s flank over and over, and it became clear who the victor would be. Where its claws had raked flesh, the wolf lost feeling, drooping and twitching as its legs failed it.

They wound up facing one another, undoubtedly reaching the time to finish the battle.

So it was to her surprise when the undead boss raised its finger, and with a voice that rasped as dryly as the desert itself, spoke.

“I am Biyaban, Rider of the Desert Winds, First Floor Boss. You shall be the start of my legend, wolf, and sustenance for my master. Now die.”

His voice made the fine hair of her arms and neck stand on end, its rasping, grating quality practically screaming at her to flee while she still could.

The wolf snarled angrily, lowering itself in preparation to dart forward, but Biyaban merely stood still. It moved faster than it had before, jaws snapping shut where Biyaban’s neck was. Instead of hearing the now almost familiar sound of bone snapping or flesh parting, the wolf’s fangs bit into nothing as Biyaban flowed like a mirage from where he was standing to slightly to the right, in perfect position to finish the fight.

His clawed hand plunged forward, easily penetrating the wolf's throat, before just as quickly tearing out, arterial spurts of blood coating the ground in viscous streams of red.

Well… That happened, I guess. Biyaban is a fucking badass! And so is Timmy, who is currently amalgamating himself a new body made of the numerous wolf bones I now have.

And now I have a traumatized young woman in the room that looks like a murder scene, surrounded by undead.

Not how I pictured my day going, but here I am.

What the fuck do I do now?