《A Dungeon to Call My Own》


 1. Becoming a dungeon

    ''Huh?...''


    Where am I?


    Who am I?


    I remember I was from Earth, America in particular, and that I was a teenager, but that is about it. I don''t even remember my own name. Now I seem to be drifting through and endless void.


    ''You have been selected to become a dungeon.''


    Well this is a weird sensation, kind of like having words beamed into my head.


    ''Um... OK?''


    ''Please select a starting continent:


    <ul>


    <li>Imbra</li>


    <li>Ofai</li>


    <li>Augras</li>


    <li>Vrocrios</li>


    <li>Saivrais''</li>


    </ul>


    ''I would like to start with a description of the top one.''


    ''Imbra, a medium sized continent completely tamed by the human race. Dungeons can expect to be discovered a few days after birth. They will immediately tamed and used for their owners profit.''


    NOPE


    ''On to the next on please.''


    ''Ofai, a small forested island continent populated by many different higher races. A dungeon can expect to be discovered after a few months at maximum.''


    Better, but still dangerous, I don''t imagine dungeons are fast growing, so a few months might not be enough.


    ''Next''


    ''Augras, a medium size continent made up mostly of desarts and wilderness. The countries of this continent are constantly at war.''


    I am getting a little worried that there may be no good starting continents.


    ''Next please''


    ''Vrocrios, the largest of all the continents, has nearly every biome possible and is untamed wild. Scaresly populated by several of the higher races along the eastern coast. A dungeon may go years without being discovered.''


    Bingo... Easy start found.


    ''I select the continent of Vrocrios as my starting continent.''Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    ''Confirmed, switching to manual location selection.''


    light bloomed into the void I was floating in, and suddenly I found myself floating far up in the sky looking down on an entire continent. The continent itself didn''t really have a dominant shape, more like a wobbly potato. Up at what I assumed to be the north end was snow covered tundra and mountains, while down at the south end seemed to be desert and wastelands. Along the west coast was what appeared to be swamplands and jungle, the middle of the continent was mountains and forest, while the east coast was mostly plains. I could indeed see a number of cities dotting the eastern plains.


    After studying the layout of the continent for several minutes, I decided on an area a good ways inland from where the settlements where. I discovered that I could move my view point by willing myself in a direction I wanted to go, and so I began moving down towards the ground. The area I had picked was a spot where three mountain ranges sort of ran into each other forming a triangular shaped valley surrounded on all sides by mountains. The valley itself was densely forested and in the verry center of the valley was a lone mountain. I wanted my entrance to be at the verry top of that mountain.


    Swooping down, I discovered that this mountain''s verry top was made out of stone and almost flat. It was perfect. With great excitement I discovered that I could dig by absorbing stone into myself, so I started on a downward angled tunnel. After getting about 30 feet under the surface I dug out a room that was about 20 feet by 20 feet with a 7 foot ceiling. Once done, I began to be overcome by drowsyness and I fell unconscious.


    When I started to come to, my perception had completely changed. The walls of the tunnel and room I had dug now felt as if they were my skin, and I could see and hear everything that was happening within the tunnel and room at once.


    A message popped into my mind.


    ''You have successfully formed a crystal body. You have formed in the rare crystal type: Black Obsidian shard. As a dungeon core you will draw from the natural mana that flows through the earth by use of your tunnel and room walls. The more tunnels and rooms you have, the faster you will absorb mana. Your crystal body contains what is known as a ''storage dimension'' anything you absorb will be stored here and can later be deposited back into your dungeon. You are able to manipulate physical material however you wish while it is in your storage, and you will be able to condense mana in your storage into physical matter that can then be placed into your dungeon. You will be able to move your crystal body to any room in your dungeon but there is a ten minute charge time and a hour cool down period.''


    ok, so that was a lot of information for me to process at once, but I think I got the gist of it. Indeed I could see a black shard of obsidian floating in the middle of my only room. Turning my attention inwards, I quickly gained access to this ''storage dimension'', in it I found the stone I had absorbed when I first started digging.


    Next I tried to feel this ''mana'' that was supposed to be flowing through the earth. This took me close to an hour to get the hang of, but once I did I was astonished. The mana flowing through me was like a rageing river! Yet the second thing that astonished me was how terribly inefficient I was at absorbing it. The mana I was absorbing through my walls was scaresly a single percent of its total, I was scaresly receiving a trickle of mana.


    I guess if I want more I will just have to expand. So I started digging a tunnel out of the side of my entry room. After only a few seconds of digging I found myself running out of mana, the tunnel I had dug was only a few feet long.


    This is going to take awhile.

 2. Making progress

    It has taken me three days to finish my first floor.


    I say finish but what I mean is that I finished tunneling it out. I don''t know how to add monsters and traps just yet. The finished project has five rooms including the entrance room and soon to be exit room, and a maze that should keep someone busy for about 45 minutes. I can''t make my first floor any bigger because I am at the top of the mountain, if I want more space to work with I will have to go down more.


    When I first started tunneling, if I waited for an hour for my mana to build up, I would only be able to dig a few feet. With my first floor done, after an hour of charging I am able to keep it up for a bit longer, but the improvement is minimal.


    Now I didn''t let the time I sat around charging go to waste, I spent that time experimenting. I believe I have told you before that I could see, hear, and feel everything in my dungeon at once, it is a part of my body. Something I discovered is that I could ''focus'' on one spot in my dungeon and see everything in it almost down to the molecular detail. I used this ability to study what happens when I absorb stone and create a tunnel. When I did, I saw that the stone itself simply disappeared and entered my internal storage, so I cannot offer you a detailed explinaiton on what happens to it. But I did notice that immedeately the surrounding stone became a part of myself, my senses extending through it, and becoming several times harder than it was before.


    Discovering that the stone that is apart of myself becomes much harder than its original form led me to an idea for a trap. The idea is rather simple, I dig a pitfall, place some spikes at the bottem, and then cover the top with a thin layer of stone, because it is much harder than normal it should be able to span the distance yet still break when a person steps on it, and at the same time will look like regular floor from the tunnel. After some experimenting to get it to work, I set up six throughout the floor one maze.This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    The next thing I experimented with was the materials stored in my storage space.I soon found that I could mold the stone within me however I wanted, a useful ability, but all I had to play around with was stone and some air I had absorbed at this point. Next I tryed condensing my mana into solid matter. Concentrating and funneling my mana into one spot within my storage space did indeed allow me to form matter, but I discovered I could only form materials I had absorbed before, so I was still limited to stone and air. And another drawback what that it took a crap ton of mana to get it done, so it was easier to just use my stored resourses.


    After another day of digging from when I experimented with condesing mana, it occured to me that air is not a single element. If I could take it appart, I should be able to form all the gasses it consists of, and even the water vapor within it. So going back to the air I had stored, I began to "rip" it appart untill I had nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, several other gasses I did not know the name of, and even the water vapor I was expecting.


    I did the same thing with the stone, "ripping" it appart, I found that it was acctualy made of two types of stone, one was rather soft, while the other was harder. Also inside of it I found trace amounts of tin, iron, and quartz crystal. The metals were in extreamly small amounts, and took even more mana to make more than the stone did. Because there was a bit more quartz, I tryed forming a crystal. Isuccesfuly made a crystal the size of a pinkey and was rewarded with a message:


    ''Crystals can convert natural mana into magic effects. When forming a crystal, apply mana while imagining the desired effect, this will give you a magic crystal.''


    Ohh, things were starting to get better.