Chapter Two

When Pan came to, he did so without opening his eyes. He didn’t know what was more distressing, the fact that he could see without opening his eyes, or the fact that he was still alive. He knew something was very wrong, as he could not feel his body. Or move at all for that matter. Whatever cruel magic the necromancer had performed had affected him in an unknown manner.

What Pan could see, however, was a small room of gray stone, he could see the massive stone slab the glyph below him. After further consideration, Pan concluded he was in the same room, just everything but the slab with the gem had been removed. The room was roughly circular, and looked to be a natural cave, but the floor was unnaturally flat. Pan tried to expand his senses around him, but he couldn’t see further than the entrance to the cave he was in. When he looked to the entrance, he couldn't sense anything beyond it. Everything past the door was blackness.

Pan also started to notice other oddities about his current situation. He found that he could turn and move his viewing angle with nothing but a thought, and he moved instantly within his room to the desired location. For some reason, he knew this room was his. He also noticed a concerning lack of strong emotions. He simply felt curiosity, anger, and possessiveness. He was curious about what happened and what was up with his new abilities. He was angry about the mage. And he felt possessive over his cave. He felt no distress over his death, for he knew now that the human Pan was surely dead. Pan, however, didn’t care at all. All he wanted was to protect his room, his crystal, himself. And get revenge. But mostly the protect part.

After a few minutes, Pan had acclimatized himself to his new form. He realized his consciousness, his soul, now existed inside the red gem at the center of the mage’s glyph. He could feel the room, the very rock it was made of was his body. And the air in the room had a strange energy to it. That energy was his blood. He figured it had to be mana, but he could feel the mana much more deeply than he ever had before.

Before his capture and untimely death, Pan had been training to be a mage's apprentice, and hopefully, attend a college. He had some talent with magic, and could access his mana, but now it was different. A mage uses his mana to affect the world around him. Before, he would have to strain to the edges of his ability to feel the mana in the world around him, but now it was as easy as breathing. Anything in the room was part of him, and so was the mana. His mana was so much more a part of him now than it had ever been during his human life. He paused as he realized his affinity for mana may have been the reason the necromancer had selected him.

However, he found one limitation. He couldn’t cast a spell. He could grasp the mana and twist it to whatever spell form he wanted, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t make the mana do anything. When he formed a spell and released it, the mana dissipated back into the air in his room. He could move the mana through the room however he wanted. With some effort, he started pulling some mana towards himself, simply because it felt like the right thing to do. When he pulled the mana into his crystal, the whole world changed.

Congratulations Dungeon

You have taken the first step on the path of a dungeon and absorbed mana. This is your life essence, and you need it to survive. That crystal is your heart, if it dies, you die. Protect it. Good luck.

New Skill: Dungeon Menu

Think ‘Menu’ to bring up your dungeon menu. There you will receive information on everything you need to succeed as a dungeon.

Pan was surprised, but opening and navigating the menu felt natural to him. it felt like a part of him. He remembered now how in his past life he had the status command to view all the pertinent information about himself. He supposed that he was now a dungeon, and this was simply his form of status.

Dungeon Menu

Level: 1

Type: Sentient Dungeon (Bound)

Name: N/A

Titles: N/A

Mana: 1/10

Rooms: 1

Levels: 1

Animals: 0

Plants: 0

Monsters: 0

Skills: [Dungeon Menu]

Dungeon Points: 0

Achievements: N/A

He could feel the meaning behind each section on his menu. He was level one. To advance, he would need to max out his mana capacity and gather ten mana. He would earn a name later, and if he was lucky some titles. The dungeon points would be earned by doing dungeon type stuff, and he could spend them in the dungeon store. The achievements would be earned if he accomplished anything noteworthy. His type confused him, however, as he had no idea what the "bound" part meant, but he had a nagging suspicion.

As if to confirm this suspicion the necromancer strode into his room. He felt a burning anger build, how dare this man enter his room. How dare he approach his precious crystal. Pan wanted the man dead. He wanted to command legions of monsters to kill this man, but he had no legions. Or monsters.

“I see my experiment was a success,” spoke the necromancer to himself. In a louder voice, he stated, “now, my little dungeon, you will do as I say, or I will kill you.” He paused as if waiting for a response, and when he got none he shrugged to himself and continued.

“You will summon undead for me, and since I am a necromancer, and your master, I can easily take command of them.” He waited another moment before continuing, “now, I will provide you with what you need to summon them for me. I am tired of needing to dig up a body for every minion I make, and so you will create them for me directly. Is that clear?”

Pan tried to find some way to respond, but couldn't think of anything. He was basically just a glorified rock. A rock whose only way of influencing the outside world was through creatures he summoned. The mage, deciding he had made himself clear enough, and pulled a small blue stone from a pouch at his waist. He placed it on the ground and left the room.

Pan focused on the stone when the man left. He knew it was important. When he reached his ephemeral hand out to it he felt that it was bursting with energy. He pulled on the stone and felt mana flow into him rapidly. He leveled up almost instantly.

Level Two

Unlocks skill: Dungeon Manipulation

Unlocks skill: Dungeon absorption

Need 100 mana for level 3

+10 Dungeon Points

Dungeon Manipulation

Can change and move the dungeon with mana.

Dungeon Absorption

Can absorb materials and items in the dungeon. Gain mana from absorptions. Items can be created using absorbed materials later with the dungeon creation skill.

Pan immediately drew the mana stone under the floor of his dungeon and brought it closer to the center of his room. He wanted it near his heart, but found he couldn’t manipulate the stone that the glyph holding his heart was carved into. He supposed that would be too easy, as the glyph obviously facilitated his bond. He would need to find some way to break the glyph later, if he ever was to gain his freedom. Every part of his being as a dungeon resented the wizard. Dungeons don’t submit to control. He wouldn’t submit to control forever. He. Would. Be. Free.

He left the mana stone under his binding rune, and continued to absorb mana from it. When he finished draining the stone, he had reached level three.

Level Three

Unlock skill: Dungeon Creation

Unlock skill: Dungeon expansion

Need 250 mana for level four

+10 Dungeon Points

Dungeon Creation

Level: 1

Can create items that have previously been absorbed. Need to have required materials to create an item. Reach further levels to decrease mana cost and allow magic imbuements and modifications to items.

Dungeon Expansion

Expend mana to expand the dungeons territory.

He Now had quite a bit of mana left over and decided to expand his territory. He didn’t expand towards the door the necromancer was in, he knew he would feel his influence, and he knew he wouldn’t be happy with Pan looking past this room. So he expanded away from the necromancer's lair. He hated to cave into the man’s demands, but he had no choice at the moment. He was still too weak. So he grew and bided his time.

The expansion progressed slowly, so as he waited he started to absorb stone from the walls around him. He cleaned up the room and smoothed out the walls. He worked until he was in the center of a perfectly circular room, almost thirty feet across. His influence extended three feet into the walls around him, but he was reaching out a tendril of power into the rock behind him.

The necromancer came back into his room. The man looked around, and his face grew dark and angry. Pan noticed now that he could peer through the shadows of the man’s cowl, even with no light. The man was old, but his hair still held its color, despite his head not completely holding his hair. It was black and greasy. That didn’t matter now, and there was anger growing in the man's eyes.

“Where is my mana stone?” The man demanded. “You were not supposed to absorb it, you were only to absorb the mana from it.”

The man pulled out another, slightly larger, mana stone. He held it up and warned Pan. “This better be here when I return. Or else.”

He then placed the stone on the ground, and left the room again. Pan decided to head the man's warnings for now and leave the stone alone. He absorbed the mana from the stone, and even though it held more mana than the previous stone, it had barely over one hundred and forty mana in it. Each level up drained all his mana, so he had nowhere near enough mana to reach level four.

A while later the man came back in and smiled when he saw the drained stone still where he had left it. He picked the stone up and after a minute of concentration, it shone again, full of mana. He put it back down and left again. This time after draining it he leveled up again.

Level Four

Need 500 mana for level four

+10 Dungeon Points

After He leveled up he used some excess mana to build a pillar under the mana stone to hold it at about waist height for the necromancer. He wanted to look like he was complying with his demands and trying to be helpful. Really Pan just wanted to make the man more trusting and complacent. He would destroy the man, and he wanted every edge he could get.

When the man came back he smiled at the sight of the stand and walked over to place his hand on the stone and fill it. Pan immediately tried to drain the stone, but found he couldn’t with the man’s presence disturbing the mana in the room. The fluctuations kept Pan from doing anything in the room. No wonder dungeons fought back through minions. His mana control was useless when enemies were close.

The man continued this twice more, bringing Pan to almost level five, however, the next time the man came he brought one of his skeletons. He unceremoniously killed the skeleton with a few hits to the head from a club. When the skeleton died, Pan received a new message.

A Skeleton has died in the dungeon

+172 Mana

Can now summon skeletons (when Summon Monster is unlocked)

The man spoke again while he filled the stone.

“As soon as you are able you will start summoning skeletons for me. I will provide mana for this. I do not know how long it will take for this to be possible, but when you can I command you to do so.”

After absorbing the last of the mana Pan reached level five.

Level Five

Unlock skill: Summon Plant

Unlock skill: Summon Animal

Unlock skill: Summon Monster

Need 1000 mana for level six

+10 Dungeon Points

Summon Skeleton

Cost: 150 Mana

Pan was trapped. He was compelled to summon a skeleton as soon as he could, but he had no desire to do so. Luckily he didn’t have enough mana, which he was thankful for. He needed time to plan, and he had a feeling that as soon as he started summoning skeletons he would lose even more of his freedom. He quickly pushed his excess mana into the mana stone he had hidden away. He needed a way to hide mana from the necromancer. Pan moved the stone to the back of the area he had claimed, as far from the wizard as he could get it. It was only about ten feet, but he hoped it would be enough.

When the wizard came back and refilled the stone, he put his plan into action. By interpreting his orders as needing to summon a skeleton when he had one hundred and fifty mana stored in his crystal, not when he had that much at his disposal, he was able to shunt away the excess mana and keep from having to conjure a minion for his master. With that done, he started the riskiest part of his plan. He absorbed the empty mana stone on the pedestal. When he finished, he was able to create mana stones with his dungeon creation skill.

With that done he started creating an exact copy of the stone he had just consumed. He grew closer and closer to the one hundred and forty-three mana cap of the stone, but started running out of mana too quickly. Pan started absorbing stone from behind the walls of the room to fuel the creation of the stone. The mana from the stone was pitiful, but he was able to complete the stone. When he was done he saw his dungeon creation skill had leveled up, slightly reducing the mana cost of creating items.

He was happy to notice the mana stones were made from mostly the same materials as regular rocks, but just in a different and more compact crystalline form. Part one of his plan was successful, and he would be able to go to step two. He had been worried that he would be unable to create mana stones from the materials around him, but luckily he would be able to do that. And he would use the mana stones to hide mana from his "master."

When the man came back he knew he would have to summon a skeleton soon. The man topped the stone off, thankfully without noticing any difference in it, and left. When he returned again Pan had no choice but to summon the skeleton.

Using his mana instinctively he activated his summon monster skill. Immediately there was a rapid drain of mana and a skeleton appeared in the room, just behind the rune on the floor. When the man returned he was elated to see the skeleton there. Until it charged him. But the man's smile didn’t disappear and with a quick incantation the skeleton stopped and obeyed the man.

Truthfully Pan had not ordered the skeleton to attack, however as part of the dungeon it resented any intruder and attacked. Unfortunately, the man had easily taken the skeleton under his control. He smiled the whole time he spent filing the gem with mana, and was grinning by the time he left the room.

Pan used the mana from this run to start creating his own mana stone next to the one he had hidden away. He was no longer under the compulsion to summon a skeleton when his mana reached the necessary level, so he absorbed the hidden gem as well. With all the mana he had collected, he was able to make a gem that could store almost two hundred mana. After a few more trips from the man, he had expanded the stone to be able to store over five hundred. The stone remained empty since he had used all his mana to create it.

He started pulling mana into his body from the room again and realized it had gotten noticeably denser since he leveled up, and the mana flowed into him faster. He sent all the mana he collected into his gem, and saw he would be able to collect almost one mana per day. That was terrible. He couldn’t imagine how long it would have taken him to level up without the man providing mana for him to use. No wonder dungeons grew so slowly, it would have taken him almost two weeks to reach level two without this man’s interference.

The next time the man returned he was starting to look angry again. After he filled the stone again he turned to leave, but paused and turned back around.

“You will summon a skeleton when you are able,” he commanded.

Well shit.

Pan had wanted to collect more mana before the man caught onto his ruse. But he acquiesced and after the man left he summoned another skeleton. He studied his skeleton this time. It looked weaker than the necromancer's skeletons, and had no equipment of any kind. He was quite disappointed with it as he had hoped it might be something that could put up a fight against the man. But it seemed even a dungeons summoned undead couldn’t compete with a master necromancer’s.

The man was all too happy to return and steal Pan’s minion. He filled the stone again and left. Pan stored the mana in his stone, and decided he would summon a skeleton every other time the man came in. He would hoard the excess mana. He would leave the man thinking it took almost three hundred mana to summon one skeleton. However the man didn’t return as quickly as usual, and Pan realized it had almost been a full day since he had been transformed. He assumed the man had gone to sleep and would return the next day.