POV Amy

Amy was pondering the name she had chosen for her dungeon, "The Floating Dungeon." She wondered how the name that she had chosen would be seen or discovered by the people who come to explore and fight within her dungeon if they do not use information obtaining objects, scanning spells, or scrying. So she should give the name she wanted so that she wouldn't be named by anything or anyone else.

That's when she decided that she would have to tell them if they did not know her name.

Amy still wanted to keep the entrance tunnel inconspicuous, but the room that held the portal, that she could design. The most important aspect of it was the sign that told the world her name that she decided on. In her mind, the way to do this was to make a hanging sign. So Amy formed a long, thin plank of ice and carved "The Floating Dungeon" on it. With the words carved, Amy added two small chains and hung the sign right above the portal.

The walls of the room would be where Amy got creative. She wanted designs of suns, stars, fish, penguins, seaweed, and penguins. And she did. It was easy to carve the shapes into the ice. By the time she was done, she had a beautiful mural of penguins swimming, plants growing, and the imagery she wanted to be shown.

The symbols and pictures showed just enough to guess what was in her dungeon, but not enough that precautions could be made just from the imagery. Nevertheless, she was quite happy with the results.

After carving the portal room, Amy decided to watch the newcomers who had just built what looked to be a floating town.

It all started when she sensed two ships anchor off right outside of her territory before taking the original ship that was there with them a couple hundred metres away from her. From there, she watched the floating docks built and an increasing trickle of ships coming after it was built. Calder even started going to the docks and bringing back information to her, like how there is an adventuring guild being set up there. He even told her that he was thinking of joining it when there are more people at the docks to blend in with everything and not be suspicious. But, with the arrival of those people, she hadn't had any visitors yet. Well, she did have one.

It was in the middle of the night that they came. There were only three of them. But unlike the previous groups that Amy has experienced that came in boats, these guys swam through her territory. And surprisingly, they found the underwater entrance to the portal room. Once they were in the room, one of the guys started speaking.

"We're going to be so rich!" Spoke the guy with light brown hair around his body and small round furry ears that made him look like an otter to the group.

"There is going to be a bidding war if we end up taming the core! We'll be rolling in cash!" exclaimed the crocodilian-looking one.

"Shut up! Do you want the dungeon core to know what we want to do!" whisper shouted at the black-haired person.

So they are after her core, and they don't have a boat. Well, this will be interesting.

In Amy's mind, this will test her dungeon's ability with those who do not use boats, who can do combat in water. So she watched and studied their actions.

She watched them swim underwater, towards the north end of the first floor and into a kelp forest. Though the group seemed that they were experienced, their actions within the kelp forest told her that they were not experienced enough to be as wary as they should be within a new dungeon with untold potential horrors in it.

And they most certainly did not notice the penumbra penguin monster stalking them from within the kelp.

The otter-looking guy who was the first of the group spoke slowly started to fall back from the group. It seemed that a flash of scales from a passing fish distracted him enough that he did not notice his group getting farther and farther away from him. But the penumbra penguin noticed this, and that's when it struck.

It slowly sneaked up behind the otter guy and pierced through the back of his neck with its razor-sharp beak. The guy let out a low gurgle and choking noise before he died from blood loss.

With one of three of its prey dead, the penumbra continued to stalk the other two.

The smart guy with black hair realized that the otter guy was not with them within a minute. So he turned around, looking to see if he could see the otter guy within his site.

"Carlo, where is Quintin?"

The reptilian guy, who she now knew as Carlo, shook his head. "I'll go look for him if you want, Jackson?"

"No, if that idiot wandered off and got himself killed, it is his own fault. Let's continue, there is quite an excited buyers market for dungeon cores, and there has been some chatter about how interesting this specific dungeon core is."

As they kept swimming, the two eventually encountered a group of her venomous creatures, the glass jellyfish.

Unknowingly, the group swam right into the path of a swarm of glass jellyfish. They only just touched the tentacles of the jellyfishes before the paralysis toxin took effect. Carlo and Jackson tried to swim away, tried to get away, but the toxin slowly shut down their movements and then their breathing.

To make their death quicker, Amy got the penumbra penguin to kill them by puncturing their necks with its beak.

Once they were all dead, Amy absorbed the bodies and belongings and pulled up the descriptions of everything that was absorbed.

Tome of Binding

A one-use spellbook that can bind objects, sentients, and monsters to the user.

Iron Sword

A standard iron sword made across the continents.

Oceanic Tupelo Seed

A species of long-living tree that grows in saltwater.

Iron Dagger

A commonly found dagger that is readily available.

Leather Pieces of Armour

Commonly processed leather armour made out of plain bovine leather.

While the group that wanted to bind her core to be sold, they did not have many materials. The interesting things that she did absorb were the tome of binding and the oceanic tupelo seed. Since the group did not carry a lot, the seed must have snuck in on one of them, and the tome of binding was obviously going to be used if they had gained access to her core.

From what the group talked about, it was obvious that certain people she did not want to ever be in contact with were interested in her core and enslaving her. But Amy knew that she would do whatever it would take to keep herself safe and keep on growing.