When Katrina awoke in my halls, she was a tad confused. Not that I blamed her, she was quite the mess when she first arrived and now she was… Maybe better isn’t the right word, but her physical injuries were completely gone. Only the tattered clothing and bloodstains remained to indicate what had gone through beforehand.

My shaman was resting on her knees near the bed, merely watching and following my orders of ensuring her health and protecting her. The orc was quite large, so I was happy it wasn’t towering over her as the first thing she saw when she woke up.

Katrina propped herself up slightly before turning towards the only other entity (that was visible) in the room. Her brow furrowed in confusion briefly, before something seemed to click in her mind and she turned her eyes towards something in front of her that I couldn’t see. Based on the way her eyes seemed to be reading something over, I assumed it was her own version of Box. Hopefully hers was less of an utter dick.

Curious, I used [Observe] to see what had changed since she was last in the Dungeon.

Name: Katrina Desdemona

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

Class: Acolyte

Active Effects: ???, Owned by a Dungeon

Level: 4

Stats: [+]

Perks:

Signed The Dotted Line: You can be granted the various abilities the Dungeon has to help its growth and expansion. Your growth is affected by the type of Dungeon you are contracted to. The Dungeon can invest mana into you to further your growth.

Cursed Bloodline: At some point in the past, one of your ancestors crossed a God. They’ve placed a curse on your bloodline. Perhaps it can be lifted by another powerful enough entity?

Abilities:

Draining Bolt: Unleashes a bolt of entropic energy that siphons life energy from its target to you. Enemies afflicted with this spell are more difficult to heal than normal.

Minor Rejuvenation: Adds a small amount of potent Life-Aligned mana to a target lasting up to 8 hours, allowing them to heal slightly faster, as well as boosting their stamina and mana recovery by a small amount.

I certainly saw a lot more than I did before. It also looks like she leveled up, and since the last time I’d observed her was a scant few hours prior, I could only assume it was due to our interaction during the wolves incident, or the deal itself. I could also assume all the extra information was because of the contract. I also opted to blatantly ignore the second trait I could see. That was a problem for future me to deal with.

Box showed me a new menu for contracted minion options. While it was curious that in theory there could be multiple, I hoped Katrina was the only one I would have to deal with. Handling minions and the Dungeon itself was hard enough, excluding actual human issues that would come up with ‘minions’ as Box so eloquently labeled them.

Once Katrina finished examining her status (I assumed) she turned back to the orc shaman. “Hello. Is this the Dungeon? I don’t remember seeing you in it before.”

This time I didn’t try to send a specific string of words I wanted the [Novice Shaman] to speak, but a general idea and I let them parse it however they needed to. Their voice came out as a rumble, yet somehow still sounded feminine. At least, feminine enough to differentiate between male/female.

“The great Master ordered me to watch over you and heal your wounds after you appeared in the core room. This room is temporarily yours, until such a time as he can make you a better one. I will be your guardian for the time being.” The shaman turned out to be surprisingly well-spoken.

The redhead contemplated what she had just been told, an odd look crossing her face as she processed exactly what was happening. “So… I am the Dungeons now instead of the Gargarens?”

… Technically true, but not what I really wanted to be the case, or for her to think. Because that’s not how I wanted to treat her - as something I ‘owned’. That was just cruel.

“The great Master says you are free to do as you wish, though leaving the Dungeon itself would be inadvisable. Once he can acquire better materials he will make you a better room to stay in. You are also free to explore as our fellow defenders of the Master will know you to be one of their own. I will be with you in case you require assistance.” The shaman was still kneeling, though her head was bowed and her eyes were closed as she attempted to parse my thoughts and feelings being transmitted to her.

I admit, she did a pretty good job. Maybe it was because my understanding of shamans includes the ability to commune with spirits of varying kinds, including elemental ones, which I doubted all just spoke plain English, or whatever language we might be using now. I might have gotten quite lucky with my healer in this case…

“I… Understand. I think I’m still a little shocked at my sudden change of fate, so I’d like to rest for now, but I’m happy to help out however I can. I’ve seen the changes in my status, and it looks like I can help you do… Dungeon related things. Whatever those might be.”

I expected… A certain amount of hesitation or… Something? Before she just accepted this new status. I mean, I know she was looking for an out to her existence with her ‘family’, but this seemed strangely quick.

I mean, she had to personally approve the deal for it to take effect, so I sincerely hope she read the terms and conditions before she just smacked the ‘accept’ button. If her own personal Box revealed the same things mine did, then it didn’t necessarily spell out the fact that she was now tied to me in an irrevocable, permanent fashion.

Granted, the description itself should have made it obvious to some extent, since it fundamentally altered a part of her personal growth, directly tying it to me. Although from what I knew of her, she was in a ‘desperate measures’ situation, so she might have considered that acceptable?

Well, unless I figured out a direct way of asking her… Wait a minute.

I can make signs.

I’m not limited by her presence.

I can make signs directly in front of her.

The more you know. I can do that later if I actually need to pass on a specific message, I suppose. It’s not the greatest for extended conversations since it takes me a bit to make the words legible. Still, it’s a much better tool for providing exact and specific answers or asking questions that I need passed on word for word.

Also, food. Technically Katrina, once she’s rested up, could forage random things I can’t get myself, but right now she isn’t exactly at her best. She’s been healed, sure but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still exhausted, or won’t need to immediately eat once she awakens.

I’d prefer to get a headstart on that process than lag behind, as that could more than slightly inconvenience her. Sure, I had the [Mana-Rich Fruit] but my memories told me quite clearly that sustaining her off just those was a poor idea. Maybe not immediately, so it wasn’t quite at emergency status, but important to get a jump on.

So with my remaining mana, I spawned a group of [Skeletons], specifically all as archer-types. I immediately upgraded them once, focusing very much on the idea of hunting/gathering. Since I gained the ability to specify what my two most basic undead types transformed into, I’d learned that I could also guide them in a direction to some extent. So with my push, I created [Skeletal Rangers]. Most were spawned with bows and iron arrows, of a decent quality (plenty good enough for the work they were doing) and a couple of spearwielders. They had skinning knives and large sacks they could sling over their shoulders, and I assumed the spears were for larger animals that threatened the group, such as wild boars or even bears.

Maybe a higher tier of skeleton would have no issue with even those, when I hopefully had even higher quality arrows and they became capable of punching straight through even the tougher wildlife. That day was not today however, and my [Skeletal Rangers] would have to opt for something more akin to the average human.

I’d spawned them in my very first room outside the entrance, so they quickly marched outside, equipped to retrieve food and other foodstuffs that may be of interest. The sun was setting, beautiful beams of orange and red light lancing through the leaves swaying in the trees outside the graveyard. Likely due to the size of the village, it merely had a small wooden fence line indicating its borders. A dirt path led out of it, presumably in the direction of Home, so I had the rangers split up into groups of two and begin exploring the land immediately surrounding the entrance to my Dungeon.

Darkness was of little impact to my undead, so they could operate equally well at night as during the day, which also helped reduce the likelihood that they would be discovered.

My odd sense of self helped identify where the rangers were in relation to any part of my Dungeon, so I was able to mentally map the nearby area and vaguely place Home. I also made a three dimensional map out of wood and stone to help me visualize and remember where everything was. Processing the inputs of the five pairs was relatively easy since I wasn’t trying to make a perfectly accurate map with elevation and other pertinent details, I mostly needed distance and rough locations of landmarks to remember.

So I was quite happy when one of my rangers discovered a river close by, near enough that I could expand myself outwards without much effort and reach it, allowing me to possibly get running water inside! While I already had 'eaten' some water, the underground river I'd seen wasn't in a great position to collect the precious liquid from.

I might just be able to create water inside the Dungeon without needing to divert part of the River. I could probably do that if I needed to, but my memory of physics and the knowhow to actually not flood the entire Dungeon in the process was spotty at best. So I’d prefer the safer option first, but I was willing to test a few things to get cool water effects. Or just provide drinking water for Katrina, another minor yet rather important detail.

It still was odd to me, the fact I now had to provide for a human being that didn’t just exist and defy any and all laws relating to conservation of anything. I mean, I guess I’m using mana, but… Magic is bullshit man.

There wasn’t much to discover in the forest - I marked the tops of hills and a small shrine to an unknown god on my map, but it was otherwise just a whole bunch of trees.

I let my focus slip away from them and towards my miners. They were just about to reach another vein of some sort, and I was curious as to what I would get.

A few minutes later and my patience was rewarded.

[Coal Discovered!]

[Steel-Tier weapons and armor now available!]

From my hazy memories I knew making steel was actually a rather complicated process - it was a form of iron combined with a certain amount of carbon. How that carbon was introduced, and how to remove any other impurities that would otherwise weaken the metal was utterly beyond me, so I was thrilled that my smiths were capable.

Of course I had to keep in mind that my entire set of memories practically screamed that everything I was currently doing was impossible, and the one thing different that I could see (beyond the technological era) was mana. It seemed to change quite literally everything, so it was fair that things diverged so far from my memories, but it still amused me at times.

I looked over my smiths, and a new construct had appeared in their area. It also required a vent, so I made a second one and just had it merge with the other, so I didn’t have two different vent pipes above ground. It appeared to accept the liquid ore from the furnace on one side, and had a bellow-looking device underneath it.

Observe told me it was used to help separate impurities from ore, so I guess that answered my prior question about how they fixed that particular problem. Just in case they gained even more larger items needed to help them smith things, I expanded the room once again. The industrious skeletons managed to, as a group, lift the entire furnace and move it back against the wall, before repeating the process with the other stations. Apparently my smithing skeletons were incredibly yolked from all their time spent forging, if that made sense for a creature that entirely lacked muscles.

I spawned yet another group of miners to handle digging in the direction of the other ores that were still visible to me. They were deeper down, so the digging was a little more complicated. Instead of starting them on the second level, I had them go down to my under-construction third and start from there. They made a cramped staircase that an actual human probably would have absolutely hated, but luckily for me I had skelly boys instead, who cared not for trivial things such as ‘workplace safety’ or ‘hazard pay’.

My mana was still not the highest, but upgrading any of my minions for a third time was looking a little expensive, even with all my experience going towards reductions. Upgrading a minion a second time doubled the price again, meaning that, by base cost, a pack of [Zombies] would cost 7 mana to spawn in, 14 to upgrade once, and 28 to upgrade a second time. Which was over an eighth of my entire mana pool. And that was for a relatively cheap option, unless I counted the [Geist]. With cost reductions, the first [Zombies] upgrade was only 8, and the second was 22. Much better, and it rather reaffirmed my decision that upgrade cost reductions were far superior to mana regeneration increases, at least at this level. In the future, if I gained absolute mountains of experience and regeneration had no cap, it would be superior.

However, depending on how far the cost reduction let me go, it was by quite a colossal margin my best choice for use of Experience points. I also just assumed it had a cap, because Box letting me get away with 0 cost upgrades seemed far too kind. It was the kind of system-breaking flaw that would never be allowed. In fact, I expected to hit the cap soon, as my Geist first upgrade cost would have already been zero if not for the cost increase from [For I Am Legion].

There could also be a soft cap limiting reductions to one mana as the most it could reduce costs to, but even then it would be utterly broken without an upper limit to the amount reduced as well.

I suppose I’ll find out in a few days, assuming I gain more Experience in that time.

Every once in a while I liked to check my trait point options, because just like my perks were gained and adapted to what I’ve done, I would occasionally unlock new traits the same way. In addition to that, enough time has passed that I’ve actually seen some growth from [Let There Be Life] in my caves and tombs. Mostly in the form of an odd lichen and moss that started emerging near the sarcophagi. Some tiny mushrooms had appeared in my tunnels and more cave-like areas as well. The grass in the Orchard seemed healthier and taller, and I think the [Budding Tree] has grown as well, if only because it's now barely touching the ceiling when it wasn't before.

So I can only assume that it's the presence of both that perk in particular, the fact that things are growing in my Dungeon, and possibly that I sent out my [Skeletal Rangers] to go hunt and scavenge for plants and other things that enabled the new perk I see.

I decided to go for it, since I hadn’t really seen anything else that would specifically help my ‘build’ as it were. Which I probably needed a counter to… whatever countered it, at this stage. Thinking about it, I also needed a second floor boss, but trying to build my boss to counter something that I wasn’t even exactly sure what it was didn’t seem the smartest. I’d come back to that when I had more mana.

Back to the trait.

[Perk Acquired:]

[Agricultural Renaissance:]

Providing the barest necessities isn’t good enough for you. All plants, crops, or greenery that grow in your Dungeon are of a far superior quality to any equivalents found outside its halls. Plants and seeds assimilated by your Dungeon can be created via [Dungeon Manipulation]. Anything created in this manner besides cosmetic vegetation spawns as a seed that grows incredibly quickly and without the need for natural sunlight.

[Life-Mana Alignment has been increased!]

I’d just used my last trait point on [Artificer], and now I had plants within my grasp as well. The raw benefits to this trait weren’t yet clear to me, but I could easily imagine them. Any kind of crop I obtained I could grow incredibly quickly and with ease. Any fruits or vegetables would be easily mass produced. The trait literally said ‘any greenery’ which presumably meant if I encountered any sort of magical plant then I could grow that as well.

I was also banking on how [Artificer] was described. At the time, I only had ore and smithing as the type of crafting available, and the description reflected that, but its actual benefit specifically said:

Expands crafting options. Allows crafters to experiment and learn new methods.

Which meant if alchemy was a thing here then I would benefit from both of those perks immensely. Imagining the possibilities made me salivate. Or it would, if I had a mouth. I’m sure one of my unupgraded zombies was walking around slack-jawed, slobbering everywhere for me.

With that particularly disgusting image in my head, I moved on. Theoretically, I could expand into any number of things pertaining to ‘crafting’ and become an absolute monster of production and quality in damn near any field I could think of.

Once again, I am a Dungeon full of undead workers that never tire. Now plants, trees, and literally anything grown will be much faster to produce. That covers any number of things including anything related to wood - carpentry being the primary one I can think of offhand. My only and closest guests would be the primary recipients of my products, though they could potentially sell them as well if they have any sort of trade going on with the kingdom that I know nothing about.

Barrel making is always a chore, especially when you lack any and all power tools, so I imagine Home would love barrels. That one export alone is probably worth a lot of money, let alone if I get something actually valuable by itself, no crafting needed.

All of that insane production could then be fed into any and all crafting stations I can make. Maybe the smithing station would be better if it had access to wood? I’m fairly certain it's just straight up using magic to heat the metal at this point, because I just gained access to coal and it was doing fine without it before.

Although I’m gonna be really pissed off if Box refuses to give me any other crafting stations. Even if that’s the case, due to the [Artificer] bonus I might just be able to make more smiths and force them to do carpentry instead. It would definitely take longer and they would have to make their own crafting stations, but they’d have all the time in the world to try things out.

My guess is, however, that once I have enough materials for something and drive home what I want to do, it’ll give it to me purely because they all feature ways to kill someone, somehow. Exploding barrels? Cursed totems? The possibilities are endless.

Box doesn’t really seem to give a wit about my intentions when I do something, just that I’ve done it, so even if I just plan on making cool art with wood carving, he’d still give me the station. I’ve learned a thing or two since I woke up!

Mostly about how much Box is an asshole and working around that, but I suppose humans are just as capable at assholery so it's not a unique affliction.

Moving on.

When I began expanding my Dungeon, even on the second floor, I began constructing all of my floors away from the graveyard. It was an unfortunate reminder of what I was forced to become to protect myself, but I wouldn’t let it define what I did. In fact, I quite appreciate the work ethic my minions had, so I’ll reap the advantages of my ill-fated path.

So I found it oddly fitting as I carved out my first ‘field’ to test out the new trait directly under the graveyard. Since I’d grown away from it, I was able to create a large chamber with [Dungeon Manipulation], starting roughly 20 feet down from the graveyard itself, and stretching down another 50 feet to make room for some trees. It technically took up space in both my first and second floor, but it wasn’t connected to them at all except by my entrance room.

In fact, I had to expand the entrance. When someone walked down the stairs, they were immediately faced with the two doors, and the rules of Fair Trade. Now, I've opened up the area behind the stairs. Rather than put it behind a door, however, I decided to get a little creative.

I created a downward slope that was the width of the room to start, and slowly narrowed to be able fit a large person. It traveled for a few feet before bending slightly, just enough to block a straight line of sight, then straightened right back out.

That path then opened up to the new room. Rather than appearing on ground level, however, it emerged onto a cliff that overlooked the entire area of fields I’d created. Since the planned cropland wouldn’t interfere with the first or second floor, due to the direction I’d built them in, I was free to expand it in size to the maximum allowed amount, which was quite large.

While it was currently unpopulated and imitated a rather unremarkable dirt field, it would hopefully soon have at least one or two crops seeded throughout it. Getting tree seeds was plenty easy, which would hopefully expand into some kind of station that allowed me to craft items from wood, which I could then trade for more.

If that failed, I could always steal a few seeds. I only needed one of each, after all.

But that was for the future. I needed to wait till my [Skeletal Rangers] brought back their haul to even plant any trees, so a dirt field it would remain for now.

I’m not sure if it was an option before either, but one of the ‘room types’ I could make was cropland. The sky above my field grew false clouds, and a sun that actually moved from one corner to another and had a simulated nighttime. It likely came about with my selection of the trait, and I appreciated it, as it also made the view as someone walked into the room a lot more epic.

At least, I hoped it would be. Still just a dirt field at the moment, after all.

Speaking of, crops need water, which means I need to expand over to that river next. I'll have to delay my influence’s expansion to the next vein, but I think it’ll be worth it.

I had a lot to do, but things were looking up, even with my newest god-cursed resident. At least it was a bloodline curse, not a direct curse, right?

That totally makes it better.