Chapter 26

Koenraad Hartjenstein stood at the bow of the ship, looking out across the sea. He had led his people to flee Central Fantisa, and now he stood on the head ship leading a small armada across the ocean. The switch from economic power to military power had been unsuccessful. It turns out that in this world, strength would always come first. As a powerful merchant family, Koenraad had considered their family to be near the top of the continent.

Trying to raise a powerful generation had not been looked upon favorably. After essentially stealing a powerful style book from an ancient ruins, the family had been targeted by the true strengths of Central Fantisa. The militaristic families had forced them to flee. They had barely managed to package up some wealth and purchase ships, before the assassins had reached them.

Luckily, they had discovered word of a new dungeon arising in East Lucenia, across the sea. This information had been delivered by a dubious source: the devil and demon realm. In their bid for strength, Koenraad had turned the family towards devil worship. It was a quick way to gain power, if a bit unpalatable. The ends justified the means, however, for Koenraad. Only with power would they be able to cleanse the planet of the inferior three sentient races.

People had scoffed at their beliefs about the superiority of humans. How could they not understand that humans were created in the image of the gods? Humans were therefore the chosen race, the ones looked most favorably upon by the gods. Koenraad had no trouble believing in the superiority of humans under the gods, whilst simultaneously worshiping demons and devils.

His lieutenant, Adalwen, came up to him. “Sir, reports from Friedrich report that the dungeon is under his complete control. All is well.”

“Thank you, Adalwen,” replied Koenraad.

“Sir, if I may ask, why did we involve those filthy drow in this plan? There was always guarantee of success with Friedrich going personally. He is our best Soul mage. Even if he is self-involved and on a power trip.”

Koenraad responded, “There are no guarantees in life. But yes, the chances of him failing were slim to none. As for his character flaws, there is little we can do while he is our best Soul mage. There is hope for young Nickolaus, but that is for the future.”

Koenraad sighed, “The reason we asked the drow to come was on orders from the devil realm. We have made our bed, and now we must lie in it. Despite the vileness of the devils and demons, we unfortunately needed their power to succeed. We must clean Sorenia of the scourge.”

“For the humans,” said Adalwen formally.

“For the humans,” answered Koenraad.

He sent his vision back out on the horizon. He watched as their new land came into view.

“East Lucenia. This is where our family shall thrive.”

***

When Dorn returned to camp with a bound and gagged Earl Anatole, there was a great deal of yelling. Most of it seemed to be about the dead Davon and the once dying Quinton, who had been healed by Kiera and Brook.

When Quinton saw Dorn stroll into the clearing with the Earl, his face paled. Thornley came over, asking, “Dorn, right? What the fuck happened? Why is Davon dead? You were supposed to be on watch. Is this the man who did it?”

Dorn looked at Quinton, “Would you like to tell him, or should I?”

Quinton yelled out, “Boss, this maniac just attacked us while we were going to relieve ourselves. He's clearly insane. The Seekers clearly plotted to kill us all.”

Dorn rolled his eyes, saying, “Couldn't you come up with a better excuse? Sorry excuse for a traitor.”

“Traitor? Tell me what is going on, right now,” said Thornley.

“Simple. The good Earl here bought off Quinton and Davon to deliver Kiera to him. For revenge. Because I was on watch, they first tried to kill me. Davon shot at me with a poisoned dart gun. Luckily, I'm much more skilled then you were led to believe. I incapacitated Quinton and killed Davon. I then stalked into the woods and found the Earl waiting for a successful delivery.”

“He's lying,” screamed Quinton. “He just wants to kill us all. Don't let him fool you, boss.”

Dorn snorted, saying, “If I wanted all of you dead, you'd all be dead, and there's not a thing anyone here could do to stop me. Why would I bother playing such ridiculous games? But if you still can't believe me, then watch this.”

Dorn extended a dull gray stream of mana towards the Earl, turning him into a soul slave. Everyone in the Voices flinched at his display of illegal use of Soul magic. The Seekers, knowing what this Earl had tried to do to Kiera didn't seem to mind at all. After turning him into a slave, he commanded him to speak truthfully. Then he said, “Explain to everyone here why you are here on this floor tonight.”

With a blank look, Anatole started speaking. “I came to get my revenge on that bitch Kiera who attacked me. I paid off Quinton and Davon of the Voices of Fortune to capture and incapacitate her at night. They would deliver her to me, where I would fuck and torture her to teach her her lesson. Then I would kill her and dump her body in the canyon. Later, I would have Quinton and Davon framed for the disappearance.”

Dorn's vein on his temple started throbbing, and he had to forcefully restrain himself from crushing the man's head. He reminded himself that he owed his death to Kiera. He looked at Thornley and asked, “Any further questions?”

Everyone was silent. Then, Thornley said, “Thank you for exposing the truth.” He then whipped out his one-handed sword and sliced off Quinton's head. He turned back to Dorn, saying, “I'm sorry that my party has almost caused your party irreparable damage. I'll understand if you no longer want anything to do with us.”

Before Dorn could agree wholeheartedly, Kiera jumped in, saying, “Hey, this wasn't your fault. It's this piece of shit's fault, and you've already taken care of the other traitor in your party. We'll still help you finish this floor. Jeromy and Thalia will take the place of your missing scout and damage dealer. No worries.”

“Thank you, and what do you plan to do about this Earl? His father will not be happy,” said Thornley.

“I'm going to kill the piece of shit in a painful and disturbing manner,” replied Kiera with a straight face.

Dorn thought, I knew I loved her for a reason. Wait. What did I just think?, before trailing off into a series of self-examinations.

Brook asked, “What will you do about his father, though? He's a B-ranked practitioner.”

Jeromy puffed out his chest, saying, “I can take a pampered nobleman any day of the week. If he comes after us, it'll be the last thing he does.”

“And the King?” asked Thornley.

“Won't be King of anything much longer,” replied Jeromy flippantly.

Dorn still lost in thought, just ungagged the Earl and removed the soul slave bond. The Earl looked simultaneously pissed and desperately afraid. He said, “You can't do this to me; my father will have you all killed.”

Kiera walked up to him, saying, “Wow, you really don't realize the situation you're in, do you? You fucking piece of shit; you think you can try to rape me twice and nothing will happen to you?”

Kiera then reached down with her black gold dagger and cut in between his two legs. When the men saw what she had done, they all winced and looked away. As Anatole screamed and bled out, she just smiled. Dorn walked over and hugged her, saying, “You can let it go, now.”

She just hugged him back, saying, “Thank you for letting me do this myself.”

He simply replied, “Of course.”

Once Anatole died, they simply threw the three dead bodies over the cliff. The mood of the Voices was depressed, while the Seekers were still in fine spirits. After a few days on the floor, the Voices recovered their joie de vivre. This floor was simply too amazing to remain sad for very long. They hadn't been together with Quinton and Davon for a long while. Knowing that they had become traitors, they didn't stay upset for very long.

When they reached the end of the floor, they decided to have one last meditation session. Thornley and Kinnard had already ranked up to C1 during their trip, and they were hoping that Brook could finish up before they left the floor.

Dorn sat down next to Kiera and studied the sky that he had created. It was amazing how much fun this week had been. He had been sure it would suck, but instead, it was almost like a vacation week he had taken with Kiera. Of course, he had simultaneously been working all week to finish off his other two floors. Nonetheless, he was pleased with the time well spent. He sent his vision down and studied the two new floors he had created. He thought back to when he created them.

***

“Alright, then what's your brilliant plan for the 15th floor?” asked Emelia.

“Hell,” said Dorn.

“Hehe, I like the sound of that. Could you elaborate on what will be hellish?”

This was when his two minds had become distracted by dealing with Anatole. When he was sure that his mind following the Seekers around was taking care of the situation, he turned back to Emelia.

“The previous floors were about water and earth. This next floor will be all about fire,” Dorn said.

Emelia said, “What, you going to have them trudge through a bunch of flames? They'll all die, right?”

Dorn answered, “No, that would be ugly and boring. They will be crawling around and within an active volcano. The idea is, that the volcano will erupt every 24 hours, utterly destroying everything in the entire floor. There will be warning signs that lead up to the event, as well as a stele that explains this. It's still too early to put something so dangerous in place without a warning.”

“But I'm confused; if you have them working through a volcano, where will you put the entrance and teleportation glyphs?”

Dorn answered, “Very simple; the entrance to the floor will be at the bottom of the volcano. Parties will have to climb up, avoiding rivers of lava, and make it all the way to the top. Along the way, there will be fire elementals, as well as fire ravens flying in the sky. Sometimes, they will have to take tunnels that head into the volcano itself to avoid powerful monsters. The exit teleportation glyph will be on the inside lip of the crater, near the throat's vent.”

“I don't know, Dorn, that sounds a little harsh for C-ranked adventurers,” said Emelia.

“Don't worry, Emelia, I know what I'm doing.”

***

Dorn smiled at the memory of building his giant volcano. It had cost him the full five million points, but he now had an active volcano in his dungeon. Talk about an ultimate defense. If any people ever had malicious intentions in his dungeon again, like Friedrich had had, he could simply immolate them with an exploding volcano. Not much could survive that.

“What are you smiling about, big guy?” asked Kiera.

Dorn leaned against her and projected his thoughts into her head. “I'm just remembering building my 15th floor.”

Kiera thought back, what did you build?

He projected back, “It's a surprise. You'll probably hate it!”

Kiera scowled. She thought back, well, as long as it's not a place where we'll get all dirty.

He winced, and then said back, “Well, that's what the baths are for.”

Kiera just scowled more.

Dorn chuckled a little nervously, then surreptitiously gave her a C-Advancement pill. She smiled prettily, thinking, okay, all is forgiven. Dorn breathed in relief, and then he went back to thinking about his newest floors.

***

Emelia said, “Well I'm impressed. You definitely built a functioning volcano floor, and it's only a C5 level difficulty. Adventurers are going to hate it, you know.”

“They're not going to hate the nice treasure chests I placed on the interior of the dungeon,” replied Dorn.

“They'll hate getting to them, however,” replied Emelia.

“Meh, they'll live… or hopefully not, actually,” said Dorn.

“I agree; I can't wait to see people melt into the lava rivers,” said Emelia. She then continued, “Alright, how many points do you now have left?”

Status

Name: Dorn'axial

Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon

Dungeon Level: 30

+1 for 31,000 DP's

Floors: 16/17

Dungeon Points: 10,125,239

Dungeon Rating: C5 – Your dungeon

poses a significant danger, even to the

wary

“Alright, I have five million saved for ranking up, which should happen some time within the next week, and that leaves five million for the floor.”

Dorn designed a nice and simple dungeon floor, that mimicked his fourth, introductory floor. It was refreshing to build such a cheap structure. The main difference between his 4th floor and his 16th floor was the quality of monsters and traps. Instead of simple tripwires and pitfalls, he now had pressure plates. He lined the ground in tiles of different colors and shapes. Since this floor was instanced, it allowed him to have random colors or shapes be the safe path through the floor. The majority of his DP's went to buying new monsters for his rooms.

Like the fourth floor, he only had nine rooms of monsters. The first four rooms had the four elemental types, respectively. After placing air, water, earth, and fire elementals, he turned to his remaining five rooms. He placed a dozen common kobolds with three kobold shamans and one kobold chief in the fifth room. He purchased golems and placed three enormous golems made from stone in the sixth room. The seventh and eighth room were devoted to beholders and orcs, respectively. And in his final, boss room, he placed his most exciting monster yet: a single, weakened, illithid.

The illithid monster had cost him a full half of the points he had spent on this floor, or 2,500,000 DP's. The reason the illithid were so expensive, and the reason why Dorn was so excited, was because of the nature of the monster. Unlike all the monsters currently residing in his dungeon, the illithid were unique in not using physical or magical attacks at all. Their danger lied in their race-specific psionic powers. They would attack at one's mind, and the only defense was to have strong mental shields.

Emelia asked, “Are you sure you want an illithid this early in your dungeon? I think you're making things way too difficult in your C ranks.”

“Hey, I weakened it quite a bit; it's no longer capable of doing their trademark brain drain ability,” said Dorn.

Dorn was referring to their desire to physically consume adventurer's brains by implanting parasites through the ear canal.

Emelia shivered, saying, “Illithid give me the creeps.”

Dorn snorted, saying, “That's the whole point. I'm a dungeon; I'm supposed to be scary, not cuddly and fun.”

“Anyways,” Dorn continued, “I think that should be about it for the floor.”

Emelia said, “Well if you're putting in illithid, you might as well go the whole distance and put in some mimics.”

Dorn's face brightened, saying, “Ah, yes, what dungeon would be complete without some fake, attacking treasure chests.”

Dorn quickly purchased and placed the mimics on his 16th floor.

“There,” he said, “now I'm done. Status.”

Status

Name: Dorn'axial

Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon

Dungeon Level: 30

+1 for 31,000 DP's

Floors: 17/17

Dungeon Points: 5,237,937

Dungeon Rating: C6 – Your dungeon is

scary

“And look, I still have a quarter million points to spare,” said Dorn. He sighed, before saying, “I remember the days when that was a lot of points. It seems like just yesterday.”

Emelia got all into the act, saying, “They grow up so fast nowadays.”

***

When the three new C-rank adventurers showed up back in the D-Housing floor along with the Seekers, Kiera pretended to look at the sign, saying, “Hey look, new floors have opened up.”

“Finally,” said Jeromy. “I was about to go crazy doing that underwater maze floor over and over again.”

Thornley said, “We should quickly get another damage dealer and a scout, so we can get through the boss floor.”

“Actually,” said Kiera, “you should be able to make it through the D boss floor by yourselves; it's definitely something each of you can complete.”

“Can't you come with us to help, then?” asked Brook.

“Unfortunately, it can only be completed one time by each adventurer,” said Vossan. “I would love to give it another go, but we're already banned from returning. The rewards are amazing.”

“Yeah, go through tomorrow,” said Kiera. “We'll wait to explore the new floors with you guys, since it looks like floors 14 and 15 are both open and non-instanced floors. We can be the pioneers exploring. We'll take you to floor 13 the day after tomorrow.”

“I'm a bit nervous,” said Kinnard. “We have only just upgraded to C1; are you sure we'll be fine on the boss floor?”

Dorn said, “Yes, you should make it through easily.”

Coming from Dorn, this was a huge relief to the Voices. When they found out that Dorn used to be a high A-ranked adventurer (according to Dorn), they had become almost enamored with him. They trusted every word he said.

Thornley said, “Alright, we'll join you in C-Housing tomorrow, and we'll go with you to the new floors the day after. We'll just select our new teammates from the people who make it through to C-Housing. What are you guys going to do in the mean time?”

The Seekers looked at each other, to see if everyone was thinking the same thing. Then they laughed, before Vossan said, “We're going to go earn some more Devil Points.”