Chapter 12

Dorn decided it was time to finish off his level D floors. Plenty of people were now living in his dungeon, giving him access to a large number of passively accumulating DP's. Further, it seemed like Khal's entire population of D-ranked adventurers had shown up in his dungeon. And if there was one thing D-ranked adventurers were good for, it was throwing their lives away in a desperate but fruitless attempt to make money and acquire better gear. It made Dorn happy every time a party was eaten by one of his lizards, and he gained the small boost that D-ranked practitioners provided. With all the parties in the dungeon, it was no longer tenable for Dorn to be re-spawning all the monsters in each floor's instance. So he splurged and spent a good two thirds (500,000) of his DP's on buying and installing Dungeon Re-Spawn Devices. It was a great relief to watch the devices spit out copies of his dungeon monsters.

According to the steles he had placed in all four housing entrance chambers, his floors seven and eight would feature a forest environment and a jungle environment, respectively. This was his homage to the nature dungeon he had destroyed in Ilsan. He started by carving out the two floors into large caverns by simply reclaiming the land, giving him another boost of DP's. Then he placed walls separating the giant caverns into a series of snaking rooms. In the center of the each floor, he placed a large, enclosed room for monster breeding, with small tunnels that the monsters could leave to enter the floor. He thought about allowing people to enter these tunnels and decided that was simply too dangerous at D levels. To fix this issue, he put little space barriers over each tunnel exit, allowing only his monsters to pass through.

These were to be his first communal, or 'open' as he liked to think of it, levels in the dungeon. There would be no instancing of these levels, so the four races would finally collide. Parties would have to not only be wary of the dangers of the dungeon, but also the other adventurers. The danger would increase exponentially. In later 'open' levels, Dorn would assist the competition between parties by creating contests. But that was an idea for later.

For floor seven, he built up a forest in the dungeon. He was already pretty experienced with growing forests from his work in the housing floor. He started by putting down a thick layer of volcanic soil, perfect for growing plants quickly. He added the microbes, worms, and other decomposers to begin to fix carbon and nitrogen into the ground. With this, he was free to add small plants, flowers, and trees. With all the vegetation complete, he added the lowest level animals: the herbivores. Squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, deer, elk, and birds all went in. For this level, he specifically instructed the animals to live like ordinary animals. Instead of feeding on his mana, they began to eat vegetation and mate, just like ordinary forest animals.

Quickly, his plants began to be over-consumed. To combat this, he introduced wolves to his monster-breeding room in the center of the floor. These wolves were enhanced only slightly, as he didn't want the difficulty to be higher than the stated D7. He gave them slightly faster leg muscles, as well as just a touch of Dark magic enhancement. He increased both the length of their snouts as well as the strength of their jaws. With these enhancements, they should provide a good challenge for the low-upper ranked D level adventurers. He then modified the wolves to no longer be pack animals, allowing them to roam the floor singly. If he released packs into the dungeon, the D level adventurers would have no chance.

To mix things up, he decided that this level would be locked in perpetual twilight. To accomplish this, he placed dim versions of his sun light in a strip that ran all the way around the bottom of the floor's walls. It gave the floor a really eerie appearance, and it was the perfect environment for his wolves to hunt in. The ecosystem quickly came to a stable equilibrium. Next up was to place loot. The floor was not flat, it had some steep drops and hills all over the place, just like the mining floor. It made for some good hiding places.

In hard to reach locations, off what would be considered the normal 'paths' that adventurers took, he placed treasure chests. These chests would have much greater treasures than the treasure chests found in the upper levels. Silver coins and rare herbs could be found in these chests. Sometimes even herbs used in medium level standard potions (mana, health, and stamina) or herbs used in low level augmentation potions (agility, strength, and regeneration) would be placed in chests. He wished he could give potions, but he still hadn't unlocked Dungeon Alchemy and Dungeon Enchantments. Together, they were only 500,000 DP's, but he had been forced to spend the DP's on the re-spawn devices, and he was now too lacking to buy alchemy and enchantments.

As for the monster wolves, he decided to have them drop various alchemically useful parts as well as copper and sometimes silver coins. Looking about, Dorn felt the level was a good approximation of the first two floors of the nature dungeon in Ilsan. He felt a sense of karmic rightness in this deed.

Emelia, however, disagreed. “I still don't see why you want to be like that shitty dungeon Tina was bonded to.”

Dorn simply replied, “You need to learn to separate the idea from the dungeon pixie. No need to associate the good idea the nature dungeon had with its pixie. Don't let Tina manipulate your actions by doing the opposite of whatever she does, for that is no different from just doing whatever she tells you to do.”

Emelia gave that a good pondering. She said, “Yeah I don't get what you mean; I just think that copying her dungeon is a bad idea. Look how it turned out.”

Dorn replied sardonically. “That's because I destroyed it. No need to worry about that with my shields.”

Emelia said, “You might have to start worrying; the Churches are finally here.”

“Eh. They were going to come sooner or later. I'm surprised they made it before the elves, though. Hopefully the elves don't get entangled in any of the human politicking. Of course, if I grow them a celestial tree, they might not look too kindly on someone trying to destroy it. Oh well, guess it's a good time for another race war. As long as the war is in my dungeon. Anyways, the Churches will fail if they try to destroy my core. Now let's see, is there anything I'm missing on this level?”

“Nope, I think it's ready for the yummy D-ranks.”

Dorn agreed, so he opened the floor to adventurers, showing VII on the stele of open floors. The adventurers quickly noticed the change and came in droves, entering the enormous floor and dispersing quickly, looking for treasure. He then checked his status. “Status.”

Status

Name: Dorn'axial

Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon

Dungeon Level: 15

+1 for 16,000 DP's

Floors: 11/13

Dungeon Points: 208,381

Dungeon Rating: D7 – Your dungeon

is actually progressing, step by step.

I'm so proud, I think I'm going to cry.

Rolling his eyes at the usual bullshit given by his subconscious, he turned to look at his eighth level, Dorn stared a bit. After a few hours of pondering, he realized he had builder's block. So, he turned to Emelia. “Got any ideas for this floor?”

“Oh, so now you ask my opinion. After hours of making an entire floor without my input,” she huffed.

“So that would be a no?” Dorn asked.

Emelia said, “Yeah, beyond saying make a jungle, I don't have any ideas. I say you make the boss floor first.”

“Hmm, that's a good idea. It will get the creative juices flowing. But I won't release the floor until after I've made the jungle and canyon floors. Otherwise, there would be no popularity for them.”

Mind made up, Dorn turned down to his tenth floor. He instanced the floor for 10,000 DP's. Then he created a series of doors. On each door was a plaque with a type of adventurer written on it. In total, he made six doors, despite only allowing parties of five. There was a door each for tank, healer, scout/rogue, ranger, mage, and fighter. The reason for the extra door was that the two damage dealers could come from a mixture of ranger, mage, or fighter. He placed a space barrier over each door that would only allow the related class adventurers to enter. He didn't want any fighters showing up to take the healer's test. Each room beyond the doors was instanced again, allowing only one person per test.

Before he went any further, he placed a warning stele in the entrance chamber. He had gone back to using torches and stone for this level, just to remind the adventurers they were in a dungeon. The stele read as follows:

Warning!

Each adventurer must progress

through his/her own respective

test alone for the first half of

the boss floor

Enchanted items and alchemy will

not work in the first half of this floor

After finishing, team members who

have passed the first half of this floor

will re-group to fight a boss monster

at C1 level difficulty

Once started, no adventurer may

leave this floor until completion,

forfeiture, or failure

To forfeit, simply say 'forfeit' aloud

and you will be teleported safely back

to D-Housing

You may forfeit a total of five times.

After this, you will no longer be

allowed to forfeit

Once passed, you may no longer

return to this floor. If the first part is

passed prior to forfeiture, you may

not repeat the first half

Failure will result in death

“Gods, think you've told them enough about the level? Why don't you just go ahead and tell them exactly what the tests are while you're at it,” said Emelia with scorn.

“Upgrading levels as adventurers is an important milestone. Don't be so cynical. The adventurers need to be warned of the dangers.”

Dorn went so far as to set up a specialized loot system. The first half of the level, if passed, would give loot specifically tailored to each individual. And it would be generous: a complete set of tailored C-level armor. He didn't want to put armorers out of business, so he would only be providing such rewards once in his entire dungeon.

Finally, Dorn was able to turn towards the exciting part: designing the tests for each level. The first room for all six tunnels was identical. It was a small room with a crystal ball resting on an earthen pedestal. Instead of the chi affinity testing orb, this was a chi strength testing orb. A stele was placed to the side wall:

You must be at least a C1 chi

practitioner to pass this room

Push your chi into the chi strength

testing orb

To forfeit, say forfeit aloud

Failure will result in death

“Heh, that's rough,” said Emelia.

“Only if they are a moron,” said Dorn, rolling his eyes. To set up the death for failure, he first made the room airtight. Then, he set up a system whereby if an adventurer pushed D-level chi into the orb, all the air would be instantly removed from the room, while the doors would lock. And of course, this entire floor was locked down with the strongest spacial magic Dorn knew. No talisman or mage would allow someone to escape the test.

In the second room, he placed the class-specific tests. For the scout, it was finding and disarming a series of three traps. For the tank, it was resisting physical pressure for three minutes of time. For the healer, it was to heal an unconscious and injured animal within three minutes of time. For the ranger, mage, and fighter, it was to defeat three monsters. The monsters would fight one at a time, only appearing after the previous monster was defeated. Dorn set up a stele in each room, informing the adventurers of their test. Finally, he placed a button in each room, that if pressed, would initiate the test (following a one minute pause). He even set up a disembodied voice to announce the time until the test began, at 15 second intervals, and at 5 seconds, it would count down. It produced a really chilling effect, that should encourage a number of adventurers to forfeit.

Done with the first half of the level, he turned towards the latter half. Attached to the second teleportation glyph entrance room, he built the boss monsters' room. He decided to place five weakling kobolds in the boss room. They would only appear after the entire party had entered the room and the doors had closed behind them. It would provide for a good test at C1 ranking for the adventurers.

“There, done. It's exactly how I imagined it,” said Dorn.

“Congratulations, you created your most dangerous floor yet. What does your subconscious say?”

“Status”

Status

Name: Dorn'axial

Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon

Dungeon Level: 15

+1 for 16,000 DP's

Floors: 11/13

Dungeon Points: 529

Dungeon Rating: C1 – Your dungeon

has progressed to the level of a

nationally recognized dungeon

Dorn was more stunned by the lack of dickishness than the fact that he had just blown all his DP's on making this level. Now he just needed a volunteer to test the level…

***

Kiera was meditating in her room in the inn, trying to upgrade from C4 to C5. The inn, which Dorn had had to increase in size five times now to accommodate all the D-ranked adventurers who had shown up, was simply massive. While it made the adventurers happy to have their own rooms furnished with beds, desks, chairs, closets, and dressers, it made the builders furious, because when he expanded it, he had simply swallowed the buildings surrounding the inn. This made Kiera laugh with schadenfreude; finally, the dungeon was screwing someone else over and not just her.

It had surprisingly been a week since she had last upgraded her strength. While this speed was more normal, she had been surprised that after her two rapid-fire upgrades last week, prior to the arrival of the guild, she had not upgraded again. What Kiera didn't know was that this was normal for jumping from such a low-grade style book to such a high-grade one. It was as if something within her had become unstuck, allowing her to make rapid improvements in strength. Now, she was simply following the natural progression of an A-level style book.

Kiera had become much more friendly with Vossan the dwarf, who seemed to spend all day, every day in the dwarven instance of the mines. This was the last thing she had learned about the dungeon before Dorn had cut her off; there were only four instances for the mining level, one for each of the races. It was made this way to facilitate the cooperation of large groups of miners and transporters. Kiera didn't begrudge Vossan his time in the mines, as she had to mostly spend every day practicing with Jeromy. When Jeromy said he was going to show her the ropes, he meant it. They were sparring with magic. Kiera was quickly becoming proficient in healing magic, as she needed it to heal her bruises and burns every day.

Kiera was surprised when the Churches had shown up. As expected, they declared the dungeon to be an infernal dungeon, and had marched all their priests and knights down to the final level of the dungeon. After spending five days trying, and failing, to destroy the shields surrounding Dorn, they had instead set up camp down in the final level. They were busy drawing complicated glyphs surrounding Dorn and setting up elaborate rituals to receive power from their gods.

Kiera had a bet going with Jeromy and Vossan on when they would give up, insist that they had never tried to destroy the dungeon, and start preaching that the dungeon was a miracle given by the gods to train the people in fighting devils. For, the Churches could never fail; it was just that the gods acted in mysterious ways. With a bit of hand-waving, the ignorant masses believed such crap. It never ceased to amaze Kiera the amount of mental gymnastics believers went through to make their views fit the realities of the world.

While Kiera was pondering these deep philosophical topics instead of training her Dragon Cultivation like she was supposed to, Dorn's voice suddenly appeared in her head.

“Kiera.”

At this voice appearing in her head, Kiera screamed a little. Then she started thinking furiously. What the fuck, Dorn? Don't interrupt me in the middle of meditating. And I'm still pissed you wouldn't let me build an entrance building to your dungeon.

“Yes, well, I need something from you. And as for the buildings thing, I was just making sure you followed my advice, about not taxing people coming to the dungeon. You're just going to get yourself assassinated.”

Why do you care? thought Kiera.

“Hmmm, I don't really know. I'll have to consider that further. I also just don't want anyone blocking off my dungeon with buildings; my glorious beauty should be seen from afar.”

Humble, too.

“Yes well, anyways, I need you to do something for me.”

Why should I do anything for you?

“I'll make it worth your while.”

Yay. I knew you liked me. What do you need me to do?

“Oh god, you just sounded like Emelia. Please don't become a second Emelia; one is already one too many.

Emelia said waspishly in her head, “I heard that.”

Kiera just smiled at hearing the two bicker again. Then she thought, oh yeah, are you safe from those Church knights and priests.

Dorn snorted, “Those idiots could spend ten thousand years doing what they're doing and not break through. Anyways, I want in on your bet; I'm guessing it will be a week and a half.”

And you want me to bring this up to the team, that you're betting?

“No, but I'm still betting on a week and a half.”

Ok, you're on. What do I get if I'm right about three days, however?

“Nothing. Now would you go the dungeon and teleport to the tenth level? I need you to test the first half of my boss level.”