Chapter 6.

Thirty-two humans crossed into my influence. Dirty and weather-beaten, with leather and chainmail armor. They carried an assortment of weapons, from knives to bows. The troop marched through the trees and stopped just at the edge of the open area in front of my dungeon. The words they spoke were unfamiliar, and it wasn't until they neared my cave entrance that my language process pieced together what they were saying. Replaying the encounter at a higher frame rate, I translated.

"I'm telling you, Dunwald, the wolves went this way, and we're coming up on a dungeon."

"There is no dungeon in Chorus Woods. That wolf is probably long gone."

"The wolves are gone; my tracking's saying they left a day ago. But that cave right there is a dungeon."

"Fen, if there was a dungeon, as big as it feels, some noble and the subjugators for the guild would have tamed it by now. It has to be a layer."

"Why would the wolves stay here then. Set up a den in the layer of another beast, don't make no sense, Dunwald."

"If the wolves could set up shop here, then so can we, whatever beast might be in there. If the wolves can take it, then The Blood Coins can too. It's a perfect spot to set up a defense for that bastard lord Branness and his guard."

"You're the boss, Dunwald."

"Remember that Fin. Move-in." Dunwald said, holding his fingers up and flashing them once. He pointed with his chainmail-covered arm at the cave entrance.

The other men who had been quietly waiting formed into five-man teams. Each had an archer, three shields and spears, and a man with a sword or ax. They crept up the hill to the cave opening, frost slicking the crumbled stone and rocks. The first five-man team headed into the cave.

There were twelve dog-sized spiders in the entryway cave. Two that were in the center of the cave clearing charged the group. That did not go well for them as the three spears darted forward and pierced the spiders. Eight legs going limp, the bodies were thrown from the ends of the spears with a casual flick as the group moved fully inside.

That's when one sider dropped from the ceiling onto the back of the archer of the group. The lightly armored neck bore the full brunt of the spider fangs, severing at the base of the skull. The next spider lunged from the side of the wall taking the sword wielder in the knee. The leather pants did little to stop the massive fags from punching into the knee and upper leg. Venom was pumped into the sword wielder's leg as he brought the weapon down on the spider. It cleanly carved through the body with little resistance. The venom took hold, though, and he fell to his knees, clutching his heart. The sword wielder died.

Oh boy, was there ever a flood of mana from just those two deaths. Power rushed into my core crystal, and the automated growing process started. The two deaths had netted me over a thousand in mana growth. I absorbed their body and gear.

Holy shit, the rush from the new genetic material was intense. My deep mind spat out the blueprints for the three men in a few seconds. But I had the strangest feeling. Like when you have a song stuck in your head but can't remember the tune or words. My deep mind was churning a complex problem over and over, not about to give up any results.

The gear was simple but revealing. Leather and chainmail were decently made but well used. The weapons were steel in the same condition. The men had bags, backpacks, and pouches. Copper, silver, and gold coins were in the pouches. Each had markings on both sides, most likely denoting the country I was in or some such nonsense. Fire starting kits, flint, wool bedrolls, and letters. The four personal letters and books I portioned off to my language program and had it start analyzing them. A dress that was torn and a pair of soiled panties with the same man's DNA on them along with that of a female was present in one of the backpacks as well. With that sorted, I turned my attention back to the fight.

With two having fallen at the entrance, two more groups of five ran into the chamber. They knew what they were facing now, and as the rest of the groups moved in, the eight remaining spiders were killed. Only killing a single other person. More DNA for the deep mind to puzzle out.

29 remaining men stood in a semi-circle, looking shocked that three of their numbers had fallen. The men were not in the best shape, not rail thin and starving, but their faces were gaunt and hollow, bags hung under their eyes, their armor was taken care of, but it looked like they did not have the tools nor supplies to do the job properly. They looked at each other, each giving a nod of their head.

"It's an untethered dungeon. Clear as day under a piss pot, now we're underground. Haven't heard hide nor rumor of a dungeon up this way."

"Must be new."

"That's what I'm thinking. And you all know what that means."

"We all know the binding spell, but this place seems too strong for a new dungeon."

"It's our only chance; once the lord and his men at arm's reach us, we're dead."

"Let's do it."

As the men turned to head deeper into my dungeon, I thought about what they said, and I did not like it one bit. Not one bit at all. Subjugators from a guild, binding spells, tethered and untethered dungeons. That could mean only one thing, dungeons got enslaved somehow on this planet, and they were looking to do the same to me. "It would appear, Mr. spider, that I might get to use my death traps sooner than I thought."

The men crept into the middle cave and reached the center. They could turn right and find the queen or left at my dungeon entrance. If they went right, the spiders from the left cave would come and join the fight. If they went left and then into my dungeon well, then they would miss out on miss's spider and her loot. Oh, shit, I had yet to make proper loot; what kind of dungeon was I. I would have to fix that, but anyone trying to enslave me was going to get a hard pass on receiving any loot anyways.

All hell broke loose; the four large spiders dropped from the ceiling and lunged from the wall. Crashing into the group of men. Fangs tore into armor and flesh while the men tried to regroup. The only thing that saved them from being completely slaughtered was their obvious military training. Shields and spears were drawn tight together as four of their number fell. The spiders hammered the men with legs and the bulk of their bodies.

That's when I got to see my first elemental mana spell. One of the archers in the center of the group drew his bow back; while he did, this mana rushed out from his left hand and into the bow. It flashed up the wood completing a circuit along the bowstring. The mana traveled up the arrow, coalescing at the tip. The whole thing glowed in my mana sight before the arrow was loose; the tip formed a small red pearl out of mana. Wanting to measure the effects of the spell accurately, I increased my frame rate and projected a tape measure from the arrow to the targeted spider.

The arrow released and leaped to its maximum speed. It traveled at about double what a normal arrow from a recurve bow would have, 450 feet per second or (137 meters per second), which was fast, about half the speed of sound. The mana moved through the arrow oddly, creating a swirling lattice along the shaft and arrowhead. The pearl at the tip began emitting flames that trailed in a cone down the arrowhead.

The arrow plunged into the face of a spider currently grappling with two spears. The arrow punched into the spider, and the red mana began to expel all the mana it had at once. This happened in less than a second but not instantly upon hitting the spider; the arrow had time to travel to about the center of the creature. Then, BOOM. The spider did not blow apart but more ruptured slightly and then slumped. Mana flowed back along the path the arrow took and into the archer. Not a lot but some.

When the fire mana was used, I ate some of the residue left. Information on the new type of mana was dumped into my deep mind, and I began to lose focus. I felt like I might blackout for a second as my deep mind processed the added information. A deep vibrating rumble filled my mind as I felt my deep mind working. With the complex genetic material from the humans and a new type of mana, my deep mind was working at maximum to pars together any information it could.

Another spell was used by a sword wielder. Mana flashed along the edge of his blade, and when he moved to slash a spider, a line of sharp mana sliced through the spider. The mana was made of air, or was it sword mana? I tasted the residue and felt the backlog of information build in my deep mind.

The spiders died, only managing to kill one more of their number. In the quiet, they regrouped and headed to the left. My smaller large spiders rushed them along with the remaining dog-sized spiders. They were given no chance to kill, as exploding arrows and magical slashes felled my creatures quickly.

"No loot." One of the disheveled soldiers said.

"That is to be expected from an untethered new dungeon. It does not know any better and does not follow the edicts of subjugation." Dunwald answered.

"To think, an unbonded dungeon, we’ll be kings if we reach the core." Another soldier said.

"Dunwald over here." Fin said, standing in front of the iron bowl. The letters and books had given me enough samples along with the other books and letters to learn the written language. The books were for children to teach them how to read and that helped greatly. The other books were all about noble ladies being wonderful wives and good mothers, submitting to the lord they were lucky enough to be married off to. The feeling I got from them as they were more young adult propaganda romance, idealizing the life as a noble wife. The letters were another story.

Each of the men carried identical letters. It was a dismissal from the army of Traheart, and they were all dated the same. It was a kick in the ass, and don't let the door hit you on the way-out kind of dismissal. These men were bandits and venting their anger on the populace. I had no idea why an on-mass dismissal happened, but if that was the case, I bet there were more men like this everywhere.

I had craved my little rhyme on a plaque that hung over the iron bowl. "Donations? Into me, place one item of three, plant, the blood of beast, or knowledge you will need. We can’t break the dungeon stone, so we will have to donate some blood to head in. New dungeon like this shouldn't have more than a few rooms to the core chamber."

Dunwald drew a knife and dripped blood into the bowl. Normally I would only let five to ten adventurers in at a time. I thought that would be appropriate. However, I was tired of this group, and they were all going to have to die anyway. I absorbed the blood and opened the door to my pitfall tunnel.

There was a 3-meter section near the door that I normally would not dematerialize if they were honest adventurers. These bandits were not honest. All 24 walked into the first tunnel, none the wiser to what was underneath them.

The first tunnel was 40 meters (45 yards) long. There was plenty of room for all the bandits to stand right where I wanted them. When the last bandit was in position, I closed the entry and exit door and pulled the floor out from under all of them.

I left them to die, impaled or cut enough that the venom would do its job. I also absorbed all of the air in the room to quicken the process. I don't mind killing, especially when it's for my own survival or freedom. That does not mean I want to make it needlessly cruel.

When the 24 bandits died, it was nearly all at the same time. Consuming their genetic material and gear sent me into another small blackout. The flood of mana I got from them was converted by my automated process.

It was two hours later that I woke up. Luckily all my subconscious processes still ran when I was out. Jumping back to full awareness was disorienting, like being woken up with an air horn.

I now knew why they seemed so eager to subjugate me. I had very little in the way of restrictions on what I could do. I couldn't directly absorb living things. I needed to have a connection to the outside world, or the re-filtered mana would make me go insane, or the raw natural mana would build-up, and involuntary random mana interactions would happen. Meaning I would go boom or potentially start spawning abominations that would consume me whole. That was it.

From what I had gathered from the bandits, a lord Branness was hot on their heels and would track them here soon. The lord's men most likely were not going to be half-starved and raggedy, making them far more dangerous. I would have to prepare and hope they weren't in a subjugating mood.