Chapter 7: Officially a Dungeon

Captain Clifton POV:

I curse looking at the report in my hand.

“Two days not even a week, that’s all I get. Why can’t this dungeon just keep to itself and leave things the way they are.” The goblin dungeon shows signs of interacting with the weird dungeon. There were several reports of seeing rabbits in the dungeon but that’s not really odd in itself. The d*mned things are everywhere.

No, the problem is a rose monster was spotted on the second floor, probably those rose creepers or whatever. Dungeon to dungeon interaction means the trading of monsters. I don’t know how they do it but they do. So, the damn love dungeon probably just got a bunch of goblins, hobgoblins, or trolls added to it. Having a humanoid species in a dungeon dedicated to the Goddess of Love is never a good idea. Thoughts of the centaur dungeon send a shiver down even my mind.

Sending Billy after Fletcher I make a decision. It will be just the two of us this time. After we make our evaluation we will make the results public and this it will officially become Little Stream’s second dungeon. Putting it off this long was already bad enough, any longer and it will raise too much suspicion. We might have to deal with some noble interest into the town but with the numbers of dungeons popping up lately it should be minimal.

A while later Fletcher showed up.

“I sent Billy off to go train with some of the other Guards Captain. If this is about the dungeon I have some information on it”

“You were in the dungeon.” I try to keep the judgmental tone out of my voice. No one was supposed to be in the dungeon till we officially decided if it was dangerous or not.

“I took a group of the village lads with me when I went to drop off the loot for the dungeon. Wanted to have them test it out and get a feel for the difficulty. We discovered trolls though on the second floor. The boss is some kind of troll variant, a sexy troll.” I’d just taken a sip of my coffee and started choking on it nearly spilling the rest all over me.

“Did you say a sexy troll?” My voice filled with incredulity, I’d never know Fletcher to swing that way. Still I guess every man has their own set of fantasy’s.

“Yes, apparently it is a rare troll rank up that gets a boost to charisma. Apparently, they are one of the very rarest varieties of troll.” I wonder why? Still finding out Fletcher isn’t a troll lover is comforting. I only had a slight suspicion he might be when he said that. The man is so closed off a person can never tell what he’s thinking. Still a sexy troll sounds a bit like an oxymoron. I wonder what this thing really looks like, less warts, a better complexion, maybe it smells better. The last possibility would probably be the best, nothing is worse than getting troll stench all over you.

“I have to go see this new type of troll. Also, I suppose it’s time to submit a formal evaluation of the dungeon to the king. Nobility never like it when you leave them out of anything.” With that we headed of to the dungeon. After considering all the crazy things about this dungeon it kind of made me curious of what would come next. It would be trouble I could be sure of that.

***

Dungeon POV:

I’ve gotten to seven rooms just three more and I can catch up to those losers. I mean those other dungeons. Still everything just takes forever. I can just imagine how slowly I will grow when I get more and more floors. This is why dungeons try to kill anyone, they can’t handle the boredom caused by slow growth. The urge to grow is like an itch you can’t scratch and with every death in the dungeon it gets scratched a little as you gain more mana.

Still right now the only thing I can do to gain mana is to passively absorb it from the air and stone that borders my dungeon or slowly siphon it off anyone who enters the dungeon. I tried having my monsters leave the dungeon but they could only get about two feet from the entrance. Apparently, I get a foot of extra range with each floor.

All that was within range of my rabbits was a few rocks and a clump of grass. I mean of course I took it but it provided almost no mana. Maybe that Fletcher guy will decide to throw some more junk in the dungeon. Look how low I’ve fallen begging for a piece of junk. What’s next? Now I can see why dungeons entice adventurers in with loot. Them coming inside the dungeon and deaths are some of the only ways to speed up our growth.

Still I’m content with my loot and my monsters are too weak for me to give out any of the good stuff. Someday soon I would be able to become a powerful dungeon and after forming my tenth floor I would finally be able to have a real body again. After making the tenth floor I could rank up from a dungeon core to a dungeon lord. Then I would form a body using one of my monsters as the base and be able to do all the things I used to do.

Interrupted from my fantasizing about becoming a dragon were two people who just entered the dungeon. It’s the op guy and Fletcher. I wonder why there here? Maybe they brought me some more stuff. Nope it looks like there just here to kill everything. They brought those clipboards again and seem to be writing down the level of everything and the common types of loot. I wonder if I’ll finally get a bunch of adventurers after this? Of course, they might be little kids and teenagers but everyone has to start somewhere.

Captain Clifton POV:

“That’s a troll, right?” I asked Fletcher when we got to the boss room. While the monster appeared to be a troll at first glance a green apish figure over ten feet tall I had never seen a better looking troll. Most trolls had warts and lesions all over but this one was blemish free. I would never tell anyone I felt this way but I was slightly jealous of how great it’s skin looked. While not a beauty by any stretch of the word it was the best toll I’d ever laid eyes on. Still the oddest feature of all was the bright red skinny jeans that looked almost painted onto its muscular physique.

“Yah, that’s the one. It’s a rare class so it gets all the regular troll bonuses and a charisma boost upon ranking up. Man can you believe how much Jim will freak when he sees this. Still, the troll wasn’t wearing anything when I saw it the first time, it didn’t have that giant ass club either.” Fletcher chuckled just thinking about the man’s troll phobia.

“Fletcher are those the pair of skinny jeans my daughter got you for the winter solstice.”

“What no of course not. How could I bear to give those things up? You know I love everything your daughter has ever given me.” Those are definitely a variation of the present my daughter gave him just over two months ago. Still why did he have to throw it in the dungeon, couldn’t he just burn them like I sometimes do with mine when Ashley isn’t looking. If he gave this too the dungeon that probably means…

“You didn’t give the dungeon the loot I told you, too did you? I gave you good money to buy everything. Where did all my money go?” He actually looked a bit sheepish when I said that.

“Well you know how expensive some of the rarer bow components can be. I’ve been working on a new bow after my last good one broke and dragon tendon doesn’t come cheap even the low level stuff.” That was the straw that broke the camels back. Everything from work, to Ashley’s latest antics, and now all the stress over the dungeon finally reached the boiling point.

“You gave the dungeon a pile of trash because you wanted a stupid bow string! Now all we’ll probably get is a bunch of trash from the dungeon and it’s all your fault! Why can’t anybody around here think before doing something!” Okay now that I think about it, it isn’t really that bad. We just need to give it some real loot and hope for the best. Troll blood and these strange feathers were already decent loot anyways, now the piles of rabbit fur that were starting to accumulate is another matter.

After I calmed down some I turned my attention back to the troll which had been hammering away at my shield unsuccessfully while I talked to Fletcher. The troll was a pretty good opponent for the second floor if I do say so myself. It took two arrows and a sword stroke from me to kill it which is rare for a level 10 beast. Though I guess arrows aren’t very effective against trolls.

After the troll faded away it left three things but the first caught my eye. It was the reddish brown pants the troll had worn though they had shrunk to about my size. Fletcher was a tall thin guy like most rangers.

“What are these?”

“Troll leather pants, Captain. The others are a vial of troll blood and I’m sure you can see that the last thing is a tree stump club.” Wow I never expected that, troll leather pants. It was a little unnerving to find trolls wearing troll leather but it was also kind of nice to not have to see all that dangling around. The pants also seemed to serve as protection from some of the attacks of the more sadistic female adventurers.

Besides the trolls loot we also got a couple more of those apples from the core room and a giant wooden shield with a rose carving. Well if nothing else we would have a lot of firewood though I might decide to keep the shield. The club was definitely getting turned into kindling, no respectable adventurer would ever use it and not that many in the town are strong enough to wield it.

***

Dungeon Assessment

(Dungeon has a connection to the Goddess of Love)

Floor 1

Everywhere: White Rabbits: (Rabbit level 1-2)

Common: Dove Wyverns: (Dove level 1-4)

Common: Rose Creepers: (Rose Creeper level 3-5, Un)

Scarce: Pink Rabbits: (Rabbit level 3) (Servants of Love level 1, Un)

Boss: Giant Rose Creeper: (Rose Creeper level 8, Un)

***

Floor 2

Everywhere: Killer (White) Rabbits: (Rabbit level 5) (Predator level 1-2, Un)

Extremely Common: Dove Wyverns: (Dove level 5-6)

Common: Rose Creepers: (Rose Creeper level 8, Un)

Uncommon: Pink Rabbits: (Rabbit level 5) (Servants of Love level 1-2, Un)

Uncommon: Swan Wyvern: (Swan level 5-7)

Scarce: Trolls: (Troll level 5-6, Un)

Boss: Sexy Troll: (Sexy Troll level 10, Rare)

Loot: monster parts, some kind of apple, troll leather, wooden clubs and shields