Becoming a real dungeon, part 1

Dungeons are both a treasure trove and a hellish nightmare. The reason for it is the simple working system of said dungeons, by a process only they can use, they breed, cultivate and engineer all kinds of animals, plants and traps to defend their core.

Those are used to mainly kill any invader entering the dungeon, but the very reason dungeon dwellers enter a dungeon is for them. The animals are killed and their hides, bones, meat and mana cores are taken and processed. Great weapons can be crafted, as well as much food can have exotic effects if dungeon meat and, or plants are added in.

To make the point clear, dungeons are dangerous, they are called dungeons because once you are in them, you are tortured by all it contains. The animals would trade their lives just to see you suffer, but animals are only one of the many threats you will find there. Toxic plants, air, liquides. Water can be scarce, or it could be abundant but poisoned or full of parasites. You could also just walk through a maze and find the ground beneath you collapse to let spikes impel you.

But if you are brave and strong enough, you will not only gain essence, thus making you stronger, but you will also claim your loots. Materials to be sold or used to craft, plants and meat to consume to better yourself, mana crystals from which you could learn spells or techniques.

The possibilities are many in a dungeon, and they see many fools give their life away for the promise of wealth. So I advise you, dear reader, to first train and prepare. You should make a team of trusted allies, and have one of you able to heal injuries, poisons and curses. Your first enemy is your greed, as it is never too late to turn back if the danger begins too great. Another dive can always be made if you are alive.

-extract of “Dungeons are full of riches” written by Saralaz Mercant.

POV: Kunibert

It has been some days since the dungeon started materializing its territory, I would have thought it would dig its first layer as soon as possible. But it just kept increasing its territory. It is increasing its capacity to channel mana too, I can feel the way the mana moves around it.

We made sure to sleep out of the dungeon’s range, if it is able to produce poison or toxins, we would die in our sleep. Why would it ignore such an opportunity? It is in the very nature of dungeons to kill anything near that does not already belong to it.

While I was preparing like any morning I passed in the Viridis forest, I felt something strange about the mana around us. I could not put the word on it, there was something in the air. Nebile is the most sensitive of our group, if I can’t detect something, she would be the one finding it. So I go towards her, she is sitting on the chair Marianne crafted for comfortability. We use it when it is our turn to keep an eye on the core.

I was going to say hello to her when she suddenly stood up, saying “What the fuck?!” She dashed out of the dungeon’s range while looking at her hand. She then turned her head to look at me like I knew something about what happened. She often forgets that not everyone can feel what she senses.

I hold my hand towards her, inviting her to let me take a look at hers. She extends hers, and I feel at the mana inside, and I find something that should not be here. “What exactly happened?” I ask her, trying to keep my worry from showing.

“I’m not sure.” She says, her eyes losing focus a bit while she tries to remember what happened a moment ago. “At some point it started trying to invade my mana. It was barely doing a thing, at first it was the normal sensation of pressure being exerted on you. But it changed somewhat, I didn’t mind it, until then. I felt a sting.”

“That is all? Any idea of what it did?” I ask her, she has little senses for mana, but a young dungeon would not have a refined way of handling mana. She may have felt something. “No, all I felt was a sudden sting. It would be you who should tell me what happened.” She says with a straight face.

“From what I can feel, it has injected you with a bit of its mana. Yours neutralized it, so you don’t have to worry about it. Just channel your mana it will erase anything it could have tried to put in you.” I tell her, I can see the worry in her eyes disappear as I explain what happened.

But what just happened should not occur at all. We have more mana than the dungeon for now, but what would happen when it has hundreds of times our group’s mana? Would it not be able to make us its slaves? That is a real threat, one not to be ignored.

“Tell the others not to come inside the dungeon’s range, Sarsaw should come in case there is any complication.” I tell her without looking in her direction, my attention is on the surrounding us.

I feel for the actual range of the dungeon, I use a spell to make a little indent in the ground to mark where its range ends. That way the others know where not to step, because if the dungeon can penetrate Nebile’s mana resistance, then Marianne’s or Esteban’s resistance would be breached too.

Once I have completed a turn around the dungeon, thus marked its range, I step inside of it. And I now feel something different near the core. While on the far side of its range, the mana it controls is of a natural kind, the mana near it is a mix of corruption and dungeon mana.

I would have liked to investigate it more, but I felt movement in the mana surrounding me. First a sphere of ice type mana formed around a heavily concentrated corruption mana sphere. Then I felt contractorial mana mixed with reinforcement mana encompass the thing.

By pure curiosity I extended a hand to feel at the mana, but when a tube of mana extended towards me, I disrupted every mana flow around me. It dissipated the mana construct the dungeon had made.

I grunted at the try the dungeon just made and stepped out of its range. The whole team was waiting there. Before they could ask what was happening I told them. “False alarm, the dungeon is experimenting with pure mana traps. It just figured out how to concentrate a mana blast to pierce mana resistance.”

Marianne and Esteban, while being the ones that should worry the most, were the ones that cared the least. They just said “Oh” and returned to cutting trees. Samantha asked me to specify on what I felt, and Sarsaw used a spell to verify my and Nebile’s mana status.

While talking with Samantha about what the dungeon did, we both agreed that it was not following a normal dungeons habit. It is now the fifth day we are here, and the dungeon did not even begin to alter the ground. It should have already begun the construction of its first floor.

We have around 2 months before people begin to come here. Samantha says it would be around 4 months, but matters little in the fact that if our dungeon develops too slowly it will become suspicious.

New forming dungeons alter their surroundings from the moment they finish their first graft. But ours just don’t seem to be interested in doing so. To cover the fact that this dungeon is abnormal, we will need to tell it to make its first floor.

Samantha seems to be better at giving commands to the dungeon, so I let her take care of that. She can feel the mana around her too, so there is no risk of the dungeon trying to use a trap on her.

POV: Will

At first it was going as I thought it would, the woman’s mana being too tough for me to take. I tried using the corruption and absorption mana, but it barely did something. All it did was make the woman aware that I was trying to take her mana.

I tried some methods to see if I could somehow pierce her mana to begin something, but all failed. At least until I tried using other mana types, I felt at them and tried to understand what effects they could have. After 2 to 3 hours of trying mixes, I got an idea.

I made a bubble of mana with a pipe, in the bubble part I placed my corruption and absorption mana mix, and squeezed the bubble as hard as possible. But while I could exert a good amount of force on the bubble, it ruptured and spilled my mana.

I experimented some more, and found a way to prevent the bubble and pipe from rupturing, thus making a mana rifle. I tried it on the woman, and to my surprise, it actually worked. My mana penetrated hers, getting inside her hand. But before I could do anything of it, she was out of my range.

After a minute or two, the purple hair guy stepped into my range. I tried doing the same as I did to the woman, but he sensed it and wiped my efforts away. I gave a mental sigh at it, that would have been way too convenient if I could have my zombie army that easily, right?

I had slowed the rate I expanded my sensory range to build the mana rifle, so I used the mana not yet used to resume my sensory expansion. I was not really focusing on it, and I felt the mana used to expand being greater than the expansion I felt.

I focused on my mana, and found out that my equilibrium was not sustained. At some point I began using more corruption than absorption or my normal mana. As a result, the mana mix is still consumed, but I don’t get as much sensory range from it as I should. Is it why those guys gave me the gem? To make me aware of the efficient ratio? If that’s the case, then thanks.

I was focused on returning the ratio to what it should be when I heard the thoughts again. This time they were asking me to dig, make a burrow? Something about digging and making space underground I think.

What do they want from me? Are they perhaps trying to make me dig my own grave as punishment for trying to take their mana? Are they even aware of how much mana I need to use to move even just a bit of dirt?

Wait a second, am I being dumb again? I didn’t try anything with the new mana types. Without waiting, I try sending mana inside the ground around me, I am truly happy when I push dirt out of my hole with little effort and mana.

When I send corruption and absorption mana evenly mixed together in the dirt, instead of dissipating like before, the dirt now feels like it is mine. My normal mana already mixed in the corruption/absorption one is consumed to make the dirt move. I try to move a greater amount of dirt, dividing my mana usage to one third mana knot compression, one third sensory range expansion, and the final third to inject in the ground and excavate dirt.

To not fall in the hole I am digging, I move the dirt under me to displace myself and then embed me in the hole’s wall. Then I use my mana to move volumes of dirt, but unfortunately I hit a limit.

When I try to move dirt that is outside of my sensory range, I return to the astronomic cost to move materials. Fearing I lost the thread of cheap dirt displacement, I try moving the dirt still in my sensory range, and to my relief, it is still cheap.

The easy deduction is that I can move matter cheaply only in my sensory range. An easy solution would be to just move my sphere body to move my sensory range. But that does not work. While my mana control range followed me, my sensory range is fixed in place.

I think of a solution to that issue, but I am disturbed by the tall woman and the purple haired guy. The woman approaches the hole while the man uses mana to make something in the air in front of him. His construct then moves on top of my hole and things move in its structure.

I try to remove the construct like the man did with mine, but I fail to do so. His control on mana is stronger than mine by a magnitude. I focus on them for a moment, and the woman seems… happy? Should I worry for my safety? I don’t feel safe all of a sudden.