Chapter 3 – The Swordswoman

The howls and growls of wolves echoed in the cave while the blood of those wolves fell on the floor. The sword of the swordswoman was both snake and river, striking quick or seeming to flow through the air. And each strike killed a wolf, this was definitely a strong individual.

It was only much later that we would find out that this sword’s woman had been sent because an adventurer’s guild in a nearby city had been getting complaints about the large number of wolves in the area. It seems these wolves would hunt livestock or even people thus they sent this guild member to investigate. It was surprising they only sent one person, but watching how easily she killed these wolves, it wasn’t a surprise.

There was also of course a nice side effect to this, with the wolves being killed in the cave.

Requirements have been met to reach the next level.

Dungeon level has increased to level 4

To reach the next level 400 Mana and 30 souls are needed

No new skills or abilities were unlocked this time around unfortunately. Level 3 had unlocked a lot though, not every level could unlock so many.

The swordswoman had tracked the trail these wolves left behind on one of the hunts to this very cave and now she was leading what can only be described as a slaughter. A one sided-slaughter.

Even the demon wolf got bashed mercilessly although he wasn’t killed, just badly hurt. After half of the pack had been killed the demon wolf and 3 other wolves rushed against the swordswoman forcing her to defend, and while she was defending the rest of the wolves escaped.

‘Tsk, awful things, if my team weren’t so slow we could have gotten all of them,’ her voice echoed in the cave as she looked around.

Me and Roxanne looked at each other a bit uneasily.

Roxanne whispered, even though the swordswoman couldn’t possibly hear us talking in the dungeon crystal’s space, ‘This chic needs to get outta here, she creeps me out!’

‘I know what you mean, did you see how she killed those wolves? No expression, she’s like a demon!’ I admit I was slightly scared.

The swordswoman narrowed her eyes, as if she could hear us insulting her. Then she started walking to the back of the cave.

‘AAAAHHHH, she’s coming!’ It wasn’t clear who screamed first. Actually it was Roxanne, definitely she screamed first.

‘What do we do?! We’re the size of a pebble! She could kill us by stepping on us!’ That was definitely Roxanne, panic as well as curved insult to the weight of a woman who was obviously fit and in shape. However she was right about one thing. We needed to get her out of here.

We heard her speaking to herself, ‘The mana feels strange around here. Maybe that’s why those wolves gathered. This isn’t a dungeon right? It doesn’t feel like one… at least not yet.’

Panic, if she thought we were a dungeon she would be coming deeper to find the crystal. It wasn’t a very large cave, and once she reached deep enough she would be able to see the glow of the crystal.

This was it, do or die!

‘Yo squirrel dude!’ I was definitely in dire straits thus I mustered the entirety of my forces, the squirrel.

‘Go and attack those rats in the wall, hopefully she hates rats.’ Fingers crossed, do crystals have fingers?

Our Brave Squirrel emerged from the crystal and jumped into action. He scurried to the hole where the rats had disappear back when the wolves brought them. I was a genius if I said so myself.

A series of strange sounds and things came from the wall…

I think I heard very distinctly, ‘Beg for mercy you villains!’ and ‘I fight for Kin and Glory?’

Was our little squirrel a Braveheart wannabee?

I looked at Alex… holy shit, if crystals had eyes, his eyes would be shining!

‘I shall name him Maximus, named after the glorious gladiator! Maximus the first! He’s perfect!’

I had a sense of foreboding.

The sounds from the wall had started getting louder while I was thinking to myself, when did our squirrel learn to say two syllable words? Did he ever even hear the words or am I imagining him speaking…

The sound of footsteps could be heard.

‘Fuck, he’s pulling this too fucking close! Squirrel dude hurry up! The woman ogre is coming!’

‘Hey Rox, that isn’t really nice. She may have the strength and violence of a giant but she actually looks pretty good…’ yes he realized as soon as he started speaking that he was, frankly, an idiot.

So, of course, as I am a very sweet and mild-mannered dungeon fairy, I address him very pleasantly, ‘What did you just say, oh my dungeon master?’

If crystals had eyes…

Then a screech as part of the wall simple… er… exploded. Now I am a magical being that’s very composed in the face of life and death, but some things are horrifying beyond the scope of intelligence. And such things make it perfectly justifiable to scream in terror. Such as this writhing ball of rats that came squirming all over each other all chasing after… a squirrel waving a sword? No it was a dagger. A human sized dagger that he was holding in both hands. The fuck he get a dagger from?

‘Oh yeah, I lent him that dagger. No worries, he’s a gladiator, knows all about weapons and such,’ said a very self-satisfied lump of stone. He definitely forgot what he said about said walking machine of doom approaching in the distance.

And then, a miracle occurred. Or at least something quite close to it. Ms. Swordswoman saw the huge writhing dark mass of rats… and she screamed. Screamed like a pathetic little child that lost their parents in the marketplace after dropping their piece of rockcandy.

‘Hahahaha, Ms. Toughnuts screamed because of a bunch of rats hahahaha!’

‘As I recall Rox, you did the exact same thing less than a minute ago’

‘It seems the void injury you received hit your memory centers as well, or did you say something else my dear dungeon master…’

The swordswoman who was a hurricane of death scrambled out of the cave followed by the big ball of rats. No idea if there were any rats left in the cave but since that was an incredibly odd experience we had all just gone through, well we’ll just let it slide. To top it off, Squirrel hero man was non-chalently cleaning off the dagger on the corpse of a rat then walked over to us. Kneeling down he said, ‘My mission is completely, dungeon master.’

‘My mission is completely, dungeon master.’

Music to my ears! This, this was a MAN. Well he was a squirrel, but he displayed it all, the chivalry, the honour, that absolute coolness of it all. My inner geek was screaming.

‘My Brave Squirrel, I hereby dub you Maximus the First! You shall hold the sword the strikes fear into my enemies, lead armies that make the very land quake and be the greatest guardian of my lands!’

‘No you idiot! What are you doing?!’

Later on I confessed to Roxanne that this was just a moment of high spirits, I mean he was so cool! I had in my head for him to use quotes from a certain gladiator movie to makes his fights so fucking epic. What I didn’t realize was I had done something that Roxanne said was the actions of a fuckstick. A dildo, she was calling me a dildo.

‘Brave Squirrel’ has been granted the name ‘Maximus the First’

Name bestowal has been invoked

Brave Squirrel has now been named

An evolution has occurred naturally caused by the will of the creature and the power of the dungeon master

Maximus has evolved into the race Elite Squirrel Folk warrior

Maximus’s strength has increased by 15, agility has increased by 18, intelligence has increased by 13, magic power has increased by 11, stamina has increased by 24

Maximus has unlocked the skill ‘Brave sword’

Maximus has unlocked the skill ‘The Great Commander’

Maximus has unlocked the skill ‘The Great Guardian’

Well that didn’t seem too bad.

‘See Roxanne, that wasn’t so bad…’

I had spoken too soon, because that’s when hell broke lose.

Error error

The skill name bestowal was invoked

Not enough mana to complete skill, mana has been completely drained, now at 0/400

Not enough souls to complete skill, soul has been drained now at 0

The dungeon crystal will now go into hibernation until enough mana has been absorbed to finish skill

Available dungeon points have been automatically used to purchase enough souls to complete skill, dungeon coins left 8

Ooohh, that’s why she was calling me an idiot. Name bestowal. A skill I didn’t have, yet I used it. Well, I wanted to think more about it but the world started darkening. The last things I saw were the concerned eyes of Roxanne as she was rushing towards me. Then everything faded to black.

‘That IDIOT!’ I was looking at, for all intents and purposes was a drunk and passed out piece of rock, albeit glowing in the dark. Basically the appearance of a typical rave party enthusiast.

I have absolutely no idea how the hell he had done what he did. Magic skills did not work without nothing behind them yet he used one THAT HE DID NOT KNOW. And to top it off, we were drained of practically everything, no mana, souls, we even lost most our dungeon points! We were sitting in the cave without a single monster or trap defending us, and since his NAMING was the only person under our command and it wasn’t finished until the whole thing ended, Mr. Squirrel Hero was out of action too!

‘AAAAAARRRRRGH!’

3 days. 3 days of nerve-biting, finger-wrenching, heart-attack inducing torture before the brotherhood of Bozos woke up. And boy did they get it. I think I screamed my throat dry magically healed it then carried on, carried on until they finally understood how much they had fucked up. Well Alex had, Max had just been caught as collateral damage.

Only after I cooled down did I realize that the squirrel hero dude, who I have now nicknamed Max was… very different. He was huge for one thing, about two thirds the height of the ogre lady. Not only that, he looked HUMAN. He still had the squirrel ears and tail and had clawed hands and was generally fuzzy but his face was definitely that of a human. Shit, he had evolved hadn’t he?

My ears were still ringing. Roxanne has quite the powerful pair of lungs. I understood the gist of what she was saying, I had done something impossible and had nearly made myself implode. It seemed quite serious so maybe I won’t do that again. Note to myself, don’t piss off Roxanne again.

So now where were we? I opened the dungeon menu.

Dungeon Name: (no name)

Titles: None

Rank:

4

Floors:

1

Mana:

3/400

Souls:

0

Dungeon Points:

8

Achievement Points:

5

Dungeon Abilities:

Absorption

Expand Territory

Create room

Mana Abilities:

Mana Absorption

Create animal

Create monster

Create undead

Create plantlife

Soul Abilities:

Soul Absorption

Enhance creature

Special Abilities:

Dungeon Map

Dungeon Contract

Dungeon Store

Inhabitants

1

Creatures:

0

Named Creatures:

1

Boss Creatures:

0

Special Creatures:

0

Plantlife

0

Dam, Rox had a point, we were running on empty here. Well drastic times call for drastic measures. I would use the remaining power I had to summon an army to rise to the challenge!

‘Create animal!’

What animal would you like to create?

Creatures available

Squirrel

1 mana to summon

Giant rat

3 mana to summon

Wolf

40 mana to summon

Slime

Locked – unlock with 50 dungeon points

Goblin

Locked – unlock with 50 dungeon points

Roxanne had rushed to my crystal and was shaking me violently at this point. She couldn’t stop a genius at work though.

‘Summon three squirrels!’

Hahaha, she looked so furious her head was the colour of a tomato! But best to head this off before I mysterious became an ex-dungeon master and indeed ex-living person.

‘Ok Rox, hear me out here. What we are suffering from is what I would like to call a supply shortage. We lack, er, everything. And to make money we need to use money. What this means is…’

I might have droned on a little longer than was strictly ethical. It was about 5 minutes in that the last bit of anger disappeared, if I carried on she might have passed to that beautiful phase called daydreaming, or as students in universities back on earth would have called it ‘class’.

‘So basically we have close to nothing so what we need to do is find a way so we can change that. We need to find a way to increase our mana and the only way to do that is with helpers, thus we need to spend money.’

Shit she was listening! And she’s smart! This changes things.

This began as me and Rox liked to call it, the Fetch Quest. I was going to call it Looter McLootface quest but a certain fairy just looked at me silently judging.

It was simple, the squirrels, who sadly were just the ‘Giant squirrel’ species and not like Max, would go with Max and procure STUFF from the nearby forest and I would absorb it and it would increase my mana. If they brought in insects and things I could increase my souls as well, unlock things and generally have a great time.

A German military strategist once said, ‘No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy’. Except the enemy here referred to life itself fucking me slowly with a strap-on.

Creatures that have not been granted souls are not able to leave the territory of the dungeon.

Both of us kinda looked at this message dumbly. In my head one of those tumbleweeds flew by.

Three… two… one…

‘You nitwit! You uncircumsized donkey whale! What ‘we need a balance of supply and demand’?! You uncultured manure pile of stinking…’

I had to admit Rox had a way with words when she was angry. Also did I really say that stuff? Economics 101 for the win yo.

Alright so that plan fell through but wasn’t quite ruined. Our intrepid hero Max the First… I really should have gone with Max the Destroyer, but I’m sure I would become a circumsized donkey whale if I tried so let’s leave it… yes our stalwart hero was sent to the nearby forest to grab hold of the key to our hopes, dreams, future prosperity, et cetera et cetera.

‘Max, bring back as much crap as you can alright, fruit, plants, seeds, bugs and stuff. Oh you can see if your family from before the wolves got you recognize you, you can try bring them back too.’

‘I understand,’ oh my loyal honourable Max, I’m definitely going to teach you to quote a certain gladiator movie that I fondly remember.

Max had been at work for a week while me and Rox had been bickering… having constructive arguments about what to do next. I was of the opinion we should have more squirrels while Rox wanted to increase the number of rooms we had in the cave. So we compromised and made 3 more rooms.

In the meantime Max had done, what can only be described as ‘A single person did this?’ That unique sense of wonder, bewilderment and awe people have when they realize that an immense work of art or a highly complex task was done with just the efforts of a single person. I have named it the State of Uug, pronounced Oog but I used two U’s to spell it because I’m special.

A remarkable achievement

25 species of plant life have been collected

The plant life represent the lungs of the planet itself have found root in your dungeon

10 dungeon points have been rewarded

A remarkable achievement

10 species of insect have been collected

Overlooked yet, their importance to the cycle of life is immeasurable, these insects have flittered into your dungeon

5 dungeon points have been rewarded

A remarkable achievement

The number of creatures in your dungeon has surpassed 100

All societies are made of individuals, individuals are the basis of civilization

20 dungeon points have been rewarded

Yes Maximus the First, had brought in everything, quite literally everything, fruits and nuts and berries, worms, ants, termites and all sorts of small insects, he even brought different types of rocks and grasses to see if I would like them. He was without a doubt the best of us.

And seemingly, the gods agreed because he found his old nest of squirrels and brought all of them back with him. All 400 of them.

‘Alex, where the hell are we going to keep them all?! Squirrels don’t live in caves!’

‘I’m thinking, I’m thinking!’

The concern we had was that uh, wild squirrels would poop onto the floor of the cave and it was building up FAST. So we did the sensible thing, we dug a really deep hole in the side of cave then washed the cave. After that we educated the squirrels what they should not do in a dungeon master’s territory. Either they went outside, or dug a hole and buried it. And before anyone asked, I told them under no circumstances was I going to absorb THAT.

Now the problem with both smart ideas and quick fix ideas is that they do not account for the unknown. One unknown would be that the rats that had run off into the forest after the swordswoman wasn’t all the rats living in the hole in the wall. Another unknown would be that we had just basically flushed our toilet into their home. The third unknown was that there was a lot of them. A LOT, a lot, a lot.

Thus began our first all-out battle to fight for control of the dungeon.

Create Room (Dungeon Ability) Lv Max Mastered

Creates a special territory classified as a room.

Can unlock special layouts/environments for the rooms.

Creatures and treasure chests can only be created in rooms.

Create Animal (Mana Ability) Lv Max Mastered

Creates an animal out of mana

Animals are unlocked for summoning once they have died once within the dungeon’s territory

Other species of animal can be unlocked through special requirements or by paying dungeon or achievement points

Animals may be enhanced if they have been fused with souls

Stronger animals cost more mana to summon

Create Monster (Mana Ability) Lv Max Mastered

Creates an monster out of mana

Monsters are unlocked for summoning once they have died once within the dungeon’s territory

Other species of monster can be unlocked through special requirements or by paying dungeon or achievement points

Monster may be enhanced if they have been fused with souls

Stronger monsters cost more mana to summon

Evolution and mutation possible

Monsters have magical cores that give them an innate ability to absorb and wield mana – cost of monsters will be higher, cost to enhance monsters will be higher

Create Undead (Mana Ability) Lv Max Mastered

Creates an undead out of mana

Undead are unlocked for summoning once they have been destroyed once within the dungeon’s territory

Types of undead can be unlocked through special requirements or by paying dungeon or achievement points

Weak undead do not need souls to be summoned are not able to be enhanced

Stronger undead cost more mana to summon

It is possible to bestow sentience to undead granting the ability to be enhanced

Create Plant Life (Mana Ability) Lv Max Mastered

Creates an plant life out of mana

Plants are unlocked for summoning only if the collected and absorbed by the dungeon

Other species of plant life can be unlocked through special requirements or by paying dungeon or achievement points

Evolution and mutation possible

It is possible to bestow sentience to plants and grant them the ability to become hybrid monsters