Chapter 11

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[Dungeon]

Whilst I was waiting for someone to turn up, I decided to start work on the eleventh floor. A desert. Hot, dry, empty and deadly. The desert was going to be another large room, full of baking hot sand, dead air and mirages.

The first task, as always, was to cut out a room. Then it was to create a masterpiece. I just had to think of what it should be.

I was a dungeon and as such my greatest joy was to create. I was never happier than when I was building and so it was what I did best. But, creation alone was incomplete. What I really wanted was for others to experience what I could create. To see it, to feel it and to live it.

Once the room was cut out I took a short break before texturing the edges. However, where the walls met the ceiling a fairly unnatural look appeared, too angular. I tried to hide the edges by raising up a huge sand dune where they met. But, this ended up looking far, far worse. Like a large bowl full of sand.

Scrapping that idea, I decided something would come to me and I moved on. Filling the room with a thick layer of sand maybe 4ft thick took a while. It spread out like a sheet of gold. Uniform and illustrious as far as the eye could see.

In contrast, I added in areas of black sand that were magically heated. Almost to melting. These traps would seriously burn adventurers who stepped on them. You could feel the heat the sand radiated. It would be pretty foolish to cross it.

Whilst staring out at the sand, I realised that a simple sandstone wall would work quite well in place of the jagged stone that felt off.

Whilst I knew what sandstone looked like, felt like and was I also didn’t have access to it. I had to create it.

But how would I do it?

Sandstone was basically just a block of sand. So, compression?

Or at least I thought so. It turned out that I wasn’t right. It’s much harder to compress sand than you’d think. It kept spilling out of the side or crumbling when I removed the pressure. Nothing I could think of worked, and after a little more experimenting I just gave up and bought it with dungeon points.

I still hadn’t worked out what they were. Dungeon points sounded like a way to improve my dungeon – and they certainly acted that way, but what were they actually?

It seemed that in exchange for these points, the purchased knowledge just flowed into my mind. But how could that be?

What kind of magic could do such a thing?

Magic had six realms: Creation, Destruction, Evocation, Crafting, Divine and Dungeon.

The latter two were similar to the creation realm but they acted in different ways. The mortals didn’t recognise these as part of the magic realms. Only because they didn’t realise they were so different and because they had no access to them.

Creation was about creating – obviously. But more specifically it was about forming structures with mana.

Destruction was about destroying or taking apart magics.

Evocation was the traditional role of lower class mages. Throwing fire, raising earth, making rain, etc… It involved evoking the elements and spirits and taking control. It was the most likely mage class to challenge my dungeon.

Crafting was about crafting items. Imbuing, enchanting, alchemy, runecraft, etc… making anything that used magic in any step was part of the crafting realm.

There were combinations of all the realms and an archmage would have a decent grounding in all but Divine and Dungeon realms, though he may well have started using Dungeon magic in his workroom.

Of course, these were just the realms of magic, there were sub realms, and then specialisation, and then individual talents and spells.

An example of which might be an Evoker primary mage, aligned with fire, that specialised in ranged fire spells with explosive fireball being an individual spell. Of course, said person would undoubtedly have some schooling in the other realms and magics. But, that would be how you would classify them.

The guilds had more specific measures and classifications, but I hadn’t a clue what they were, and frankly, I didn’t much care.

So, what were dungeon points?

They must have divine magic as a part but somehow it didn’t feel right. I was missing something, and I didn’t like it. But, I couldn’t buy the knowledge, and I couldn’t research it.

Dungeon points would remain a mystery for now. Just points that I could spend to improve the dungeon that I got from levelling and actions.

After buying sandstone from the store, I soon realised what I was doing wrong. Compressing the sand was along the right lines, but I had needed some form of support matrix or cement. Calcium carbonate would work and soon I had access to all the sandstone I would need.

Filling out the walls took a while and whilst I was at it I cut out the ceiling a little more and placed an artificial sun at the top. The artificial sun was a replacement for the light magic that had been used on all the floors so far.

The arti-sun was a burning ball of fire magic that resided at the top of the room, where the ceiling reached its highest point, 100m overhead. Unlike in the other rooms that were lit up with directional light magic on a single plane, the arti-sun was close enough that the light was different.

On the previous levels I had used light magic to mimic the effect the sun has from so far away by streaming light from one direction only. This time the sun would send light in all directions, meaning that the shadows cast by objects would differ vastly depending on small shifts in location. Take twenty steps to your right and the shadow would be pointing in a different direction. Perhaps it would be confusing, perhaps not. I didn’t really care. The main reason for the arti-sun was to boost the temperatures in a way that would feel natural.

Once the temperature of the room reached a stable sixty Celsius (140oF, 333K). To keep the room useable, I had to put in cooled oases as people would begin to die in this range.

Without water the cells begin to die at about forty Celsius (104oF, 313K). The oases had a temperature of about thirty-five Celsius (95oF, 308K), survivable though not too pleasant.

At the oases the adventurers would have to contend with the giant lizards and salamanders that roamed around, basking in the suns warmth of the survivable areas. They would have to fight for a drink from a pool of cool water before dashing through the killing heat to find the next one.

One wrong move would result in death and I doubted the mages would fare much better. For a fire mage or ice mage it might be okay. But, the deserts had creatures far more dangerous than the ones at the oases. For those ‘brave’ enough to avoid all confrontation, reinforced desert moles that had bony plating on their torsos and razor-sharp claws for digging and killing and the occasional lesser manticore would be their opponent. They could be seen flying around the map or burrowing away and so it wasn’t without any warning. Just a warning that was hard to spot.

If they encountered a lesser manticore, they would have to run to the oasis and prepare for a serious battle. Without a concerted effort from everyone it would spell certain death.

The roar of the manticore would frighten all the other critters away, so at least they would only have to deal with it. Just a little manticore action. Not to difficult right? Ha.

In addition, if anyone drew the ire of the Manticore it would destroy the oasis for a 24-hour period. I had the oases far enough apart that it had to be people’s goal to get to them but not far enough away to be at serious risk of death if they made best pace.

Off the beaten paths were extremely good prizes. Like full plate armour, potions of excellent quality, mana crystals, magic contraptions and more. Since this was by far the hardest level to explore, the loot was correspondingly of a much higher quality.

Throughout the room I threw in sand traps. If disturbed the sand would fall in on itself dragging with it the unfortunate person to their death.

Traps were slowly being worked in, having given them a pass for the first five levels. Now though, they would be present in most open plan levels.

Finally, I realised that the adventurers had to know the route to get through the desert so at each oasis I carved in a riddle that had compass directions as their answers.

On a whim I placed a completed map of the desert in the ice ball on the orca’s floor. Every day at midnight I would redistribute the oases, so that it was never the same route. The map would then be useless as there would be new ways of getting to the chests and a new map. They would never be able to just walk through the dungeon.

Next task was to implement the ecosystem. A lot of the animals had to be modified to survive in this area. After all, deserts are generally devoid of life, barring small critters and cold-blooded reptiles. Since this was hotter than most of the deserts, all the bugs needed to be given a basic fire affinity to survive.

Additionally, I had to change out their enzymes, so they did not denature and kill the animals. With the bugs done I moved onto the small lizards and predators. The lizards were easy as they were cold blooded and a lot of them were already native to the desert environments, so I just copied their adaptions over to their new brethren.

The predators were just slightly larger varieties of the lizards already here. With very few creatures adapted to desert life, it wasn’t a varied ecosystem, but it worked. Seeding the sands with small shrubs and grasses and more lush varieties at the oases let the primary consumers live and the food chain was up and running.

The desert was a death trap alright.

The secret for this floor was a fairly obvious one. Well there were two obvious options. In an oasis or down a sand trap. It was fairly obvious the sand trap would be the one I used. The adventurers would be spending lots of time at the oases and so if I had the secret there it would be rather easy to find.

Using a bit of mana manipulation -creation realm - I created a small magic shell that kept the sand out and when an adventurer fell on it they would be let through into a climate-controlled room with the chests in. It would start out at a pleasant fifteen Celsius and slowly increase to the sixty up above. I couldn’t have them sheltering in here. A small basin of water was kept ice cold as an additional reward.

With that done, the room was basically complete. Another quick job that only took around thirty-six hours. Once I completed the four elemental sections things would start to get much harder and much larger. I would start introducing basic puzzles and more sophisticated traps and designs. At the moment it was essentially just survive the environment and the occasional monsters. Soon it would be a fight to get through any level. First though I had to finish off the fire and wind levels.

In my heart chamber I inscribed the walls with my current plan:

Section 1 was nature or earth.

Section 2 was ice or water

Section 3 was fire

Section 4 would be wind.

Section 5 would be a combination

Section 6 would be different.

That was my planned-out dungeon for now I had ideas for hundreds of levels, so I’d just continue to get bigger and bigger. I had no shortage of space after all, the whole mountain was mine. Mine to use and create. A realm beneath.

==========

[???]

The man peered through the quartz windows cautiously. He had waited for about three hours, listening for the tell-tale signs of sleep. The rise and fall of the subject’s chest. The harsh rattle of a deep sleeper’s breathing and the occasional snorting snore.

With a pained expression he uncoiled and dropped down silently from the top of the wardrobe. Landing in a crouch, his cloak settled onto the floor behind him with a soft slap. He froze. Silence. Phew, too close he thought. Once he was sure that the sleeper was not about to awake, he gently and gingerly stretched out the muscles that had cramped up in his hiding. He whimpered slightly as the knots worked themselves free and blood flowed back through his limbs.

Still no disturbance to the regular, metronomic breathing of the sleeper.

With small steps, placing his toes first and heel last, he sneaked along the corridor with silence as his companion. Pulling a sliding door open until there was just enough to slip through, he was gone. He shut it with a soft snick, forced into action by the maids that would wake for morning duties in but an hour.

He crept over to the desk. With a quick glance, he studied the document enough to determine it was in fact the one he wanted. Taking out a scroll he laid it on top and took out a stick of chalk and started rubbing a copy out onto the parchment. The tools were magic, and though he didn’t understand how they worker, they did work. And that was good enough for him.

It took him a few nervous minutes and then a few more to check it was accurate before he was happy. At the opposite end of the corridor was a window. He opened it up, climbed out, and shut it with a slight bang.

Pausing briefly, he breathed a deep sigh and left as quickly as possible in a scampering motion. Taking a few powerful heavy steps, he leapt and scrambled up the wall. Pausing briefly before rolling off and landing gracefully on the other side of the garden wall. Job done.

With a quick check of the document, he set off, grabbing his pack from a nearby bush as he strode off into the night.

***

In the dead of night, the trees of the forest looked alien and quite spooky. But the man wasn’t afraid, he was never afraid. Not of anything mortal men can comprehend. And a forest at night was certainly comprehensible. When you had looked evil in the face, what more was there to be scared of. Only fools were scared of the unknown and the man wasn’t a fool. It was when the unknown became known that you had any right to be scared. And even then, rarely.

It took him the best part of the night to get far enough into the forest to where he could summon his master.

With the village now out of sight and out of mind, he placed down some pebbles. Throwing down a scroll in the centre he waited.

The scroll was written on a yellowish paper, rolled up and tied with a black ribbon. Once the scroll had burnt to a crisp, a series of wards and a pale blue barrier rose from the ground in a perfect circle until it created a uniform half dome around him.

It had two purposes the dome helped collect and project the particles his master sent off into the night to allow them to communicate and it blocked outgoing noise and mana pulses from within, or so he believed. That was what the master had said and he had no reason to believe master would lie.

He unsheathed a dagger and sliced his hand from side to side three times and pressed his bloodied hand to a rock. Soon a ghostly, pale-green head formed over the rock. It pivoted around and stared into the night for a few moments.

After a brief but agonising moment of silence it spoke in a battered rasp that made the hardened man cringe.

“Where is it?”

“Here my lord” the man replied, trying to hide the shudder in his voice.

The Projection laughed a horrible mocking laugh. “Are you afraid of me? The little one fears me! You know I’d never hurt you. But, corrections must be made when you’re at fault! They’re always at fault. Blame, blame, blame, blame, blame…” the projection rattled off. The man thought he might be insane. But he had helped him gain the power to resist and had promised so much more. He would endure. Oh yes, would he endure he thought, visualising the power that would soon be his.

“They think I’m crazy, imagine that, me, crazy. Jealous, just jealous. GIVE IT TO ME!!!” the floating head said in that horrible, rasping, petrifying tone as it seemed to remember what it wanted.

With a gulp of nerves, the man presented his copy to the man. Holding it up to his eyes.

“Sub satisfactory” the projection said sharply.

“Where is the original?”

“He still has it my lord, I didn’t want to give my presence away, is it not good enough?”

“Good enough? Yes, we will see. Go, find this place and explore. Bring me back proof that this is not a wild story. If you do well, perhaps I might grant you what you seek.” it told him.

He began to roll the map back up and pack his bag again when the projection screamed at him to get the hell out of here. With no hesitation he took its advice and left in a rush. Master could be so mean.

It took a while to follow the map. Up and down the land, until he found the cave, an entrance as black as night and an ominous pressure that rose the hairs on his arm. He took his pack off drew his dagger and leapt into the darkness. Master would see, oh he would see. The man was NOT useless.

==========

[Dungeon]

A strong zap ran through my mind. I felt a crash and a gasp of pain to accompany the zap. Then the heartbeat pounded again. I smiled, he was here. Yes! I was so happy.

Moving my consciousness towards the surface, I saw, at the bottom of my stairs a man. He had fallen face first down the stairs. I laughed out loud – ish, it wasn’t really out loud. I can’t believe he fell for it.

He wore a black cloak with black leather armour and a short sword and dagger. Furthermore, he was the wrong height. In my jubilance I had failed to realise that this was not in fact the man who had come before. But rather a new challenger. Around his neck he wore seven, small plates of material: Stone, Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Iron and Steel.

Taking a closer look, I realised they had engravings on, odd the other man, hadn’t had these plates on him.

Perhaps they meant something.

One read:

Name: Elisabeth Jarnis

Class: Mage – Evocation (Mj (W)), Creation (v.Mn)

Rank: Silver

Group: Adventurer Group 53642

Looking at the man I had my doubts that he was Elisabeth Jarnis. You know, being that he was a man and all.

They had to have a purpose, and the inscription had given me a clue it was to do with adventuring.

The dungeon store had such information for five points and I bought it.

As it turned out, it was a grading system. Unlike dungeons that were graded from 1E to 10A weak to strong the adventurers were graded based on a material plate denoting their worth and the type of classes available.

All seven plates on the man were in ascending order for the adventurer ratings, Stone being lowest and Steel just under halfway up the ladder. After Steel came Aluminium, Platinum, Iridium, Adamantite, Orichalcum, Mythril and Scarletite.

Since he had plates up to steel and all with different names on, I had a feeling he wasn’t such an upstanding character.

But how strong was he, obviously more than Steel, whatever that was. But how did that compare. I guess I’d have to find out.

With a groan, the man got up and looked around him. It took him a few moments, but in short order he realised where he was and came to be alert very quickly indeed.

He was scanning his surroundings and soon he was comfortable again.

***

I was getting annoyed with the man, he had stolen all of the treasures from the trees and had quickly passed through the second level as well. During his exploration he had killed the water elemental and I was getting very annoyed. He was obviously much stronger than a steel and he was a stealth class to boot.

He just started walking through the levels. In short order he had passed through both swamp and rainforest, killing everything he could find, including all of the animals, and not just the monsters.

At least he’ll be gotten by the boss, you need a tank for it. I chuckled in joy as he walked into the chamber.

That chuckling joy lasted only a little while. He just drew it to him, kiting it around before ducking away and walking down the stairs., ignoring the monster up above. I’ll have to fix that.

Though I was confident he wouldn’t make it all the way to me, I was not going to take any chances. The manticores could take him down, but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity to test my dragon.

The first ice level was going to be his downfall and I couldn’t wait. Whilst he was taking the stairs I used a burst of magic to change the activation sequence. All I had to do was activate the dragon, at my discretion.

He entered the first ice level with apprehension. I think he could tell that it was going to be something different. The safe zone had the black fog again and it seemed to alert him to the fact. He had spent a good deal of time in the safe zone, using it as intended. It all seemed to work out well, I was pleased.

He stepped out into the level with care, despite the fact the ice was textured to provide grip. Looking around he edged out along the wall, observing the level.

It took him a few minutes to gain confidence but when he did, the floor was no longer a problem. Though he slipped slightly when the yetis exploded up, surprising him. Defeating the yeti took him a while as he only had a dagger, but he didn’t end up taking too many hits.

Eventually he made his way over to the centrepiece. Roaming around like a cat stalking its prey. He stood, staring at the dragon for a moment. I nearly caved and released the dragon early, but I wanted to see if he would notice it being alive first. Hopefully not.

Two ice doors slammed the exits closed when he reached the right point. It had traped him in the ice world, with the dragon. Death was assured.

A dark red pulse lit the room. It emerged from the heart. The ice blue had transformed into a rich ruby red as the beast came to life. I looked through the dragon’s eyes and observed the man. He had frozen in shock, obviously not expecting the sculpture to come alive. With a snort, the dragon roared and stepped down, off the podium. Focusing on the man it began to run, smashing through the ice and yeti’s that had awoken sending their blood cascading over its scales and spraying the walls. With the quickly freezing lifeblood.

It was over predictably quickly.

The man tried to run, dodging the dragon and the shards of ice it had sent his way as it crashed towards him. Which was faster, man or dragon?

Dragon.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise!

The dragon slashed out. Ripping through the man’s leg and chest with its icy claws, shredding the flesh into bloody ribbons. He screamed until his voice cut out, hoarse and bubbly as his lungs filled with fluid.

The dragon stood over the man and roared out its victory as he lay bleeding out on the floor. The talons of its feet, slowly sinking into him. The flesh split like an over-ripe tomato and small beads of blood welled up along the rips before slowly rolling down the sides of his calf.

Gradually the pulsing rivers of blood that oozed out of his wounds slowed down until his heart no longer beat. Its rhythm tired and dead.

The dragon bent over, taking a large bite of the man. Savage and brutal, its only mercy the fact that he had died just beforehand.

As the dragon ate its fill the ‘ding’ of notifications tore my gaze from its mind and brought me back to the world.

~~ Congratulations: You have killed your first sentient being. Awarded: 5000 dungeon points and 250% mana from the kill. ~~

~~ Congratulations: you have killed your first human. Awarded: 2000 dungeon points and 150% mana from the kill. ~~

With the mana from the man and the bonus for my first kill, I had a few levels available for the first time in a long, long while. I immediately confirmed the level. Not that I had any choice as I had more mana than capacity and, so I could either turn my focus to levelling up or just letting it fade away. An enormous loss I was sure.

I sighed now I had to fix everything…

~~Level Up: 46~~

~~Level Up: 47~~

~~Level Up: 48~~

~~Level Up: 49~~

~~Level Up: 50~~

Menu

Name

???

Race

Dungeon

Titles

Renown

Just Discovered

Skills ^

15

Rating

4A

Level

50

Health

3,500/3,500

Mana

86,000/100k (100k mana for Lvl up

Knowledge

21,00

Dungeon Points

12,296

Status

OK

Attunement

E4, N3, I3, F1

Rooms

529

Floors

11+(2)

Bosses

2+(1)

Monsters

2075

Creatures

91,123

Creature types ^

1449

Unique Items

8

Item Types ^

345