Now that I had found out about what Inlas was doing. It was time to try to ponder out what in the ever living world I could do to somehow take advantage of it. First of all, teleporting them to the 3rd floor was just a stopgap. That would work until they started to gain levels under their belt. After which it would become increasingly risky, if not outright detrimental. Luckily for me, this new alliance had given me an idea. The teleport traps needed a safe area to put the target, if not I could have just dumped them into the lake or better yet, inside a wall. That just would not work, however, and having the teleportation be random would also be a bad idea. But there were ways to exploit the whole thing still. There had to be, I just had to think outside the box. Wait... Box… THAT WAS IT!!! Removing my physical form I dove into the lake and headed for the bottom. The depths down there was dark, so dark even my Darkvision was soon rendered all but useless and still deeper I went.

Once I reached the bottom, I started to dig out a corridor in the wall going diagonally upwards. Water kept following in, but that could be fixed easily enough by burning a bit of essence to force the top of the tunnel to produce air. Soon after, the air forced the water back down, and I soon had a small room dug out of the stone. I immediately edited every teleport trap to send intruders to this chamber instead. The area was technically safe enough. Sure, they would be trapped. Sure. The water pressure would be so great it would cause metal armor to look like crumpled paper. But that was not my problem. The puppets would not die immediately nor be in any danger, problem solved. That still left the issue of mind-controlled parties. I had not seen as many of late. Probably because they could not go in without shutting down whatever Inlas was doing to circumvent the limiter.

Even so, I needed to figure out a way to separate the two. Killing them felt like a waste. They were not doing this willingly, at least not with full knowledge of what they were doing. I checked my Essence, only 192 left, not too much, still there had to be a room I could use to keep prisoners. I mean I was a DUNGEON for crying out loud; I had to have cells or something? Right? .

That sounded interesting, given that having access to prison cells would be beneficial to remove the puppets as a threat since I could just imprison them instead of killing them. And would also get me a place to put adventurers until I could remove their brainwashing.

I looked up the biome itself and it looked interesting. The entire thing was a fortress alright with intruders arriving inside the fortress itself. There was no outside. The walls were massive blocks of mossy granite with a network of corridors interspersed with vegetation that had partially taken over the place. The monster lineup was also rather surprising. The first part was a biome fit for Ogres, Vine Shamblers, Giant Beetles, Earth Giants, Lesser Chimeras, Gargoyles, Animated Armors, Animated Statues and to my joy, Minotaur Warriors. That was quite a lineup.

The 2nd part was also quite a surprise. Giant mushrooms and mold had overgrown it. If the description was to be believed the entire area, they grew in was also so full of spores and mold that maps would be rendered absolutely useless. The mold spores would get stuck on them instantly, not to mention visibility was next to 0 even for creatures with Darkvision. Breathing would also be problematic for the same reason. That part of the fortress was a good place to live for several Fungoid Monsters of varying looks and abilities. A type of slime called Red Goo that was venomous rather than acidic also made the place home. And so did a particular breed of Arachnid that looked absolutely terrifying. It was ghostly white and slightly glowing, with large black eyes and extremely long limbs. Small white mushrooms grew all over it. It was called Sporecap Spider. It had to be pretty powerful as it had a hard limit of two and you could not get more of them, period. Probably an elite monster then.

The area behind the spores and mold was decrepit and falling apart and started with a mid boss room. I would have to look in the mastery menu to see what boss went there once if I got the floor. The area behind the boss room was the worst nightmare for anyone with arachnophobia. Spider webs and pools of poison were all over the place. The web clung to walls and floors so anyone entering would be under a constant slowness debuff unless they walked into the pools of poison. Stepping into them would get you poisoned. The funniest part was that this place also had some interesting fungus growing in the hallways. They functioned as gates that would close if you moved either too fast, or too slow. With the hallways where too slow was an issue, usually being covered in spider web to slow down progress.

The hallways were also intersecting in a network of stairs and walkways over a pool of purple bubbling liquid that had to be some kind of extremely foul poison; The hallways converged just before the two final hallways leading to the boss room. One of which was a dead end covered in poison pools and webbing unless you were leaving the boss room itself. Because of the mushroom door that would slam shut because of proximity if you came up the hallway leading into the boss room itself. As far as a fourth floor went this one would be an interesting one. Though the requirement to unlock the floor was a bit on the steep side. I needed a minimum of 1 each of Arachnid, Fungal, Inanimate and Plantoid types of monsters as well at least one structure type defense. Luckily, I had the last one because of the Duergar fortress. I could get all that, but it would take time. Then again, my next set of stairs was not due until I reached Dungeon Level 6, so I had time to save up, unless…

I looked into the Mastery menu and started to look for the Stairs room. There should be… there it was… 400M Recurring Unlock. So 400M every time I wanted to buy a set of stairs. That was… expensive, given the current circumstances. As I was contemplating this there was a flash and the first set of intruders arrived in my new little room. They looked around for a few moments and headed down the corridor and into the water. A few moments later they returned, then one of them looked right at me! “Clever little Core. The pressure of the water would kill these puppets before I could get very far at all.” The voice was... Sweet, sickeningly so almost. Yet I could not wish to hear more. It was… disturbing, to say the least. It decidedly did not belong to the Dwarf that had spoken, it was far too high-pitched and feminine to belong to that bearded face.

So, that meant it was Inlas talking, joy. The puppet opened its mouth to speak again. But it never got the chance as a giant hand suddenly exploded from the water, grabbed the speaking puppet. As it did, there was a horrible screeching sound as a grayish purple light filled the room for a few seconds. The puppet slowly dissolved into some kind of viscous black sludge as this occurred. The dungeon immediately announced. .

There was a moment of complete silence in the room. Even as the arm started to fumble around to find more of the puppets. Then the puppets as one pulled their weapons and slit their own throats and promptly vanished. Just in time too, as the arm had been about to grab another. With its target gone, the hand sank back into the water, after giving me a “thumbs up” gesture. How did it even know I was here?

Well, regardless, that was sure as hell something, I had a counter to the puppets in my new “Brothers.” I would have to find a way to exploit that. Just one puppet had been worth more in terms of gains than any other single kill I had made so far. The puppet was only level 1. Wait a moment. There had to be a catch to it, given the silly gain. .

So all the puppets were getting stronger if one was permanently defeated, but the reward would be the same unless they also increased their base level. In which case the bonus levels the other puppets would gain would increase as well. This was both good and bad, bonus levels were just a stat buff, no new skills or anything would unlock. But they had an infinite stack size, you could have any number of bonus levels. Meaning as the number of puppets dwindled they would become increasingly more dangerous.

I considered for a moment to change the teleporter location again. Then alter the tunnels so that the only way to the dining room was through a passage from the bottom of the damn lake. But I quickly tossed that idea to the side. It wouldn’t work. The dungeon would not allow impassable tunnels, and the depth’s outside was decidedly impassible to intruders due to how deep the lake was. No, I needed a better idea than that. Speaking of, I still had some other alterations I had to take care of.

Next up was the ramp to the Kobold Village. I could not leave it, it was virtually undefended, and it was just a straight 30 degree ramp. I had a better idea from another game I played as a kid. I removed the ramp and altered the room and wall itself, nearly quadrupling the height to get up to the entrance as the floor of the room was lowered considerably. The wall itself was then given an extremely steep angle. I could now build a long path that went down the wall in an S pattern, sneaking back and forth over and over. The road itself was u-shaped, and the corners had huge and extremely sturdy corner banks. They would need them for what I had planned.

Next up I dumped ten Boulder traps close to the top of the new road leading up the wall. I set the first trigger near the bottom and the other triggers for the top. Then went into the customizing menu for the boulder traps. This would be expensive, but worth it. After burning 30 of my 42 TP, I changed the trigger to proximity for the one at the bottom. The others would trigger when a boulder rolled over them as well as when an intruder got near. I also gave them auto-reset and lowered their reset time as much as it would go. I also created a small chamber inside the Kobold crawl space. There I placed another trigger. It would shut the traps down and prevent them from triggering until the last boulder had passed the triggers that would care about them. Letting friendlies use the path safely.

If I had set the timing correctly intruders would set off the first boulder by approaching the path. The first would then happily set off the rest and the final rock would set off rock number two again, who would set off number three and so on afterwards. Creating a path with a constant flow of deadly boulders rolling down it, finally I set off the first trap manually to test it. It worked like a dream, and soon I had a merry and constant flow of boulders rolling down the path at terrifying speeds, ready to crush any who appeared. Now there was just the problem of how to deal with the boulders that reached the bottom. But luckily I had a solution for that as well. This particular unlock had been the most expensive of them all.

I had, with the help of the Archives, timed the boulders and set it so that 3 seconds after finishing the trip down they would dissipate into thin air. This would lower the reset timer of the boulder trap it belonged to as it did. No need to clean up and the boulders could now roll forever if need be. That would dissuade anyone from trying to walk up, but that would not stop anyone trying to fly. Time to fix that as well.

Into the Monster menu next. It was time to get the Arachnid I would need for my fortress, to be exact, the Umbral Spider. If I had them nest in this room, it would make flying virtual suicide. Still, it was better to double-check their stats given what the curse had made me see.

Monster: Umbral Spider

Genus: Arachnid, Biome: The Depths

Unlock cost: 30 EP

HP: 120, MP: 100

Attack: 150, Defense: 150

Magic Attack: 60, Magic Defense: 60

Strength: 15, Dexterity: 15, Endurance: 12

Intelligence: 6, Wisdom: 10, Charisma: 6

Upkeep: 3, or Dark Lair: 1

Skills: Spider Climb(Compound Racial), Web of Darkness(Racial Unique), Light Eater(Racial Unique), Web Weaver(Racial), Silklash(Racial), Magical Resistance Lv2(Racial), Improved Darkvision(Racial), Darkness Dweller(Racial), Paralysis Attack(Racial), Shadow Walk(Racial), Master Ambusher(Racial), Aerial Bane(Special), Fall Immunity(Special), Lesser Darkness Magic(Special) Lesser Shadow Magic(Special) Innate Spellcasting(Special) Greater Accuracy(Special Ranged)

Nasty for anyone who was on their bad side, that’s for sure. “Darkness Dweller” would make them effectively invisible while in darkness or deep shadow. And that would be near constantly seeing as they could eat light and light-based magic. And because of the unnatural darkness created by their “Web of Darkness” impaired even regular Darkvision. Effectively halving its range while in the affected area. They had a Dark Lair support room too. But that was… expensive. Placing it would put me from 35M to 5M. Ah well, it should not take too long to recuperate the cost of the Dark Lair with Inlas constant attacks. Speaking of another team was wiped out by a bunch of shadows that had attacked as they were busy dealing with a Cube. Shame on you Inlas for not bringing any magic support for that group.

I spent the 40 essence needed to place the room and summon the 10 Umbral Spiders; The area turned darker almost immediately, even for my Darkvision. I could also hear the 10 of them chittering excitedly near the roof where their dens were. I floated down to the floor and materialized, then called up to them telepathically, bidding them to come down, so I could meet them. Soon after I was surrounded by 10 pitch-black spiders, they were each about the size of a horse. There was no light at all around them. In fact, the surrounding air grew dimmer the closer to them it got as they devoured the fractions of light that was in the room.

“We greet you Core and Mistress” their voices were high-pitched for their size and also somewhat sharp on the ears. Not that I was going to complain as it was nowhere near as grating as the Guildmaster using his Supreme Orator. “And I greet you, my beloved creatures.” What followed was a quick summary of what I expected of them, as well as instructions to not harm any of the guests or Indella. It seemed redundant and most likely it was, but better safe than sorry. They eagerly agreed to protect the aerial space leading up to the tunnel entrance. And I almost felt pity for anyone foolish to attempt to fly above the path now. Umbral Spiders could easily snatch prey out of the air with their “Silklash” skill. Literally reeling them into their web from afar using magically controlled threads of webbing. Combined with “Greater Accuracy” boosting their hit rate on ranged attacks and skills.

With the path secured, it was time to see if I could come up with some strategies for the new inhabitants on the first floor. The Shadows already knew how to make use of the crawlspaces and the shadows cast by torches held by intruders, so that wasn’t the issue. The thing was the Cubes; they had potential; the trick was to figure out if I could somehow make use of it.

With that in mind, I looked up their stats again.

Monster: Gelatinous Cube

Genus: Ooze, Biome: Maze

Unlock cost: 10EP

HP: 200, MP: 10

Attack: 140, Defense: 180

Magic Attack: 10, Magic Defense: 20

Strength: 14, Dexterity: 18, Endurance: 20

Intelligence: 1, Wisdom: 6, Charisma: 2

Upkeep: 5, 3 with Sludge Pit

Skills: Ooze Immunities(Racial), Engulf(Racial), Wall Climb(Racial), Devour(Racial), Greater Physical Resistance Lv4(Racial), Magical Weakness Lv5(Racial), Lesser Regeneration(Racial), Pseudopod Slam(Racial)

Hmm, some good, some bad, but I could work with this. I transported onto the first floor and located a cube that was currently not busy with everything and planted a vision of my idea into its mind. If this worked, it would be a nasty surprise to the next intruders that would pass this way. The cube slowly slid up the walls and attached itself to the roof, waiting for any intruder to pass below it before it would drop on top of them.

I slowly but surely made my way through the first floor and instructed the rest of the cubes in the same way. It took time, but it should also increase the effectiveness of their attacks. They would be outside the range of the torches up there, and being see-through, the darkness would make it nigh impossible to notice them without a detection spell.

Next up I hopped over to the third floor where Indella was working on improving the defenses. And what a nasty improvement it was. Some kind of gray thorny vines covered the walls of the fortress now. And if the demonstration she was currently giving the Duergar was anything to go by, this particular breed of vine was fireproof and frostproof. So, you could no longer climb the wall without ripping yourself apart in the process. And that was provided you didn’t get stuck on the thorns in the first place, nice. Would the effect stick around, though? .

I was about to leave for the 2nd floor once more when I felt a sudden surge of power. I immediately checked my status as I had a hunch about what just transpired. Just as it popped up the dungeon popped in with an announcement of its own. . That was nice.

Dungeon Name: Labyrinthia

Dungeon Biomes: Magical Maze, The Depths, Deep Labyrinth

Dungeon Level: 5, DEXP: 0/450

Depth: 3/3, Rooms: 50

Resources: Essence: 205/4800, EP: 55, TP: 15, M: 8, E/D: 253

Avatar Attributes

Avatar Race: Umbral Sage Sphinx (Tier 2 Legendary Unique Variant)

Avatar Gender: Female

Avatar Level: 2, EXP: 412/450

HP: 160/160, MP: 200/200

Attack: 160, Defense: 160

Magic Attack: 200 Magic Defense: 200

Strength: 16(ATK), Dexterity: 16(Def), Endurance: 16(HP)

Intelligence: 20(MATK), Wisdom: 20(MP), Charisma: 20(MDEF)

Penumbra 83% > 17% Inlas, Divinity: 3%

Synchronization: 60%, Core Type: Advanced Cores Eaten: 4

Titles: “Evolved one” “Vengeance Seeker”

Skills: Penumbral Psionics(Racial), Cleaving Swipe LvMAX(Racial), Roar LvMAX(Racial), Penumbral Archives(Umbral Unique), Dungeon Siege Mistress(Master Compound), Blessing of Penumbra(Mythical Umbral Blessing) Umbral Knowledge Lv1(Umbral), Damage Resistance Lv2, Mud Golem Status Immunities(Core), Fire Resistance Lv2(Core), Deception Lv4(Core), Ancient Legacy(Evolution), “Receive Linked Senses”(Gift), Innate Caster(Core), Illusionist(Core), Divination(Core), Sphinx Curse(Unique Core), Challenge(Core)(Riddles)

Yep, indeed my e/d had gone up, lets see anything else new? No, no, no, nope and… wait… how… long had that been like that, Archives how long have I had 3% Divinity? I was a bit preoccupied with having just had a chat with the creator of this universe at the time, so excuse me for not noticing. *Noticed what? Anything I can help with?* I materialized next to Indella and admired her handiwork. “Nothing that requires help, no. There was just a little detail I missed that raises some questions, whose implications are a mystery to me with one of my stats.” I replied as I walked over to her.

*What stat?* . *So, what you are saying is that being touched directly by a deity increases your own divinity?* .

That was troubling. What in the world was going on here? Surely Rubolgs idea of returning balance wasn’t to have me become a Goddess, was it? If so, he would probably be disappointed, I had no interest in divinity at all. I already had essentially an endless life just from being a sphinx. And even that was more than I frankly wanted. I had no interest in the added headache of a divine portfolio dictating what I can and cannot do would add to that. No thanks.

Still, this was yet another headache I now had to deal with. Just what was Rubolgs angle in all of this, what was his idea of Balance? My dour musings was interrupted by the dinner bell, perfect I needed a distraction. Taking Indella with me I flew to the Dining room where food was waiting for both of us. Lienru had outdone herself this time, I was not 100% sure what I was eating, but it was delicious. A sentiment clearly shared by Indella. It was clearly some form of pizza, that much was clear, but the meat on it was decidedly not from the Mushroom forest. It had a different texture, slicker, easier to chew, wait…

“Lienru have some Kobolds gone fishing in the lake?” she beamed. “You noticed Great One, indeed we have puzzled out how to cast fishing nets, usually we don’t get much in them. But earlier today, after you had allowed us to return to the lake, the net was filled to the brim with all manner of strange and delicious fish. So we decided to experiment and you are eating the result of our testing so far.” She seemed quite proud, and rightly so. This was fantastic, the crust was perfect, the topping was perfect, the sauce was perfect.

“You have outdone yourself Lienru, well done indeed, this is fantastic.” I answered honestly. My compliments made the little Kobold beam happily. *Agreed, this got to be some of the best cooking I have ever tasted.* The meal was washed down with ice-cold water from one of the rivers, giving a refreshing and quite pleasant finish to the meal. I could literally feel my mood lifting just from savoring the aftertaste alone. Lienru was a saving angel from the darkness of despair, that was for sure. Saving Ssatassha and her tribe had decidedly been one of the best decisions I had ever done in my entire life.

Indella finished before me and ran off stating that she had some ideas to make it more difficult for intruders inside Unguul’s boss room that she wanted to try out. I asked Talka to send an escort of Winged Striders with her. Just in case some puppets against all odds would be able to get inside Unguul’s boss room while Indella was there. That way they could evacuate her through the top of the room if push came to pull.

I could have kept an eye on her myself. But I knew that Indella wanted to show she could be an asset. As such, I felt it best to give her space and freedom to work and get to know the other inhabitants of the Dungeon at her own pace.

I also had other things to do. Namely, change the route leading over to the Hive a bit so that my Brothers could take a more active part in the defense. That meant creating a bridge across the lake and make the path that ran alongside it impassable. I had already done the math, and it would burn most of my remaining essence to pull that off. That did not change the fact that the five of them were my best bet against the puppets. So the more I could expose them to each other, the better.

It took the rest of the day to finish up the bridge and once I was done, I was exhausted. And I was not the only one as Indella staggered off of the Winged Strider that had carried her back to the hive. She walked over to me, a bit unsteady on her feet, just as I finished the last bit of the alterations. *I changed the pillars inside Unguul’s room. They are now more numerous, but far thinner. So you can’t hide behind them anymore. The 5 of them were also adorable in their own way and did their best to help out.* I gave her a tired smile. “Good work, let’s get back to the core room and call it a night.” I laid down and let Indella climb onto my back. She hugged me tightly as we flew back down.

As we entered the core room once more Indella hugged me even tighter. And with a mental voice that was little more than a whisper in the back of my mind, she said, clearly on the verge of sleep; *Thank you for trusting me, Pearl.* I couldn’t help but chuckle. That was the first time I had heard anyone say my old name since I came to this place.

I laid down and was about to doze off then the Archives chimed in with a bit of unasked for but useful insight . It was the name I had back when I was a Human. . Huh… hadn’t thought about that. Good idea, Archives. . I barely caught the last words, as I was quickly falling into a deep sleep myself.