Throughout the night my rangers were able to bag some prey. Thanks to their upgrades and to their less shoddy equipment (their bows still weren’t great) their aim was significantly improved, and taking down smaller critters was possible in addition to larger animals. They turned out to be good at prowling through the dense surrounding forest, as befitting their class, despite being skeletons.

I wasn’t exactly sure what they smelled like, but I guess it wasn’t much. They were mostly all bone and mana constructs to boot. Either way, they were more successful than I thought they would be.

They were also able to retrieve various seeds for the different types of trees in the surrounding area, which indicated I was in a temperate forest, consisting of a decent variety of firs, oaks, and other common types. There were others I couldn’t identify, likely changed by the simple existence of mana, and I made sure to harvest some seeds from those as well.

Before the sun began to rise my rangers returned, bearing the fruits of their labor. I dug out a new room and area for them to work in, mostly consisting of several tables for them to deposit the animals onto and a room where I tried my best to make a freezer. It had meat hooks and the room type was set to ‘arctic’ which caused the temperature to drop severely, which would hopefully ensure that after my skeletons were done carving up the animals they’d caught it wouldn’t all go to waste. It was placed on the first level as well, in between my normal hallways and my budding farm area, so potentially visitors could taste the (hopefully) grand meals my skelly boys would make!

Would they question food made by an undead creature? Probably, but they’re skeletons! They’re clean, I swear!

Box, having seemingly grasped my basic intentions, provided me with a new crafting station.

[Skeletal Cooking Crew]

Cost: 12 Mana

With sweet, succulent smells to draw in adventurers, and delicious meals to bolster your troops, these skeletons will be a boon to any Dungeon aspiring to be more than a mere deathtrap.

I’m feeling targeted right now, Box. But it's true as well, so I can’t be mad. I’m also pretty sure my living creatures subsist off my mana alone, but this seems to indicate they are capable of eating, so I suppose the… two actual creatures I have that can eat will be pleased. Do [Faeries] count? What would they even eat? They’re tiny anyway, so it's not like they would eat much.

Odd ponderings aside, I swiftly made yet another room attached to the others that was going to host the ‘kitchen’ as it were. I plopped the crafting station in, causing a range, brick oven, racks of knives and other assorted kitchen tools, and multiple tables to appear. Pots and pans also made themselves known, hung at various points above the cooking stations. Due to my doubling perk, multiple of each item appeared, though the places where actual ‘cooking’ took place (anywhere that used heat) was just… Bigger. Much bigger. The range had enough room for four people to stand and work at with room to spare so they could actually move around.

The oven was huge. I’m pretty sure multiple people could fit inside with ease. The actual skeleton crew (hah) that was going to be doing the cooking appeared, and they all had adorable chefs hats on. I’m glad Box was polite enough to pre-provide them, or else I would have found a way to acquire them regardless.

They swiftly began to move about the kitchen and adjust things to their liking, or at least that's what I assumed they were doing. I’d have to assign a protector of some sort later on to make sure someone didn’t just wander in and murder my cooking crew. That would be the height of rudeness, and something some random asshole would totally do.

The rangers started carving up the animals they’d killed, and I focused my attention on the seeds they brought back to me. Quickly assimilating them, I got notifications for each but since nothing stood out as particularly special, I dismissed them and moved back over to the field I’d created. Using [Agricultural Renaissance] was as simple as a flex of my will, and a minor mana cost. I planted a row of trees, just using one seed of each type to start with.

I wanted to see how they grew, and how fast, because depending on that I might adjust how many I plant and whether I make a second room dedicated to just trees. If they're fast enough, then it also tells me how fast the crops will likely grow, since trees take significantly longer to reach a harvestable stage. Well, non-magical trees did anyway.

This shit was magic, so who knew what was going to happen.

I also reached the river with my expansion and made a tiny little culvert that allowed water to flow into one of my areas of influence. I assimilated the water and gained the ability to spawn it, but since it would be composed of my mana I was nervous about feeding it to anyone. Especially with Box around.

So instead, I used my elementary understanding of fluid mechanics… To do nothing. I just made a pipe that connected to the kitchen and filled a large stone bucket, and installed a stone slab attached to a simple lever. When the lever was pushed in, it slid into place and blocked the flow of water. When it was pulled out, it removed the blockage and allowed it to flow freely.

The skeleton chefs seemed to grasp how it worked straight away, as they began using it to fill a couple pots and pans and set it on the range to boil. Apparently, they understood hygienics, which I’m glad for, because that would be something I didn’t want to try and finagle.

This could all be solved if I learn that Dungeon water is safe to drink, but still. Gonna start on the safe end of the spectrum, rather than the ‘I hope this doesn’t backfire’ end.

I left my cooking and hunting crew to their machinations, and moved on to other important things. From what I saw, even John, Dutch’s trainee or squire or whatever the hell he was, couldn’t safely take the Orchard on his own. Once he was aware of the danger, I’m confident he would be fine, and once he levels up, even moreso. In fact, based on Dutch, I’d imagine his early growth should be fast enough to make the Orchard inconsequential fairly quickly.

But for anyone else who needs to take baby steps, I could help them. The rules were updated so that Rule 3, or the ‘not allowed into the danger zone’ rule, included multiple doors on the left hand side of the signs, not just the one. I added a second door, made a decent sized room, added a generic room type that gives it grass and light, and spawned in a single pack of [Skeletons]. Because it now spawned 10, and they actually had iron equipment (they didn’t deserve steel) I also made a sort of cage, or barrier that prevented 9 of the 10 from fighting whoever walked into the room.

I realized I would have a problem since they were all in the same room, however so I separated each one with walls. Thanks to the fact Rules existed, ‘mechanics’ of a room were possible to manipulate, because it was an extension of helping more nuanced Rules exist. For example, if I had a boss fight like Biyabans, that has ‘adds’ that spawn in a certain time through the fight, then I could make a Rule that doubles the amount of them. The mana in that instance would be supplied by the adventurer, and their reward would be the payment for their investment.

Alternatively, a Rule could be more along the lines of ‘the adds spawn immediately’, making the fight more challenging because the full health Biyaban would have his compatriots helping him out from the start. It didn’t cost more mana, but would provide better rewards regardless due to the increased challenge.

It was a very detailed and nuanced system that I was surprised existed, but I would take advantage of it since it was available. The spawn points of every individual skeleton in the pack was editable, so I ensured they would spawn in the cages I’d constructed. They had a simple stone lock that could be broken with minimal effort. The skeletons weren’t going to try and escape so they wouldn’t break free and surprise whatever newbie was using the room, potentially resulting in their death.

That wasn’t the point of that room. If I wanted them to die, I’d just welcome them into the deathtrap of my main hallways!

Inside the room itself I added a Rule that made one or two of the [Skeletons] actively try to break free, adding an element of randomness and situational awareness needed to the room. Not much, and they were basic skeletons. Not exactly difficult to deal with.

When I had more mana to invest, I would make more interesting training rooms, with gauntlets and challenges galore, but my second floor was currently missing a boss, so I wanted to preserve some till I could upgrade a beasty to nasty heights.

I was also concerned about how long Katrina had been sleeping for, but I didn’t know exactly how healing worked with magic, and if it used up some of the person's stamina or not. She’d gone through an exhausting, terrible experience either way, not including the quickened healing, so it made some degree of sense, and with the [Novice Shaman] keeping an eye on her, I was confident she would be OK.

My delvers and miners were still going at it and I’d hopefully get a new vein of ore soon, though I couldn’t tell if it was going to be the same that I’d already gotten or something new, so I was excited to see what was found.

Beyond that, all I could do was wait and hope my new training room would see some excitement.

Dutch knew something was off with those damn Gargarens, but after speaking to Kurell on the matter it seemed unlikely that, without definitive proof, they would be able to even investigate without causing major backlash in their small community. So instead of focusing on things that he had absolutely no control over, he opted to help Home as best he could in his own way.

John was… Learning. The one trip into the Dungeon they’d taken was a valuable learning experience, though he was so green it was almost painful. The Dungeon seemed to be some kind of anomaly… Which was either going to help out Home significantly, or burn it to the ground.

There really was no in between. Sometimes, Dungeons just came out… Different.

No one ever knew why, or could explain why they were so fundamentally changed in comparison to their simpler siblings, but it was always immediately obvious from the start that something was different with one. They almost always grew at an exceptional rate, and they displayed a level of intelligence that was, in a word, utterly frightening.

Until he saw more, he wouldn’t know for sure which way this one swung, so his only option was to keep on exploring it and to use it to help some of the others grow stronger so their village wasn’t overrun in future years.

With him he had two young teens, both of whom weren’t needed on the farms and weren’t tied to any of the journeymen or craftsmen the village fielded. Out of options, they were forced to go along. From Dutch’s own collection they were supplied basic swords of decent quality, though anything the Dungeon dropped would likely be better.

Their faces were frightened, and though they lived in the untamed wilds they had yet to face real danger. Perhaps Dutch was too efficient in culling any monsters that appeared in their region…

His job took him all over the countryside, and kept him quite busy. In the wilderness monsters popped up quite frequently, and without Dungeons to pull in the ambient mana and focus it, more and more appeared. They would then breed, and become massive problems the longer they went uncontrolled. It had made moving away from the central kingdom far more difficult than it needed to be, but they had had a significant amount of help, at first. Most of the higher tier adventurers that had moved originally had passed on from old age, and while Dutch was still plenty spry, he certainly wasn’t a young man. ‘Past his prime’ was the best descriptor, he felt.

They hadn’t realized the problem until it was too late, it seemed.

Without the adventurers gained by leveling in Dungeons, they lacked the power needed to stay alive against the wild beasts that grew in this particular area, lacking in Dungeons as they were.

Which was why it was his deepest of hopes that the current focus of many heated discussions amongst the village leadership would assist them, possibly entwining with the village to become closely symbiotic. The anomalous property merely meant it would either be incredibly beneficial… Or they would all die.

His idle musings were cut short as they approached the entrance. “Bertram, Gerard, stay behind me. John, pay attention. See if anything has changed since you were last here. Dungeons aren’t just dangerous because they’re filled with slavering monsters who want to end your life, but because they change on a whim and what was once expected and routine, changes.”

They affirmed his command and began to march down the steps.

The first thing he noted was the extra door, and the new sign. Made of what looked like a new kind of wood, it simply stated ‘Practice Room’. He would have to investigate it before allowing anyone else inside, but if it was anything like the Orchard room, it would be very beneficial for his new recruits.

A slight breeze wafted past his cheek, causing him to rapidly turn and face where it came from. Nothing had tickled his danger sense, but it was always best to be careful. The packed dirt of the entryway became a smooth stone that slowly angled down and narrowed until it reached a thin tunnel, lacking a door like most of the other entrances did.

“You two stay here, John, stay behind me a few feet. We need to investigate the other rooms before we can begin training. If anything comes out or anything looks remotely suspicious, then leave the Dungeon.”

They were slightly more nervous now, but wariness would do them good.

John stayed behind him the designated distance and he marched forward, one hand on his sword and the other keeping his shield ready to raise at a moment's notice. The tunnel wasn’t particularly wide, but it didn’t impede his movements too much, allowing him to walk straight-on through it. The wind became stronger as he approached the end of the tunnel, hinted at by the suddenly bright light beaming down the passageway.

Squinting his eyes as he emerged onto what seemed to be a small rocky outcrop, and it took him a few moments longer to realize he was standing on a cliff. Puffy clouds floated by his head, uncaring of his shock at the sight before him. A distance farther than Dutch was comfortable falling from down appeared a large field, with rows of dirt and several sprouts emerging from one in particular. The scenery was fairly idyllic, though the entrapping walls that were still visible dampened that sensation.

It was more the actual appearance of agricultural practices that was shocking to him than anything else. Some Dungeons had been known to grow crops or plants before, but none in an orderly, human-like fashion.

Glancing about, he saw no easy way down, and though he could likely figure one out or possibly make one, he was comfortable leaving the room the way it was and to his back. There weren’t any creatures inside of it, either, it was clearly a work in progress.

John had a gobsmacked look on his face, and quickly tried to shut his fallen jaw when Dutch turned to face him. “You’re not wrong boy, this is quite strange. I look forward to seeing what the Dungeon comes up with, however. It isn’t going to be dangerous to us at the moment, so let's keep on moving.”

John nodded, and they moved on. Walking back led Dutch to discover the Kitchen, which he also explored. Finding meat hanging from the hooks in a chilled room in the back, he made a mental note to see if any of the farmers had lost animals recently. He doubted it, but he needed to check.

The existence of a kitchen by itself was already strange enough, and the skeletons prancing about the place with large, cylindrical white hats was equally confusing, though they weren’t aggressive in the slightest.

Dutch left them to their tasks and returned to his ‘party’. “Alright boys, the Dungeons made some changes but none of them are dangerous to our health. Let’s go check out this last new room and see what it entails. Maybe you boys will get to learn what defeating a monster feels like!”

The two younger teens looked a tad fearful, but he didn’t blame them. Leveling up traditionally took time, and a lot of effort or luck on the part of the beginner adventurers would eventually get them to the point where they could delve some of the lower tier Dungeons, or the first floor or two of the middle tiers.

If the more risky part of entering a Dungeon was removed, however, and it actually cooperated… Things would be different.

Hope burned like a torch in Dutch’s heart, but he refused to let any of that optimistic light escape beyond himself until he knew for certain what was going on. They pushed the door open and revealed the small chamber, holding one skeleton, and nine more in individual locked cages. A wooden sign stood up from the floor with a Rule, and a brief explanation.

Learn here, and learn well, young trainee, for these creatures are the least of what you shall face below.

Optional Rule:

If you are confident in your abilities, take this challenge! Instead of patiently waiting to be released, one to two skeletons will fight to break free of their cage at a time.

Rewards Increased!

Optional Event:

Pay the mana cost, and the skeletons will respawn.

Cost: 7 Mana.

Well, isn't this interesting. The Dungeon must have seen how even John, who, while green, wasn’t a complete novice and still struggled in the Orchard, and made an even easier room. The torch in his heart burned brighter yet.

Time to put the lads through their paces.

The grin on his face didn’t seem to reassure Bertram or Gerard, but John looked excited at the prospect of having easier creatures to practice on.

There might be hope for the boy yet, if he was actually looking forward to this.

Watching the two newbies try and kill my singular skeleton was quite painful. Even when they tag-teamed it, they struggled. Not even because the skeleton was particularly strong or fast, they were just so nervous and scared of being hit they kept whiffing their own hits. Dutch set them straight soon enough, and John also got in on the action, though he immediately activated the Rule when it was his turn.

Which made a fair bit of sense, he’d done pretty well in the Orchard, minus the surprise [Lifedrinker] attack at the end. Time passed as I watched them, and they actually spent a significant amount of time in those first two rooms, enough in fact that I actually got to witness both the newbies level up at least once.

It was quite interesting, because like me it refreshed their remaining hit points and mana back to full, based on the sudden second wind they got. They also moved faster, hit harder, and seemed to gain confidence at the sudden burst of strength. Dutch would still ream them in a moment, and they wouldn’t likely make it past even my first room in the primary defense hall, but I could see them making progress.

I even got to see the actual rewards they got this time! Since they, as a team, cleared the Orchard, I saw the random rewards they got from the chest. Once the trio of younger recruits was done, I even got to see a rather scuffed looking pair of boots appear in John’s hands.

“Old Leather Boots of Agility? No way!”

And I apparently made John’s day. Enchanted gear was basically non-existent outside of the old adventurers that lived in town, according to Dutch, and this would make John quite popular with the younger crowd, if Bertram and Gerard's reactions were anything to go by.

“No way! That’s amazing, John!”

“Holy cow! Ugh, I’m so jealous! Why didn’t I get something like that?”

They were quite young still, so I didn’t blame them. Plus if they came back often enough, I’m sure they’d start to see more items like that.

Once their excitement was out of the way, Dutch sent them home and proceeded to clear my two existing floors. I noticed that even though I considered myself to still be brand new, Dutch was immensely careful as he cleared my floors, and Biyaban actually was able to put up a fight. The [Alpha Ghoul] opted not to speak during their encounter, merely grinning ear to ear and went all out on him from the get go.

Dutch, for all his graying hair and older appearance, was faster than Biyaban was, and had some sort of sense where Biyaban was, even when he used his vanishing trick. The chaff that supported Biyaban wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to make a difference and quite literally disintegrated with a casual backhand from the veteran adventurer.

When the fight was over, I could practically feel Biyaban’s resolve grow stronger. I suspect my strongest ghoul is going to have a complex about growing stronger or fighting stronger opponents or something, but maybe that's my weird memories talking again.

The second floor was interesting to watch, only because Dutch was even more careful, facing the upgraded squads of my minions, as they weren’t as simple to slay. Merely chopping off an arm wasn’t enough to end the magic holding the [Skeletons] together, and the magic and arrow combination was dense enough that though he could likely tank it and be fine, he chose to try and avoid it whenever possible.

My guess was that even though he could, without a party and more specifically, his lack of healer, meant that even though he might only get a couple scratches from the deluge of attacks, those could add up over time and eventually cause a more serious problem. Plus, disease carrying [Zombies] and all that plus open wounds was a no-no. I’m not sure if he knew that, but either way it was smart of him.

The moment they had appeared, I’d walled off the room attached to my core room that Katrina resided in, not wishing to deal with that at the moment, and Dutch merely confirmed my core had moved to the second floor before departing again. He didn’t both checking out the third floor that had an obvious tunnel, though since I lacked a second floor boss he might have (correctly) assumed that, just like the first time he visited, I’d started digging but hadn’t actually done anything yet to my newest floor..

With that excitement ended, I got my notifications of Experience gained, but no levels. I wasn’t too surprised, the first time they’d visited I’d been brand new, and now I at least had a few levels under my belt. Enough to not just immediately level the moment something happened, anyway. From what I overheard, they were going to be regularly visiting my halls, so hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to level again. I wanted that sweet sweet regeneration and top off!

My attention was gained by my [Novice Shaman] ‘requesting’ my presence, so to speak. This time, Katrina was already up and seemed to be trying to figure out a way out of the room. I’d left several signs posted in her room that would hopefully explain a few things. Like, she was free to roam the halls (once I opened the entrance again), that I was working on getting her food, and water was available in the 1st floor kitchen (near the entrance), and that if she needed to get around to ask me to teleport her. Since that was part of our deal, was letting me just… move her around the Dungeon. Speaking of, could I do that to my other minions, so when I was someday 100 floors deep they didn’t have to literally walk the entire thing?

One slightly confused pack of [Skeletons] later and indeed, I could maneuver my minions (while no adventures were inside) around the Dungeon as I pleased. That was enlightening, at least in the future for if I need to readjust forces around certain levels. Right now my grand total of two floors wasn’t particularly difficult to navigate, as without obstruction it took maybe 10 minutes to get from the entrance to my core, at a slow jog.

“Hello Dungeon… Thank you for looking after me. You’re really too kind. What do you need me to do? How can I best serve you?”

After I recreated the door I slapped a sign directly in front of her and slowly morphed words onto the flat board.

Visit the Kitchen, explore the rooms on the way up.

Since it took me a bit to form the words I tried to keep it short and simple. Also, the poor girl was basically conditioned to be… However the hell she was. She even used the word serve, which, by all rights according to the contract verbiage, was technically correct, but was absolutely the last thing I wanted to hear from her.

She bobbed her head and actually seemed kind of excited. The redhead departed her ‘room’ and spent a moment inspecting my core. I felt a little naked, seeing as to how my room was basically undecorated at the moment, even though Dutch had been down here earlier and I felt no such thing. Perhaps that was because I knew he was here on business, and how I looked wasn’t as important, but this was my only truly sentient resident (I’m not sure what Biyabans status is, but seeing as to how he calls me great master, I’m dubious) her opinion would actually make a difference to me since she would see it every single day.

Her voice coming out in a weird mix between a sigh and a whisper caught my attention. “It's so strange… Owing my life to and being… Contracted to something so large, and yet so small.” A tentative hand reached out to brush against the crystal. I couldn’t feel it, but my very mana itself practically shivered at the touch, as the epicenter of my intelligence and power was lightly tapped.

Normally, letting someone touch ‘me’ in such a way would probably be a big nono, to say the least, but I had this utterly certain feeling that she meant me no harm. Where it came from, whether it be her, the contract, or something else, I couldn’t say, but I had no doubt in my mind that harm was the furthest thing from her mind right now.

“I don’t mind at all. I can feel you, brushing against my mind. I could feel you even before the contract - your concern, your amusement, your confusion. At least when you're focusing on me, I can. It assures me, far beyond any mere words a mortal might speak, that you care for my well-being. Which is odd, because I do not care for it at all. I could have probably done something to escape my fate… Probably found a way to get strong, and deal with problems on my own.”

I was alarmed to realize she could actually sense something before Box established the contract, but maybe it had something to do with her cursed bloodline? That’s the only thing in her status that’s different and as far as I can tell nobody else can.

“Instead I ran away. I ran as far as possible, and yet trouble followed me still. Even then, instead of fighting my fate, resisting, or really doing much of anything… I just gave up. Became a shell. I still am a shell, really. So I’ll leave myself in your hands, as it were, Mr. Dungeon. Make me strong. Give me no choice in the matter. And when finally, trouble comes to find me again, let me crush it beneath my heel. And when I do, I will thank you profusely, and continue my service to you for as long as I’m allowed, eternally grateful to be yours.”

You know, everything this girl says just drives home how broken she is. But, if nothing else, she's driven now? I think?

I mean, I don’t actually know anything that’s happened to her outside of some things she spoke of and the proof she arrived with when she accepted the contract. Granted, I can take a pretty good guess based off her cursed bloodline.

From a god.

So I feel like I can take her at her word, in regards to her life being absolutely terrible to this point. Hell, normally this would just be another new form of torture of some sort. Being forced to serve a Dungeon probably wasn’t supposed to be fun.

So, for a lack of being able to do anything else at the moment beyond providing food and water and a place to lay her head, I sent her as many warm and fuzzy feelings as I could. Pride, for making it to this point alive in her life. Affection, for my only truly intelligent resident and someone who I could ‘talk’ to. And lastly, an iron will to provide her protection so that she might live a happy life going forward.

Perhaps that was foolish, but barring killing her I didn’t know how to break the contract. The only reason I would do so anyway is to try and prevent her life from being a form of slavery, but currently that attachement was the only thing protecting her from literal slavery and abuse it sounded like.

So I sent my feelings, and hoped they got through to her.

A solitary tear tracked its way down her face, as she basked in an invisible warmth only she could see or feel. “Thank you.”

She stood there for a couple moments longer, before departing the core room to explore the rest of my halls. The grand field of battle with my lines of armored [Skeletons] and [Zombies] in their upgraded forms was the first room she encountered, and she idly wandered between the rows of undead, showing absolutely no fear whatsoever at the hissing clacks and rotting flesh on display.

Katrina stopped in front of one of the [Skeletons] near the front of the line and, seemingly gathering her bravery, reached out and gently tapped one of its bony arms. When it failed to react in the slightest except to tilt its head towards her ever so slightly, as though confused as to why it was being bothered, she laughed lightly and moved on.

The next rooms were the natural cave system. Her presence didn’t register to the traps, just like with the other minions, and she spent some time wandering through the twisting tunnels and switchbacks designed to confuse adventurers as they traversed the foggy halls.

A couple of [Ancient Ghosts] whispered past her, their presence causing her to shiver as they sucked away the warmth around them. She watched them go with bright eyes, curiosity burning in her gaze, but she continued on when it was clear they weren’t coming back.

The shaman assigned to her protection was following her with a torch, to provide light in the areas where my natural lighting didn’t quite shine. The caves and crypts weren’t designed to be pitch black, but they would never be described as bright, either.

As the duo made their way through the mausoleum section next, Katrina stopped to examine some of the tombs and the designs I’d drawn onto them. My only source of inspiration was my memories, so they frequently held Christian mythological figures, such as angels, demons, as well as crosses and various people-like forms burning in hellfire. I included other things as well, such as Hades and Cerberus, and just about any other memory of legends and myths I remembered an image of.

The redhead traced her hands along some of the images before finally moving on, transferring to the first floor. She moved past the same rooms she’d already seen in a frantic rush before, and the shaman helped carry her over the swampy mud in the swampy room after they said ‘Hi’ and waved to Biyaban. My first floor boss was excited to see Katrina again it seemed, because he waved back with a sickening smile on his face.

Sickening because of the rotted meat strung between his teeth and the missing flesh from some areas near his lips, revealing his razor-sharp fangs, not because the smile was inherently creepy or ill-intentioned. I still loved the guy, but the undead just aren’t exactly PR friendly for a wide variety of reasons.

I mean, it turns out Life-Aligned monsters are hardly any fucking better, but at least they have the decency to look like they might not eat you. Oh well, I’d gotten the shaman out of it, so that was cool.

Then she finally made it to the Kitchen, and gasped in surprise and awe at my crew of bedecked skeletons all wielding oversized meat cleavers. Well, it probably wasn’t awe but they were rather hilarious looking. All they needed was fake mustaches and it would be perfect… Hmm, that gives me an idea for the future.

They all started wildly gesticulating as soon as she stepped into the room, and eventually burst out into clapping and wolf whistling. They didn’t actually whistle or make any noise outside of the clicking and clacking of their bones, which made an already odd scene even more so, but I got the feeling they were just excited to have their first visitor who actually wanted to eat something.

20 minutes later, it turns out my skeletal crew of cooks can actually make decent food. Who knew. It was particularly basic fare, and that reminded me to put up a new sign for my donation bowl, requesting seeds and other greenery, the larger the variety the better. If I didn’t get any within a couple days my rangers would just have to go steal some, but I would rather get a multitude of options rather than try and scavenge about and let luck decide what I got.

Katrina seemed pleased with what she had seen so far, and for the rest of the night I simply let her roam about the rest of the place, content to check in on her every once in a while and let my focus remain on my miners and third floor development. As I went deeper, and my floors count rose, my maximum allowed size increased, meaning my shape would, if I used all my allotted space, kind of look like a lopsided pyramid. I mean, I thought my first floor was already decent sized, but at the rate of growth I was experiencing I would be able to have a city-sized floor soon. A small city, but a city nonetheless.

My memories told me that the desolate quiet of a dead city, overgrown with plant life and crawling with horrors best left to the imagination would be absurdly terrifying. And totally worthy of anyone who wanted to actually murder me.

So many ideas…

Time passed, and eventually dawn broke on the surface, painting my vision through the bottom of the river with lovely shades of distorted red and purple, and reminding me of sensations of the sun touching skin and the warmth of that feeling that I would never have again. Not that I knew where that feeling came from anyway, my memories didn’t care to divulge that secret with me, but somehow I just knew what it was like.

Katrina explored virtually my entire little complex, and at some point reached the blank third floor, which was still just a maze of tunnels surrounding a single massive room that I had created by combining the other rooms I had made into one, curious about my maximum size limits. I hadn’t quite hit it yet, but I felt I was close.

I still had to make my second floor boss, after all, and then I wanted to invest a little mana into my newbie area, and then I needed to start figuring out exactly what the third floor was going to be. The Life-Aligned monsters were actually starting to be useful, and I suspected when I leveled up again I would get even better choices.

Life-Alignment was kind of turning out like living things are wont to do, which is to say they start out kinda slow but develop into something truly powerful, whereas Death-Alignment just started out scary and is actively seeking new and terrifying ways to be even scarier. I’m curious to see where they end up, as they grow even further.

As the sun traveled higher into the sky, I grew worried that Dutch and his little crew would show up soon, and though the older adventurer hadn’t traveled into the second floor until much later in the day, if he did arrive and Katrina was out and about I would have to make a choice between shutting the door to her room immediately or make an attempt to get her into it. If Dutch came down early and I hadn’t shut it, then he would undoubtedly find the barebones room with the bed and suspect something.

He didn’t bother exploring my third floor before, but he might change his mind if he was suspicious and where else was she going to hide?

Luckily for me, with Katrina’s odd time of awakening, she’d actually grown tired and began making her way back towards her room. I sent her a pulse of what I hoped was mild concern, since she hadn’t been awake as long as most humans normally were. Cited from my memories, of course, so who knew how accurate those were in this case.

Katrina let out a loud yawn before responding, so apparently my effort was successful! “Don’t worry about me Mr. Dungeon, I think the changes the contract made are just making me extra tired right now. It mentioned something about being able to grow from your own mana investment, and from what little I know about my System that’s a pretty big change.”

I sent a pulse of acknowledgement and optimism. During her walk back I crafted a sign in her room after removing the old ones letting her know my concerns about Dutch and getting locked out.

When she made it to the room and read it, she nodded and pondered for a few moments. “Well, it's not like I need to wake up when the sun rises anymore, so I could easily just be awake starting in the afternoon and go to sleep shortly after dawn. That should eliminate most of the overlap, right?”

I concentrated on the feeling of being correct (which isn’t as easy as it sounds) and then on her. “Ok, that's fine with me. It… It might be above my station to ask, and even if I never got to see the sun again I would still be happy, but I can’t help thinking it would be nice to get out every once in a while.”

I’m sure my false suns weren’t exactly like the real thing, and my fake environments certainly didn’t beat being under the actual sky, feeling wind generated by inconceivable amounts of air moving and flowing, and feeling the heat of a star that could swallow our planet whole many, many times over.

… My description actually made it sound kind of sketchy, but I understood where she was coming from.

I edited my sign to just say ‘I’ll see what I can do!’ and combined it with a hint of approval, followed by a dose of affection for the poor girl.

She seemed happy with that, offering a small smile in the general direction of my core. It was worn and strained, despite her happiness, and I made a mental promise to someday, somehow, allow her some semblance of normalcy. Some state of being where she could smile normally, without the shadows of pain and terror forcing her personality into a warped, twisted version of itself.

I really didn’t know her at all, I thought, because the only parts of her I saw were damaged and broken with the barest hints of her true, original personality shining through on occasion. Even then I was only guessing that it was some past part of her that remained. Maybe nothing did, and she’d have to rebuild herself entirely. I really didn’t know.

I do my best to make sure she had the time to find out, at least. We were stuck together for the foreseeable future and beyond, after all.

I took the opportunity to load up her ‘bed’ with the softest materials I owned - a combination of some random straw a ranger had picked up, leaves, and fabric. Her dress was still in quite a state, and I’d need to get her a new one soon. Hopefully my sign would net me some flax equivalent… Silk was technically possible if I could grow the little insects that formed it, though incredibly challenging. Once I had a tiny bit though I could assimilate it and make more to be crafted by a future skeleton crew, so it would be easier than if I had to craft the actual silk by hand, which would be an ordeal to say the least.

She fell into a fitful sleep fairly quickly, and my [Novice Shaman] continued to watch over her.

Apparently, my smithing crew had run out of skeletons to provide armor and arms, so they began experimenting. Academically I knew what the perk had said, but actually watching them mess around with random things was kind of strange. They would take varying amounts of the materials I possessed (which wasn’t much) and see what happened when they mixed them. This would undoubtedly turn out something interesting as I gained more ores and crafting materials, but for now they were slapping together coal and iron to find out the most ideal mixture to craft steel with.

Which is fair, because they’d already made a certain amount of progress on that front. The default ‘steel’ mixture Box provided them wasn’t actually perfect, and they’d already made it reasonably stronger through their testing. I was quite proud of them.

To test the durability, destructive testing was required. They actually did a wide variety of tests, including using different shaped blades to see what worked best. They tested how long an edge would last, they tested how much force it took to snap the blade in half, and several other things I didn’t quite understand.

The snapping test was honestly the most impressive thing I’d seen, the little engineers. They’d set up a rock, and what amounted to a clamp of some sort, locked the sword into place, then dropped the rock from the exact same spot onto the blade. They would then record whether it bent, snapped, or didn’t budge, and increase/decrease the weight to determine its relative ‘toughness’.

They also seemed to notice my presence as I focused on them, and all began to chatter and prance about in excitement. At first, I thought it was just because I was paying attention to them, but they all gathered around a strange iron receptacle and were gesticulating at it wildly.

I decided to not waste time trying to play charades and used [Observe].

[Steel Mana Container]

A receptacle designed to store mana that is able to be used by Dungeon creatures. Though steel is a poor material to hold mana, it makes a suitable placeholder until better can be acquired.

Well I’ll be damned.

What did my little monsters build this time? Although, now that I think about it, it’s not like I just know what they can and can’t build. I don’t have a list of all the iron weapons and armor they just intrinsically know how to make, so I guess it's not actually a surprise they can do something unexpected.

I pushed just a few points of mana into the receptacle and was going to cut myself off at five, but it filled before even that low count was reached. The skeleton dancing reached a new level of excitement, and they quickly moved on to making new things once again, though now every once in a while one of the crafters would run back to the receptacle, touch it with a finger, glow slightly and run back to their respective station.

At some point they all gathered around the furnace as they watched the final result pour out into the purifier, until it completed its task and moved on to be cast into ingot form for future use.

[Mana-Enriched Hardened Steel Ingot]

Though it didn’t have a more detailed description for me, I could already see the possibilities unfolding before my very eye. Well, my semi-omniscient Dungeon eyes. I’d already seen those enchanted boots drop for John, and this seemed like a natural step in that direction. It also implied I could do similar things to leather or softer materials to make a mana-enriched variant of those as well. Something that will likely have to be done by a crafter of that type.

Very exciting!

I left them to their happy crafting and tried to brainstorm up ideas for my third floor.

During the next day (night, technically), I allowed Katrina to try out [Dungeon Manipulation]. I watched her for a while, but she seemed endlessly fascinated with just making small changes here and there and just watching the material flow and twist to her desires. She wandered the floors, adding tasteful touches that I didn’t think about, like small twisting vines of ivy on some of the tombs and coffins in my crypt rooms. She once again impressed me with her aplomb at being surrounded by and walking through hordes of undead. She also did other things I would have never even thought of, like making the areas where my stalactite traps were even less noticeable.

She did this by actually changing nearly every single stalagmite and their ceiling-bound brothers in size, because originally they were slightly more uniform than I’d thought (maybe my eyes weren’t as good as I thought…) and making the traps all varying in size. Something I once again hadn’t noticed was that they were all exactly the same size. Though my prior memories practically screamed at me that it was something incredibly obvious, I had clearly missed it when I made the rooms.

I passed on waves of appreciation for her assistance, and she seemed to bask in the feeling. I would try out the whole ‘mana investment’ thing too, but I wanted to finish my second floor boss finally.

My current lineup of monsters left me limited, and I wanted to make something that ideally could counter its own weaknesses. All of my monsters were undead at the moment, at least the ones guarding my core, and likely weak to some form of light or holy magic or something. I suppose I could actually test that out with my [Blessed Sword] summon… Actually, that gives me an idea.

I had… Enough mana to work with this. It wasn’t an emergency, making a second floor boss, so some testing would be good.

I took one of my [Ancient Ghosts] that I’d already made, and upgraded them once more, resulting in something rather frightening. The [Ancient Ghosts] were larger and slightly less see-through than their younger siblings, but it’s evolution, rather than becoming even more solid, just grew… Darker.

Its features, if it really had any to begin with, became even blurrier, though it became more visible not because it was more solid, but because the light around it seemed to just be drawn in and rather than illuminate it, simply vanished.

Two dully glowing red eyes were set in a hood that had formed, as in fact its entire body became covered in what looked like a tattered, ratty cloak, completely hiding its body shape except for its arms and part of its torso. The arms and chest were comprised entirely of bone, wispy shadows and darkness forming the ligaments and tendons that would have connected its joints together. A skeletal ribcage could be barely seen when it shifted, as its cloak opened and closed.

It lacked any legs, nothing appearing below the long cloak it wore to indicate it had legs or feet, though due to the length of its garb I couldn’t tell whether that meant it was cut off at the waist or just had no feet.

The upgrade was expensive, coming to a painful 21 mana to make this one unit from my already existing one, but I think the result was worth it.

[Lesser Wraith]

A cursed being who has risen from beyond the grave. It despises light and all things holy, and is naturally weak to silver but moderately resistant to many other forms of damage.

Its touch brings death, and it can call forth weak spirits from the recently deceased to battle by its side.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to get when I upgraded the [Ancient Ghosts] but I was hoping it was something like this. They would work the best for what I wanted to make, anyway.

Next, I made a [Blessed Sword] near it. The wraith immediately began hissing, its shadows whipping back and forth in anger, but because they were both my minions they didn’t either start killing each other or fleeing from the others' presence.

Sorry buddy… But we have to do this. It's for the greater good, I swear. It’ll all turn out one day, I promise! Probably.

With those thoughts in mind, I forced the wraith to grab the hilt of the [Blessed Sword].

It was worse than oil and water meeting, because those just kind of slipped around each other without interacting. This was more like if oil spontaneously combusted upon touching water, then exploded after a prolonged amount of contact. Or like thermite meeting an open flame.

I’m sure that gets the picture across. All the shadows of my [Lesser Wraith] were dimmed and his skeletal structure was exposed, not hidden in the slightest anymore. The sword practically vibrated in his grip, and since it was an animated weapon, when I say his weapon actively fought against him I was being quite literal.

Now sally forth, minion! Practice with your new, grand weapon and smite your foes! Which shall be a few skeletons and a ghost I’m going to spare. I also threw in one of the upgraded [Skeletons] and [Zombies] since they had shields and swords to actually fight back with.

Watching the [Lesser Wraith] try and use the weapon was absolutely hilarious. The first completely plain and unupgraded skeleton was able to dodge its swings. Which is really a whole new low, because they aren’t what I’d call a pinnacle of agility and speed. Quite the opposite, really.

While most of the minions I summon I wouldn’t describe as intelligent, as I’ve upgraded more types I’ve noticed that as they gain in power, they also increase in intelligence by leaps and bounds. Even if it's not necessarily sapience, they definitely gain a degree of sentience.

So I doubt it's just my imagination when I saw the wraith's red eyes narrow in anger and determination, before it resumed its laborious swings with its antithetical weapon. The lesser undead weren’t quite as affected by the holy weapon as the wraith was, but that made sense. They certainly didn’t like it, but the wraith’s description made it seem much more in tune with the presence of dark and light.

Perhaps it was the shame of being utterly unable to kill a foe that was far below it on the food chain, but the [Blessed Sword] seemed to stop fighting back as much and let itself be wielded by the very thing it was designed to smite. Its swings grew faster and less unwieldy, and the seeming skill level of the wraith increased quickly.

The skeleton quickly stopped being able to dodge, and its attempted block with its forearms was laughable at best as the sword ate through its bones and caved in its ribcage. It collapsed and vanished back into motes of mana, moving back to its default spawn location where it would reemerge after a short amount of time. The lesser minions had fairly quick respawn timers.

I let the wraith and the sword play around for a while longer, but at some point I think they started damaging each other (by accident, as far as I can tell, due to their natures) so I separated them but tried to impart that they would do this again soon.

Like, as soon as they healed. I left them their instructions and moved on, my terrible work done for now.

Dutch, John and crew visited again today, giving me more experience but no levels yet. I had the feeling it would be soon, but sadly no specifics. I’d also planted my first crops outside of saplings!

After reading my sign requests they pulled through for me and brought as many different kinds of seeds as they could get their grubby little hands on. I was fairly ecstatic about this development, because I’m fairly certain I got most of the basic types of food crops they grow in the area, in addition to a few Dutch mentioned they don’t actively grow but have just in case.

Wheat, carrots, potatoes, what I’m pretty sure is flax, cotton, beets, corn, and a few others I wasn’t sure about were my haul for the day. I immediately spent some of my hard generated mana and planted a row of each. To my delight, the soil remained ‘watered’ without my interference thanks to the room type being ‘Cropland’.

An idle curiosity of mine was the singular ghost that routinely wandered away from the first floor crypt room and into the field. He meandered his way through the growing crops, avoiding touching them since I was fairly certain he would kill them, though I had no idea what he was doing.

After a couple days of this going on for no discernible reason, I just nicknamed him ‘Inari’ for my own amusement and so that I could keep a track of him. To my surprise at a later date when I used [Observe] on him it actually listed it in his tiny status window. Turns out I can nickname my mobs outside of events like my blessed upgrade of Biyaban into a whole new monster.

Speaking of, Katrina would go and visit Biyaban once a day and listen to him talk about his legend. Not like the origin of the actual Biyaban from my memories, but of all the things he would do to cement his legacy in the annals of history. It was kind of funny to listen to, yet also disturbing on several levels. Biyaban is quite imaginative, and his voice gives his words a sort of gravitas they would lack if said by literally anyone else.

Katrina, bless her heart, patiently listened to him and actually wished him luck on his rather bloody, theoretical adventures.

Moving on, my tests with the holy wraith (my shorthand name for the experiment) continued and actually went surprisingly well. The [Lesser Wraith] was incredibly adept with the blade now, and had been able to wield it for longer and longer periods of time. I wasn’t sure if he was literally just building a resistance to holy, or if the holy blade was being corrupted. Either way, I was going to execute my plan since I was nearly full mana now.

After witnessing Box and some various things that occurred around me, it's pretty clear that there is something beyond raw numbers and logic that affects me and what I do. Biyaban being my primary example. Nowhere in its description does [Alpha Ghoul] say that it should have any of the abilities Biyaban does, which implies he got them from his name. In fact, his title just became ‘Rider of the Desert Winds’.

I certainly had nothing to do with that (outside of giving him the name). In fact, if I recall correctly, he gave it to himself right before slaughtering the alpha wolf that invaded my Dungeon.

Then he’d employed some form of illusion or invisibility and carved out its throat with ridiculous ease.

Actually, now that I think about it even more, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a fine layer of sand slowly building up in his room. It's not enough to really be obvious, but once again, it was a change in my Dungeon that I had nothing to do with. Odd. Not bad, but odd.

Which drives me to believe that the system isn’t as linear or rigid as I originally believed when I saw Box and my various menus for making monsters.

So, with that belief in mind, I focused on the [Lesser Wraith] and [Blessed Sword] as a singular entity. There was no sentient sword and darkened ghost, there was merely the entity and its weapon, together as one.

One being the antithesis of the other, yet learning to cooperate and become more than they were alone.

Once I was confident my focus was correct, I attempted to upgrade them. No, not them, it.

Box appeared, and the upgrade cost first appeared as 49 mana, the discounted cost of upgrading a [Lesser Wraith] by itself. That wasn’t what I wanted though, I was upgrading far more than just the ghost itself.

I tried to focus even harder - a weapon and its wielder. A legendary figure was only worthy of being accompanied by a legendary weapon, after all.

The number shifted, blurring briefly before resettling on 69. Heh, you’re funny Box. But that is still not right. That’s just slapping the cost to upgrade the [Blessed Sword] on top of it.

But again, that's NOT what I wanted. My desire was a… A monster that embodied both aspects of the light and the dark. Something beyond just an entity of darkness wielding a weapon of the light.

No, something that would take the light and wield it for itself, conquering its weakness and coming out stronger than ever, an eternal guardian against those who think they could breeze through my Dungeon by simply focusing on the advantageous type of damage.

He would stand strong, a creature that would force those who simply wanted to face the challenges of my Dungeon to grow stronger to be creative, and become an unrelenting monster to those who sought to bring me or Katrina harm. He would turn their strength against them, taking their precious light and blessings and tainting them, bathing all who opposed him in a cursed gloom.

He would stand as an Omen to all who dared threaten him, and in turn me.

The menu blurred again, and the mana cost rapidly shifted, numbers blurring through its interface as it tried to determine exactly what I asked of it, before finally settling on a final number.

[Upgrade Cost: 185 Mana]

It was the sum total of mana I currently had, but that was fair.

I paid it immediately.

Energy rushed out of me, dense streams driving into the air around the wraith and the sword. A cocoon of inky darkness covered them both, a better metaphor for a colossal transformation than any I could have thought up.

It swirled in place, a patch of void in my otherwise merely dark Dungeon, until a light began to shine from the center, splintering outwards from a small core that formed. Rather than directly oppose one another, they seemed to blend and swirl, an odd sight to be sure, until the energy making up the orb began to tremble.

The shaking grew in intensity until the black sphere burst like a popped bubble, liquid-like shadow oozing over the floor in a way that didn’t quite follow what physics demanded of it.

In its place stood a tall figure of bone. A cloak that seemingly drifted in a non-existent breeze covered a large portion of his body, though unlike the wraith he stood on his own two feet. Much like the shadowy sphere that he was born from, the cloak too appeared more like a void, all light simply vanishing upon making contact with it.

The skeletal arms remained as well, though instead of wispy shadows connecting his disparate bones, it was tendrils of an odd, gray light that seemed to serve the same purpose. It was actually fairly difficult to see, but in the darkness of the cavern I had placed him in it was obvious since it glowed ever so slightly. The best way I had to describe it was an un-light, because though it glowed it didn’t illuminate anything around it, and in fact seemed to be doing the same thing the wraith had done before, drinking in the light around it like a starved man.

Across its back rested a colossal greatsword, the tip nearly touching the ground and its hilt nearing the top of its head. It was an odd creation, each half of the sword a completely different color, split in half perfectly down the middle. One side of the blade and hilt was made of a dark metal with red highlights, much like the color of the wraith's eyes previously. The other half was a gleaming silver, glowing with the same golden light that the [Blessed Sword] once did.

The new creature's eyes blazed inside of its black, void-like hood, primarily appearing to be the same gray light that absorbed the light around it that connected its arms together. Flecks of purple, gold and black would appear at times, giving it a disconcerting gaze.

[Omen]

[The Devouring Dark/The Consuming Light]

[Second Floor Boss]

An Omen to all who see him and wish to dive deeper into your Dungeon.

Immune to Holy, Light, Dark, and Necrotic types of damage.

Resistant to most others.

I’ve created an absolute monster.

Kurell sighed, eyeing the first adventurer party to be hosted by Home in… Many years. Apparently, Iruvel was attempting to bridge the gap between them and their closest city. Whether this was inspired by a need for resources or a desire to actually expand across the mountains, he didn’t know, but… This was going to cause trouble. Lots and lots of trouble.

Most of the people who lived in Home came here to get away from politics, to get away from cities and rowdy adventurers and to just retire in peace.

Young adventurers were the polar opposite of ‘peaceful’.

And now they had a Dungeon.

His headache pulsed once more, letting him know that he still had to resolve these problems, instead of just moaning about them. It was just a Silver-Tier party, a group of four filling out a fairly common theme of party members. A fighter, a ranger, a mage, and a priest. He didn’t know if they were trying to just follow the tried and true formula, or if they didn’t know that other combinations could work just as well.

Either way, they would learn of the Dungeon’s presence soon, and likely either try to conquer it, or return to report it to the Adventurers Guild, failing that. Of course, based on what Dutch reported, an attempt to tame the Dungeon would require them to follow the first Rule it had set… And it would try its best to kill them.

Then there were Dutch’s concerns about the Katrina girl and the fact she hadn’t reappeared from the Gargaren’s home since she’d returned after hearing the Dungeon’s first floor boss say something ominous.

Kurell gently rubbed his forehead with his hands. Sometimes his class was really no help at all… Including the fact he couldn’t see Katrina in the slightest. Even if someone had died, they would still be visible to [Oracle] abilities.

Yet more mysteries and troubles brought to his door to deal with.

He hadn’t drunk in a long time, but this seemed like the appropriate scenario in which to start up again.