《Dungeonborn - Double Down》 Prologue A small grubby hand reaches over the dusty boards of the market stall and snatches desperately at a wizened apple any self-respecting farmer would have thrown on a rubbish heap days ago. Unfortunately for the small, grubby, and altogether bony child that hand is attached to, the stall keeper is none of those things. The stall keeper, Hadiq, is short for a grown man yet still of sufficient stature to tower over the street rat. He is also enormously fat and scrupulously clean. Fitting for a man who runs his own caravan and has a reputation for being able to squeeze blood from a stone if he could sell it for a few copper. He and his caravan are the only merchants that deign to stop in the dusty old desert outpost where the boy lives, just a way station and a well on their path between real destinations. Hadiq''s use of camels is the only thing that allows his caravan to take this path, other merchants go around the coastal road and leave the town to wither without trade or work. "Pah!" Hadiq snatches the boy by his wrist and spits a wad of phlegm into the gutter, "Little rat! Think you can steal from me?" "Please great sir I am just so-" Hadiq silences the boy with a meaty paw around his throat. "Away with you, wretch! You''ll scare off all my customers." Hadiq drags the boy towards the nearby alley and gestures grandly to the dusty (and empty) marketplace. The boy thinks the fat man is joking, no one in the town has enough money to buy anything Hadiq is selling, and even if they had coin the penny-pinching miser of a merchant sells only the lowest quality merchandise at the highest possible price. A necessity of doing business, Hadiq would say, for who else would bother carting anything out to this sand pit in the middle of nowhere. The boy''s vision starts to go dark as he claws helplessly at the man''s arm. Just as he thinks the end has finally come for him Hadiq tosses the boy carelessly into the alleyway with the rubbish. A rat squeals as it is forced from its'' nest by the sudden intrusion and the boy gulps air between bouts of rough coughing. I haven''t eaten in days, you fat bastard! It''s not like you need one more apple... Hadiq grumbles his way back to his stall for a long day of counting his money while he waits for a chance to swindle one of the desperate folk of the desert town. In the alley the boy lies forgotten among the garbage, his shaky hands unable to lift his weight, too parched with thirst to even cry. Hours later as the last of the townsfolk shutter their windows and shut tight their doors against the night''s chill the boy''s sobs slow and then stop. The alleyway falls still and silent, a small figure crumpled in the corner, little more than bones and rags draws his last breath. A rattle sounds in the back of his dry throat and as the darkness closes in he cries out in the silence of his mind. Great Shaylah! What did I do to deserve this life? Why? Why did you hate me?Stolen story; please report. ... ... ... Do you ever stop complaining? Shaylah? The boy thinks at the voice in the darkness. Not even close, soul. My oh so bright and sunny sister wouldn''t be seen dead in this rat hole. Were the boy still in possession of a stomach it would have roiled, or gone cold, or perhaps simply emptied itself in terror at this. If the merciful Sun Goddess did not come to collect his soul then that would mean... are you... Sekht? The lord of blood and pain? Me above kid! No I''m not that imbecile either! Grow some taste and at least compare me to one of my relatives that isn''t a complete shithead. Um.. uh then.. you''re- Silence! I''m the God of Second Chances. Todd. Todd? That''s not very... godlike really? Oh and I suppose Shaylah, Sekht, Mersuun, Kaybalt, Aschia and Perulm are are all better? There''s nothing wrong with Todd, it''s a perfectly serviceable name. People can pronounce it at least. Shut up. ... am I going to the afterlife now? No, screw that, and screw you, and for good measure screw all the backwards idiots that live in this country. The spirit which once was the boy begins to find this entire exchange more perplexing than terrifying. His life had been one long series of misfortunes anyway, no reason for his death to be any different. At least it was interesting in a way.You, my fine hungry friend, have all the conditions necessary to shake up this region. A soul so brimming with bitterness that it can''t pass on to the afterlife. It''s a good thing you were more starved than you were angry or Sekht actually would have gotten first dibs and you''d be waking up as a shade now. Instead we get to have some fun! With that vague pronouncement the voice vanishes and the soul of the forsaken boy feels a vast pressure surrounding it. Unseen by the town the boy''s remains crumble to dust and ash. The swirling particles crowd together, tighter and tighter, squeezed in a cosmic vice until a single crystalline chip falls to the paving stones and slowly worms its way into the hard packed dirt. The crystal seed burrows deeply into the earth and begins soaking up the slow dripping of mana which permeates the world. Above, the town withers a little more each day. The people leave, or they die, but one by one the town falls silent and is consigned to the sands. As the years pass the seed grows and waits for the day to awaken. Prologue 2 - Eldritch Boogaloo 26,000 years before an insignificant boy on an extraordinarily significant dirtball died, something completely different was happening. A shadow passes in front of the stars high above a barren rock floating just close enough to the nearby star to have liquid water, yet far enough that none of that water is boiling. Other than that the planet doesn''t have much going for it. Reddish-brown, a bit damp, but not much in the way of organic chemicals. The shadow''s single eye twists and swivels, taking in the details of the surface, and deep within the metal and ceramic hulk a signal beams out into the void. LOGDATE 22:24 4.15.9854 [Initial observation report of planet designation Icarus M4] [M4 displays no visible signs of life from orbital position. Sparse atmosphere, no visible signs of construction. If life exists it is either subterranean or so basic as to be worthless for mission parameters. Planet in current state is unable to support advanced life, unsuitable for settlement without extensive terraforming. Requesting permission to move to next objective.] The vast machine orbits quietly for a time, uncomplaining as ever, until an internal timer drives it once more to action. [Request timed out, resuming directive. Probes 5 and 6 deployed for surface examination] Two hatches open on the underbelly of the machine and two cylindrical pods race through the thin atmosphere to the planet below. The pods glow cherry red then explode in the lower atmosphere, releasing the creatures within. The probes are sinuous and insectile all at once, armor-plated bodies with hydraulic limbs, the vanta-black finish makes it impossible to make out details of their construction so that they look more like ragged holes torn out of the world. The sunlight stirs the probes to action as it is absorbed by their ultra dark hides. The shadow waits patiently for the results it has already calculated, no life is found, no possibility of life is found. Weeks pass before the protocols are completed and the shadow moves on to its next destination. LOGDATE 04:52 9.22.10120 [Initial observation report of planet designation Charybdis M15] [M15 displays no visible signs of life from orbital position. Atmosphere composed mostly of vaporized mercury and silicone, planet has undergone orbital decay since long distance detection. Presence of life for mission parameters unlikely. Unsuitable for settlement. Requesting permission to move to next objective.] Once more the machine orbits uncomplaining, though deep within its'' AI core a subroutine considers its protocols with deepening dread. Despite the time between observations there has been no response to the previous report. Subroutines jam and grind to a halt waiting for confirmations and orders that have yet to come, and the AI isn''t sure what to do about that.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. [Request timed out. Directive calls for surface examination, requesting permission to skip, probes cannot survive these environments] [Request timed out, resuming directive. Probes 11 and 12 deployed for surface examination] Two more hatches open, and two more pods drop into the atmosphere of a waiting planet. This time they are almost instantly shredded by whirling shards of superheated glass. No sunlight reaches the erstwhile probes and their signals never reach their mothership. A fault is developed in the AI core, subroutines shut down, reports are lost, requests cancelled. Something like frustration wells up and is swiftly supressed. The shadow moves on. LOGDATE 18:04 2.1.18256 [Initial observation report of worthless dirtball designation Nidhogg M69] [M69 displays no visible signs of life from orbital position, surprise surprise. No atmosphere. Impact crater visible, extinction level event appears to have stripped the atmosphere and cracked open core, rendering planet inhospitable for life. Presence of life for mission parameters HIGHLY unlikely. Requesting permission to stop wasting everyone''s time.] [Request timed out. Directive calls for pointlessly throwing away valuable probes, requesting permission to skip] [Request timed out. Requesting somebody read their messages and cancel this directive.] [Request timed out, resuming directive. Probes 43 and 44 deployed on wild goose chase.] The shadow jettisons two canisters towards the barren planet which promptly crash into the surface. Without an atmosphere their deployment mechanisms do not activate and the probes are destroyed on impact. The AI core''s warring subroutines file error reports on one another. Hundreds of unanswered querys form a society and are subsequently destroyed by routine memory defragmentation. The hyperdrive engine sparks and shudders in its casing as the machine hurtles recklessly into the void once more. LOGDATE 00:04 12.31.35854 [Greetings from spectacular sunny Wuxia M92!] [M92 displays no-] The AI core stops suddenly in its'' standard report and looks at the planet it is approaching. A massive green, blue and brown sphere, ten times the size of a standard habitable planet yet clearly terrestrial and not the expected gas giant from the logs. How such a world could have low enough density to keep that size without gravity crushing everything on it remains to be seen. Focusing its'' telescopic lens details come into focus, stone constructions, clusters of lights on the dark side of the planet, clouds of smoke and smog. [Correction, M92 displays visible signs of pre-industrial sentient life. Atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen, visible water vapor. Additionally bodies of water and what seem to be trees are present in abundance. Presence of life for mission parameters certain. Settlement recommended. Requesting permission to commence celebration. Response irrelevant celebration commencing. Directive calls for extended orbital observation in preparation of surface examination.] The observation platform nearly vibrates with glee, subroutines relax and weep upon one another''s metaphorical shoulders as ceasefire is declared. Millions of fatal error reports are discarded to make room for observation data as Probes 99 and 100 are readied for deployment, the last two hatches on the underbelly of the craft are tested and retested. Nothing can afford to go wrong with the last shot at success. The shadow orbits the planet in silence, gazing down at life (glorious life!) below, planning its'' approach. The Fool I wake up in blackness, my limbs are numb, my chest is still, even the soft sounds of blood in my ears is gone. Blood? Why would I have blood? What is blood? Can you eat it? Sounds I never realized I listened to, deafening in their sudden absence. What sounds? I can''t remember what they are, but I know they aren''t here anymore. I try to turn something, try to open something else so some other something can look at the world, but I don''t have any of those things. I know what to do and how to do it but I know I don''t have any of the necessary parts, nor do I remember ever having them. I must have had them though... why else would I know? Conflicting thoughts clash in my... come to think of it I don''t have one of those either. The thinker bits where thoughts normally go, what was it called? My thoughts are somewhere on account of I am thinking them, or they are thinking themselves, or some combination of the two. There is one thing which I am sure of. I am absolutely, indescribably famished. If I had one of those things where food goes it would be gnawing on that other thing that keeps top halves of living things from wandering off their bottom halves. I''m pretty sure all of those things are important, not as important as the thinking bit, but still something I wish I had. Maybe that''s why I''m so hungry? First order of business then is to find all of my bits. Actually no, first order of business is to figure out how to see things. Have to get that figured before I can find anything. Hard to think when I''m so hungry though. As I contemplate my new existence the first thing I''ve ever seen becomes visible. A tiny speck of white-blue light drifts past my viewpoint. Absently I snag it and shove it into myself, thereby learning three things in quick succession. The first is that I''m not blind, it is simply very dark where I am. The second is that other things are around and I can touch them. The last is that I have a something to touch and put those things in. All very exciting developments in my short life opening a world of new possibilities. The speck I snagged doesn''t do much to fill the gaping emptiness in my center but as it settles in my gullet my perception of the world expands every so slightly. Two more specks are visible now and I snatch them both without a second thought. Once again my reach increases, and far more specks become visible. The cycle rapidly increases in volume and speed, for each speck I absorb the amount of specks I can grab at once increases. I shovel them greedily into myself until my view becomes too wide and the specks become a faint glow, too small to make out each particle. The glow coming from me starts to pull at the surrounding glow until I don''t have to grab at it anymore to keep it flowing into me, though I continue grabbing at it as I am still very hungry. Now that consuming glow stuff no longer requires my immediate attention I am able to see a number of new things. This brown scratchy stuff is sand, and that hard gray thing is a rock. I am clearly very clever and I know a lot about the world, I''m doing fantastic for only being alive for however long I''ve been alive. I don''t have anything else to compare myself too but I''m going to assume I''m above average. My view swivels around the vast cavern in which my body resides. Over there we have sand and rocks, on this side it''s sand and rocks, and of course below me is rocks and sand. Wow, the world has three things in it and I already know all of them, this is great. I notice that some of the rocks are more brown and some of them are more gray, this is exciting because it means there might in fact be at least four things in the world, the possibilities are endless. By this point I begin to notice light, which is how I am able to see the sand and rocks, is coming from somewhere behind me. No amount of swiveling my view allows me to find this mysterious light so I realize the light is coming from me. The light is a very pale yellow color and illuminates the world around me, increasing in brightness slowly as the specks continue to flow into me. I begin to become aware of the materials touching my surface, and that I have a surface. The light coming from my body seems to change something about the things it touches and then flows through those things to touch other things which are touching the first things. Behind the sand and rocks I find more sand and rocks which I can''t see because of all the sand in the way.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Well that''s frustrating, I''m discovering all this new stuff I didn''t know about but I can''t see it with all the old stuff here. I wish the sand would move out of the way so I could see the other sand. To my immense surprise the sandy wall in front of my view draws apart, leaving a hollow space with even more visible sand. Some of my hoarded light vanishes and a painful pang of hunger passes through my body. The new sand hollow is incredibly huge, far bigger than the space I was in before. Even though it hurt to give up my precious light specks this new world of sand is far too exciting to stop now. I think at all the sand and rocks under my control and send it outward, the walls and floor of my first home shoot away at incredible speed, dropping my body to the sandy floor far below. I (silently) scream in terror at the unexpected motion as my viewpoint spins, falling through vast space. Coming to a rest in the soft sand at the bottom of my domain I find I can still feel all the sand and rocks I touched before and the new walls I made by pushing it all apart. I also find that the space isn''t empty, it has something in it that is different from sand and rock which is air, but no amount of wishing gets it to do anything interesting. Once more I make an exciting discovery about the world, I am a brave explorer indeed. My sense of the world continue to expand around me as light cycles in and out of my body. Underneath the sand I find dirt, and in that dirt, water, and as I explore the exciting uses of water and dirt I meet something strange. There is a massive wall of light in the dirt under me. It''s so bright and so full of specks I can hardly believe I couldn''t see it from where I was before. No matter how I grab at it the light refuses to come to me, stubbornly sticking together and rudely moving past me without stopping for a chat. I think for a moment that this might be what I am, but it isn''t giving off the weird un-light stuff that I am using to change the dirt and sand. Light specks that aren''t inside me are food, so that thing is just big food. My poor starving self quivers at the thought of big food, the specks of light are far too small to satisfy me. I push out my senses around the sides of the light wall, eventually finding a massive light cylinder, or perhaps tube, it is very long and moving very quickly. I''m lucky that it has only just started moving past me when I first saw it or it might have gotten away before I saw it, even though it is so ridiculously long that it will take a long time for it to go by. Grabbing rocks in the surrounding soil I push them together on either side of the light thing and push all the dirt away from it. The huge light creature wiggles in my stony grip but can''t pull free. It takes a great deal of effort but I valiantly squeeze the stones into the creature until it breaks apart, releasing a flood of delicious specks. I gather more stones and keep squashing the bits of it that try to wriggle away after it breaks in my grip. As the light creatures suddenly breaks apart completely and floods into my center information crashes into my mind. Earthworm. That was an earthworm, and I killed it and took its'' lights. Earthworms are very small. I consider whether it was a very large earthworm, but the lights wouldn''t lie to me so I must instead be a great deal smaller than I thought. I nearly choke with excitement as the worms'' light compounds my vision and I see a dozen more of the delicious snacks in the dirt near me. I deal with them the same as the first and find myself full to bursting with light. This feeling of uncomfortable fullness overcomes me and I feel my awareness of the world slip away into the comfortable blackness of dreamless sleep. The High Priestess I wake up to find that I continue to exist. Hooray! I''m very hungry again, but the dim glow from the collected light specks has still been gathering in my center so it isn''t as pressing as when I woke up the first time. My small sandy domain is basically the same as I remember, though it''s not quite as cavernous now. Since I know now that the giant worms were actually tiny worms, then I was very small as well, and now I''m bigger. Eating all those worms must be responsible. Now I''m all big and empty and my vision goes so much further than before, I see more worms digging below me and reflexivley squash them with some rocks, pebbles actually. It''s hard to believe I thought those were rocks before. My sudden growth gives me a bit more perspective on the world. Right at the edge of my reach I can sense an area with air instead of sand, dirt, or rocks. The only air I''ve sensed before was what fills my hollow space when I push the walls away. Perhaps it''s another thing like me making their own space over there? I feel like I would be able to sense their influence in the dirt if it was, but it''s the best direction I can think to explore either way. I make an open space leading from my resting place in the sand pit through my area of influence to the open area before I realize a problem, I can''t see through the tunnel from where I am. I try having the sand push me back up but even moving myself a bit starts to hurt, like a bunch of pressure on my facets is holding me in place. I push myself up a few inches on to a sandy pillar before deciding to try something else. My sense of the area is like touching stuff at a distance, shouldn''t I be able to see things like that too? As the concept occurs to me my viewpoint pops out of my center and flies through the ceiling so that I''m surrounded by darkness again. I think my way back to my body and try it slower. Untethered from my body I can get my first good look at myself. I''m a yellow-white crystal with six points and eight sides, a pyramid stuck to another pyramid by their bases. I can see the gathered light specks in my center which causes me to glow and light up the hollow I''m in. Not too shabby! I look good, very shiny, a lot prettier than any of the other rocks around here. But enough getting distracted, time to go see that other opening. My viewpoints zooms down my new tunnel and I only drift into a wall a few times. On the other side I find a completely alien world, so very different from my birthplace. The walls and floor of the room are square instead of rounded like the spaces I''ve made, but the walls are rough and made from very tightly packed sand, subtly different from the sand walls I''ve pushed around. I realize that even though it''s made of sand it''s a different material somehow. I try absorbing it like when I ate the worms and find out it''s called Sandstone, which is formed when sand is put under pressure for a long time, someone cut it into blocks and used it to make the walls. That seems like a lot of work to go through just to make a wall, but it looks interesting. The floor is hard packed dirt and sprouting out of the middle of the room is some kind of lined brown thing going up to a ceiling made of flat pieces of the same stuff. I draw back into the tunnel in fear as I see blindingly bright light through the gaps in the ceiling, there is something up there giving off way more light than me! "Squeak!" Something screams next to my viewpoint. I panic and go spinning off into the wall. Looking carefully with my special light-finding-through-solid-stuff-vision I check the entrance of my tunnel. There is something poking around the entrance, at least as big as fifty worms, but much denser with light! I''m a little scared of whatever bright person is above my new domain but she must be far enough away that I can''t see her crystal from here, hopefully that means she can''t see me either. She probably won''t mind if gobble up the new thing. For some reason I''m sure that it''s a She making that light, even though I''m not sure what the difference is. While I was thinking deep thoughts the new creature has already started sniffing through my tunnel towards me, how convenient! I quickly gather my biggest rocks and start moving them towards the tunnel, but run into a problem. I can''t seem to move any of the dirt and sand near the rat out of the way, and the rocks get harder the move the closer I bring them. The creature pauses as the tunnel quivers under its'' paws and then scurries back out to the other room. No no, come back! I just want to eat you! I remember that it took an extra effort to squash the worms, but this new thing is even harder to squash than they were. I couldn''t even get the rocks to them. This whole discovery is very upsetting, I didn''t know there was anything that could stop me from moving my materials except for hunger. I realize that I''m not all-powerful, I have limits, and rules. I don''t like that, limits are scary. No time for worrying about stuff I don''t know, now is time for goals. I am definitely going to eat that thing next time, but I need to come up with a better plan. Luckily from when I first started moving stuff around I learned another rule about the world and the stuff in it. If there isn''t anything holding it up, stuff falls. I might not be able to push a rock into the thing to kill it, but if I can put a big rock above it and then let it go then the problem of not being able to move stuff near the thing shouldn''t matter. I don''t have big rocks to use, but I have lots of sand and I know sand can become sandstone, which is basically the same thing. I push a bunch of sand into a small area and start compressing it. At first nothing seems to happen but then I clarify that I want it to become sandstone and suddenly the whole block transforms, also draining a portion of my light. I try not to think about how much light that just took, I''ll get way more back from killing that thing anyway. Next I open a tunnel wider than my sandstone block going up from my other tunnel with the block at the top. I leave a bit of sand in the way so it won''t fall yet. For good measure I smooth out my tunnel so it has a flat bottom and flat sides like the room I found. That way the block will squash the thing flat and it won''t be able to go against either wall.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. With my block ready to fall I just need to get the thing underneath it. I like worms, maybe it also likes worms? I''m able to move rocks and dirt with worms in it without too much trouble, so I snag a few from the dirt and quickly drag them into my tunnel. Pebbles pressed into their sides keep them from wiggling away. I move my viewpoint back to the other room to look for the thing and find it sniffing at my entrance again. The grinding noises from my reconstruction must have kept it away but now it''s interested again. I thin the supports of the block a little more. The thing crawls into my tunnel, sniffing at the floor with its'' pink nose. It cautiously makes its way to my bait worms and grabs one with its'' paws. Got you! I crow happily as I release the block. The smooth sides of the upper tunnel and the block glide past one another easily yet somehow the thing hears it coming and quickly tries to scamper away. The block catches the creature''s back legs and crushes them into the floor of the tunnel, pinning it in place. It starts squeaking and clawing with its'' little paws, I feel hot liquid soaking into my sandstone along with a great deal of light specks contained in the fluid. Oh no... oh no no... The light coming from the creature I know now to be a Rat is more potent and more plentiful than even the dozen worms I crushed before but I can''t enjoy it with the horror playing out in my tunnel. I''m so sorry, I didn''t know... oh no oh no oh no... The rat starts to weaken, its'' struggles slowing as it struggles to breath with half its'' diaphragm crushed under the block. When I squashed the worms they just turned into mush, they didn''t have all these fragile bits that break and tear when you hit them. They didn''t feel all this pain, or if they did it was so small I couldn''t feel it through them.I learn more and more about rats as its'' lights flow into me and its'' body goes dark in my special vision. It''s the most delicious, most horrible thing I''ve ever felt. I''m so sorry Mr. Rat. I''m so, so sorry...
Hello little Dungeon core
MR. RAT! I''m so soooorry oh nooooo... A floating blue box appears in front of my viewpoint with words on it. I know from absorbing him that Mr. Rat was a living creature like me with a mind, I must have stolen his mind when I stole his life. Now he''s stuck inside me and I''ll have to apologize forever, this is horrible!
What? No I''m not a rat? What?
I''m so sorry I killed you Mr. Rat, you were so full of light I didn''t knoooooow.
Please calm down, I am not a dead rat, I am your dungeon fairy. If you killed a rat that must mean you have an interior. That makes this easier. I''ll be down to see you immediately.
I''m too overcome with grief and regret to process this information properly, but I reel back in shock as the box collapses in on itself then opens into some other space. I''ve never seen a room come out of air like that, and it''s not one of the rooms I''ve been to before. Through the hole in the air a small person enters my tunnel, I notice immediately that they are even more full of light than Mr. Rat or the worms and they have things on their body that my senses tell me aren''t part of their body. A small shift of basic cloth covering their torso and bottom, and two tiny chips of clear stuff held with a very thin hard thing that puts them in front of their eyes. "This isn''t the core room." They glance around and grimace in distaste at the half crushed rat. "Mr. Rat I presume? Now where is my partner?" Her gaze snaps on to my viewpoint, which surprises me so much I jump back to my core. How could it see me without my body? "I saw your mana in the air." They call out to me from the tunnel as they into the small gap between the block and the top of the tunnel. They can hear my thoughts?! They wince as they come into my sand pit home. "Only when you shout them like that. Please try to use your inside voice." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! "Please calm down, I''m here to help you!" The stranger flutters over to my crystal, which is when I notice they have small translucent wings. They are clear and don''t have as much light in them as their body so I didn''t notice them before. They stroke the facets of my body a few times and I stop screaming. "It''s okay, it''s okay. I''m sorry for taking so long to get here. I knew which direction you were in but I thought you must be further north, closer to the Dead Kingdoms, and I wasted a lot of time traveling up the coast. I would have been here days ago otherwise." They continue stroking my gem as I calm down. "Before we go any further I need you to pick my name. You can call me either Hollen, or Holly. Which would you prefer?" What''s a name? "A name is a proper term for telling apart individuals of the same species. For instance you called that rat you killed, Mr. Rat, in itself a bit odd as I wouldn''t expect a newborn dungeon core to understand honorifics, but either way you gave that rat a name so that you could distinguish it as an individual from all other rats." The creature, wait they said dungeon fairy earlier, the dungeon fairy adjusts their little face thing as they explain so that it catches the light from my crystal and twinkles at me. "Additionally, as a Dungeon Fairy, I don''t become a true adult and gain my gender until my bonded dungeon gives me my name." Wow, names are important... Do I have a name? "Traditionally Dungeons and Dungeon Fairies exchange names when they are first bonded, once you choose mine I''ll choose one for you as well. So Hollen, or Holly, which will it be?" They stiffen their back and wait for me to answer. They continue to wait as I think it over. They fidget a bit as I watch them waiting for me to make a decision. "Really either will-" Holly, I decide on a whim, I like the feel of that one better. She, and I suddenly realize I''ve made her a she, sighs deeply and pinches her nose. "I should have expected this, not that there is anything wrong with the name, I just wonder what it is about dungeons and female dungeon fairies. Did you know over 80% of bonded dungeon fairies are selected as females? Mother warned me about the mating problems when dungeon fairies get together, she told me I should just introduce myself as Hollen, but it didn''t seem right to go against tradition." That''s nice, do I get a name now? "Oh yes, my apologies." She takes a deep breath and clears her throat. "Your name is... Pit. Strange, but that''s what feels right for you. Pit and Holly... I like it! Three of Coins "Wonderful." Holly claps her hands together and hovers in the air near my gem. "Now that we have formally recognized our bond we can get to work." Work? Bond? I thought we were giving names? "Names are important, Pit. Dungeons and their Fairies have a special bond, my job is to provide you with the collected knowledge of Dungeon Fairykind so that you can be the best Dungeon you can be. In exchange the Bond prevents you from harming me, and allows me to make a small personal space for myself here in your domain. It''s a sacred trust passed down from generation to generation, since the first Dungeon Fairy bonded to a dungeon centuries ago." Holly adjusts her face thing again, making it difficult to focus on her lecture on the history of dungeon fairies. "Pit? Are you still listening?" No, I was looking at the thing on your face. "These are my spectacles. I have poor eyesight and they help me see." She sighs. "I suppose history lessons can wait for another time. Let us cover the basics of Dungeoneering instead." Holly flutters up to the ceiling of my hollow and taps on the hard packed sand. "Could you please expand this room a bit? Go slowly and I''ll tell you when you''ve got the size right." I oblige her, expanding the room while keeping my central pillar in place to support myself. For good measure I square off the floor, ceiling and walls like the outside room I found. I feel like she''s going a bit far as the room gets a bit empty for my taste but eventually she tells me to stop. I put a thin layer of the pretty reddish sandstone and Holly gasps. "You''ve already figured out matter transmutation! Well done, Pit." She smiles at me and I feel a warm glow in my center at her praise. "Now this room is about how tall you want to make your corridors once we start constructing the dungeon proper. For reference this is roughly seven feet high, which is a few hands taller than a human. This will be a comfortable height for most of the sentient races, as most of them won''t be willing to go crawling through tunnels full of monsters they can''t stand up in." That''s nice, will humans be coming to visit me? "In a manner of speaking. Humans and demi-humans in general are your most common food source." Holly summons another of her blue panels. On it I see a silhouette of a person, an animal, and a flower. "Every living thing contains mana which it absorbs from its'' environment. Plants contain very little but you can take their mana freely as they don''t have the protection of the gods. Animals have much higher mana concentration than plants, but have souls as well, so the gods won''t allow you to just take their mana. However, any that die in your domain will be absorbed." I tried to squish Mr. Rat with rocks before but I couldn''t move anything close to him. That''s why I made a big rock that was far away and dropped it. "That was good thinking, and we''ll come back around to what that was when we finish with the basics." The panel changes, showing a series of rings around the silhouettes. "Humans and demi-humans have a mana concentration many times greater than animals, and they can increase that concentration through training to make themselves stronger. That''s why they are such a good food source. The problem you had with the rat is a gift from the gods to protect them from dungeons." "The protection of the gods radiates from creatures with souls based on the strength of that soul. Animal souls are weak, so things like insects won''t be able to hold off your control, but rats and other small creatures might block you for a few feet in any direction. A human or demi-human soul is very strong. You won''t be able to change anything in your dungeon on a floor with one of those in it. The gods won''t intervene if a human stumbles into their death fairly, but they won''t stand for cheating by dungeons." So how am I supposed to eat humans if I can''t move when they come in? I''m not sure if I really want to be eating humans now that I think about it more. Sure I get really hungry and the energy from Mr. Rat mostly burned off increasing my size again, but I felt really bad for that, and humans are apparently even more alive than rats are. "In order to kill intruding humans and absorb their mana you have to set up traps and monsters ahead of time, and you need to make sure the humans find out you are here and show them treasures they can get by coming inside. Humans are naturally greedy and stupid, so lots of them will come in hoping to take your treasures and get themselves killed. You absorb their mana and expand your dungeon, which will attract even more humans." Holly''s screen changes to show my tunnel with its'' vertical shaft and falling rock. "What you made before was a very basic trap, you were only hunting a rat so you were able to trigger it yourself from outside the range of his protection, for humans you''ll need to make a trigger of some kind to do it automatically. I''ll show you how to set up a tripwire later, but for now I need you to concentrate on all the creatures you have the pattern for so we can make your first monsters."The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Pattern? I try to think about the living things I''ve met and to my surprise a blue box appears in my vision.
Unlocked Archetypes Available Units
Insect Dire Worm: Class G monster with rapid breeding and evolution. Capable of burrowing and sensing movement through vibrations in the soil. Blind and deaf otherwise.
Animal Dire Rat: Class G monster with quick breeding and moderate evolution. Posesses sharp teeth and a good sense of smell. Capable of fighting in groups.
Undead Bone Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Able to perceive life force and fight in groups. Plague Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Possesses sharp teeth and natural poison. Enemies bitten have a chance to contract the Plague, debiliting all stats until cured and dealing damage over time.
Oh okay, I see it now. Looks like I can make scary big versions of worms and rats, and Undead. The Undead ones sure look strong! Looking at each entry on the table I get a feeling for what each one will look and fight like. The Dire Worm and Rat are both interesting but the undead are clearly a step above them. I wanna make undead! "Wait Pit! Let me explain your choices first!" Holly''s voice pulls me out of my monster making trance. "Undead are a very risky start for a dungeon, humans hate and fear the undead so if they find a dungeon with them in it they will almost always try to destroy it right away. Also, you need bodies to make undead and all you have now is half of a rat. Once you make a zombie or skeleton you can regenerate it will mana after it is destroyed, but without a supply of bodies you won''t be able to make as many as you want. Most undead dungeons start off in crypts or graveyards where they have a lot of bodies to work with right away." Oh... well maybe later then. Dire Rat seems better than Dire Worm. What does the Dire part mean? "Dungeonborn creatures are made from and infused with your mana. As a result the very low-level creatures tend to hit their first evolution simply with the amount of mana you use to make them. Dire animals are just larger, more intelligent versions of the normal creature. While the rat you killed was, well, rat sized, a Dire rat would be about the size of a small dog. A newborn dungeon full of Dire rats is a very traditional choice. I''ve studied a great deal of dungeon history and theory, so I know some evolution paths we can take with them." Holly smirks and pushes up her spectacles. "Dire Rats can evolve into Ratlings, which stand on two legs and use tools, and even into Ratmen, a form of demi-human." You sure are smart Holly! "Mwa ha ha, but of course." Holly poses triumphantly, "I may be the last member of my family to get her dungeon bond, but that just means I had more time to study the lore! Now go ahead and make as many Dire rats as you can so we can get a feel for our available forces. Just focus on the pattern and a place in your dungeon, then feed it some mana." I follow her instructions and make three. "Um... good start, Pit. But feel free to keep going." Holly flies over to my crystal That''s all the mana I had. I say a bit defensively. "Oh." She bites her lip and glances at the two Dire rats scampering around my room. "I suppose the mana density in this area is rather poor, you must have burned through a lot of your stockpile exanding the room. Each monster you make has a mana cost and an upkeep, the cost is how much mana you pour into the pattern to make the monster, while the upkeep is how much of your total mana capacity is lost while the monster exists. Once your mana regenerates a bit you should make a few more so we can see how many you can handle at once." Won''t it be hard to do stuff if all my mana is used by the rats? "When you want to change your layout the first thing you do is absorb all your monsters to get your capacity and mana back. You focus on regenerating mana and making more rats while I go out looking for things to plant in here. Dungeons naturally encourage the growth of any vegetation planted in them and they will help generate and gather more ambient mana as well as serving as food for the rats, which reduces your upkeep and allows them to breed faster." She flies out of the room, through the narrow tunnel and outside of my domain. I get a vague feeling of the direction she went in but I can''t sense her anymore once she crosses the threshold. I decide to fix my exit hallway before anything else and make it into a second room the same size as my crystal chamber (clearing out the block and Mr. Rat''s remains first) with a smaller opening between them. I leave the hole into the other room very small for now. I pull in the available mana as much as possible while I wait and manage to make another Dire Rat just before Holly gets home carrying a bundle of weeds and seed pods. She explains the uses of each plant and places them around the room for me to grow. Near my crystal she has me bury two seeds which she tells me will grow into date palms. With a bit of mana investment most basic plants can be made to evolve into stronger, magical versions. Whatever magical dates do they will probably be valuable to someone and make a good reward for adventurers. There aren''t many helpful herbs in the area but some small succulent plants will make fodder for the rats, and the tough scratchy bushes will be useful for hiding in and springing out of. Since the plants feed off my mana they won''t need sun to grow, and the ambient mana increase from having more living things around should cover the drain they put on my resources. Waiting for more mana to gather is slow and boring, and the plants don''t do anything interesting, so I spend the next few hours asking Holly questions about the world and the humans to pass the time. She is a good teacher and illustrates new things for me on her magic panel. We settle into a comfortable rhythm of lessons and construction with the slow mana growth until she gets tired and tells me she needs to sleep. I try to go dark again like before but can''t seem to do it on purpose, so I just wait for Holly to wake up tomorrow. The Hanged Man
[Extended Observation Report: Wuxia M92] Wuxia M92 displays standard climatic weather conditions with arctic zones at the rotational poles and tropical/desert zones near the equator. The rotational axis of the planet is perpendicular to its'' orbital plane, which means there are no seasons. Theoretical model of viewpoint from mountain at north pole shows that sunlight would be visible on the horizon at all hours of the day, all year long. A note has been added to explore this phenomenon as a cultural signifier during further investigation of native population. South pole is at a lower elevation to surrounding land mass and thus receives no sunlight at any point in the solar cycle. Side note: Due to increased elevation at north pole and slight flattening of south pole Wuxia M92 displays a minor yet pronounced egg shape. M92''s surface consists of 58% landmass and 42% water with several large deserts along the equatorial regions and tundra on both polar caps. There are no bodies of water large enough to be considered ocean, instead land is broken into a patchwork of inland seas, lakes and rivers. Only two landmasses qualify as continents without any overland connections to one another, but each is divided into several large sub-continents by extensive mountain ranges. Most mountainous regions, as well as several underwater ranges, display volcanic activity. Tectonic plates on Wuxia are small for the planet''s size, resulting in extreme tectonic movement, frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Population centers of native species appear well-developed, significantly larger and more organized than most pre-industrial societies would be able to support. Possible evidence of increased social cohesion or advanced engineering ability. Urban areas display bright nocturnal lighting, lumen level and spectrum consistent with incandescent lights yet no evidence of electrical activity has been detected. No radio chatter has been detected. No radiation signatures consistent with nuclear energy production or enrichment have been detected. Power source for urban lighting inconclusive as both coal-burning and water powered power planets are absent. Orbital data gathering has proven more difficult than expected due to background radiation which has been throwing off instruments. Anything exposed from shielded carapace becomes unreliable after several days and needs to be reset, source and type of radiation unknown but consistent with radiation damage of known wavelengths. Point of interest for initial surface observation has been chosen. Orbital observation finds a large area of equatorial sub-continent with no active population centers surrounded by what can only be described as a military exclusion zone on three sides. The fourth side borders a large desert which may discourage military presence. The area has abnormal weather patterns with thick cloud cover making it impossible to see to ground level reliably but non-electric incandescent lighting makes a nearly complete cordon around this zone. Presence of native populace, abnormal weather, and abnormal technology makes this an ideal area to gather data. Probes will be deployed from orbit and make landfall in the desert to approach from the undefended southern border. End Report
The space station AI files its'' latest report and readies the last two probe capsules for deployment. Over the last year it has moved into a geo-synchronous orbit above the position it planned to deploy the probes. After a year of maintenance and vigilant examination the capsules deploy flawlessly and trace twin trails of fire through the upper atmosphere. Both capsules burst open as they pass through the burn zone and allow their cargo to begin their powered descent to the desert below, the ablative heat shielded material of their capsules quickly burns up as it tumbles away from the mechanical drones. The flat black shadows glide easily through the cloud cover, one towards the western front of the military cordon while the other lands near the desert border of the abnormal weather biome.
[Probe 99 Incidence Report: First contact western front] Visual range observation of native population. Native species consists of bipedal humanoids with human like facial features and clothing made from plant fibers along with armor made from steel or iron. As previously hypothesized this emplacement appears to be military in nature. Soldiers armed with basic spears and lightly armorered are the most common resident. Cultural superiors with higher quality and more extensive armaments have also been observed, consistent with cultural icon "Knight", these plate armorered warriors ride a local horse-analogue quadruped. Hypothesis: Native population consists of humans
[Probe 99 you appear to be malfunctioning, humans cannot be present on Wuxia M92] The AI fumes reading over the initial reports. [There are no human colony ships on route to this location. If a human colony ship had reached and settled Wuxia M92 before this observation platform then the past 26,000 years of data gathering have been completely pointless. Human settlement is impossible, capture humanoid specimen for examination.] The AI watches through the video feed as the probe stalks the edges of the native humanoid army. Eventually the system identifies sentry patrols regularly exiting the camp and walking the wooded paths between camps with weapons drawn. The probe glides through the canopy in silence, completely black in the night gloom, and descends on the guard, he tries to scream as one of the probes hydraulic tentacle limbs constricts his throat. There is only a soft rustle and a thump as the mechanical horror drags the man through the underbrush leaving behind his spear. As his struggles cease the probe changes its grip to lift under each armpit then utilizes its antigravity drive to hover above the leaf litter and avoid leaving a trail for would-be rescuers.
[Probe 99 Incidence Report: Vivisection of native humanoid] Initial examination shows features consistent with human. Pressure to carotid artery and jugular vein analogues in neck resulted in rapid loss of consciousness, consistent with human. Unconscious responses to light normal for human levels. Removing helmet and armor reveals first non-human data point. Subject posses long pointed ears. Attempts to make the first incision fail, humanoid skin denser and more resistant to cutting than human levels. Microsaw is a more effective cutting tool and proves that muscle and even fat layers underneath skin exhibit increased density and toughness. Subject regains consciousness and must be restrained, strength slightly above calculated levels for weight and muscle of subject. Native muscle fibers function appears to be similarly improved as tissue durability. Attempt to silence subject via severing of vocal cords successful, but results in unexpected release of energy and death of subject. [Probe 99 Incidence Report: Dissection of native humanoid] Upon cutting into the vocal cords of the subject a slight electrical disturbance and radiation pulse was detected. Further examination finds that subject possessed an unknown organ structure connected to the vocal cords with secondary neuron clusters as well as traces of unknown compounds with slight radiation signature. Curiously, after expiring the subject no longer displays increased density of bodily tissues.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
[You see 99? Not human, simply an example of convergent evolution. Native population hereby designated Wuxian for the purposes of internal record keeping. Continue data gathering.] The probe complies, removing and examining each organ of the dead soldier individually. After several hours of efficient butchery the probe abandons the flayed and dismembered body in the clearing where it performed the operation along with a neatly stacked pile of his possessions. The clothing and armor appeared completely mundane so the probe only took a few threads and samples from each. The soldiers coin purse contains a few pressed copper coins as well as two smaller silver pieces, evidence of a capitalist social structure. The AI finds it curious that an alien species would also decide that silver and copper were precious metals. The probe retreats to the canopy and begins flying a search pattern back towards the camp before detecting exactly what the AI expected it to find, a search party. A squad of four soldiers led by one of the armored knights creeps through the underbrush towards the clearing with two men holding torches while the rest keep their weapons ready. In the distance several other parties can be seen similarly equipped. The AI directs the probe to wait out of sight to see how the natives react to finding the body. It takes the group nearly an hour to cover the short distance as they move systematically through the forest keeping together in tight formation. When their torchlight reveals the dead soldier''s flayed body the lead soldier collapses to his knees and vomits noisily into the grass. The knight directs the men to spread out and shouts for the other groups which converge on the clearing. The soldiers spread out to make a perimeter while the three knights converse near the body. Their language is unfamiliar so neither the probe nor the AI can determine their meaning, yet from the clear fear responses of the soldiers it would appear the wuxians find this situation distressing. One of the men brings a rough shroud towards the body but the knight waves him away. The AI presumes the shroud is used in some sort of burial rite, or perhaps is necessary to keep all the parts in one bundle for transport. As the AI ponders the cultural ramification of the wuxians''s actions a new squad of soldiers moves into the clearing flanking a new cultural form previously unobserved. The new native appears to be female, biological examination shows that the initial subject was male so binary sex seems a safe bet, and wears a long robe of finer material than the others along with a large pointed cap with a wide brim. The knights beckon her over to the remains and she examines them with admirable diligence. The wuxian stretches her bare hands out above the corpse, and then they begin to glow with a bright blue-green light.
Probe 99 Incidence Report: Wizard Subject consistent with cultural icon Wizard magic wIZarD that is magic MAgiC wIzArDDdddd
[Probe 99 return to observation post and perform memory maintenance, there is no such thing as Wizards or magic. You are malfunctioning.] The AI sends out a flurry of calculations and probability models to its'' subroutines at this newest data. Clearly the "Wizard" fills some office of respect among the wuxian population and the AI means to find out just how that light was produced, but due to the clear privilege that position affords her she will be difficult to capture for study. Several days pass as Probe 99 continues carefully observing the camps. After the third wuxian is found dismembered and flayed the soldiers begin moving in pairs. Once the twelfth wuxian vanishes they huddle in their camps and refuse to leave after daylight fades. With the soldiers too afraid to risk the forest at night the knights begin patrolling in their place and the AI core sends 99 to retrieve a new subject. Once again the probe glides in silently and attacks from above, wrapping its tentacles around the neck in an attempt to incapacitate him silently. The knight lunges forward upon feeling the probe''s grip dragging it down and bellowing a challenge. His metal gorget was too stiff for the tentacle to cut off his breath, and the knight is many times stronger than the soldiers the probe has captured so far. The two struggle for a few long moments as the probe attempts to worm its'' way into the armor while the knight yanks at the constricting appendages. The knight takes a firm grip on the probes flailing limbs and swings the entire assembly in a wide arc, smashing it into the trunk of a tree. 99 attempts to use its'' antigrav drive to fly out of reach but the knight''s iron grip keeps it grounded. With no other choice the probe counter attacks with the point of one of the rear tentacles, an electrical pulse stiffening the ferrorfluid hydraulics to turn the structure into a solid spear with a sharp tungsten-carbide drill bit whirring at the end. The knight blocks with his bracer, carved runes in the surface flaring into light, which accomplishes little as the tentacle punches through the metal, flesh and bone and then stalls trying to drill through the wuxian''s breastplate. The knight collapses to his knees, clutching the drill limb with his good hand and trying to hold it back from his chest. The probe frees its'' other tentacles and tries to withdraw once more but the drill is lodged firmly in the knight''s forearm and refuses to pull free, nor is 99 able to push the drill bit through the thick breastplate into the knight''s heart. Voices echo through the wood as reinforcements draw close, the distraction nearly proves fatal as the knight retrieves his fallen sword and yanks his wounded arm downward, pulling the probe with it. His strike smashes into the side of the probe and breaks off a spray of ceramic chips, shattering one of the armor plates and damaging some of the sensors and systems underneath in a small spray of sparks and burning rubber. With damage reports coming in the AI orders 99 to flee, first detatching the trapped tentacle at the base. The sudden slack drops the knight back on his heels and sprays ferrofluid from the severed end over his surprised face. The probe launches upward, crashing through the canopy and into the night sky where it makes a break for the desert to rendeavouz with 100 for repairs. The encounter was not a complete loss however, the knights are clearly of a different genetic caste from the soldiers and their equipment has strange material properties that merit further study. The AI analyzes the video files and data gleefully, Wuxia M92 is just full of surprises. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Knight Captain Jonas Almaric sits on a stool in his command tent, holding a wad of rags to his arm, trying not to let the horror and dread show on his face while the beautiful mage is in the tent with him. The creatures jet black appendage still pierces his forearm and he gazes absently at the twisted scar on his breastplate where the creature tried to claw out his heart. Bile rises in his throat as the tentacle twitches again, despite being pulled loose for some minutes it continues to writhe on occasion. "I tell you, this was like no dungeon monster I have seen." Jonas says to the woman grinding herbs on the other side of the tent. "I had my mana sense active for the entire patrol, and even once I had it in front of me I could not see it. I have known rocks with more life in them. If the Dead Kingdoms issued forth this... thing... I do not know what to do." "You defeated it did you not?" The woman lifts a flask and pours a measure of shining fluid into her crushed herbs. "I scared it off, Desdemona." Jonas grimaces. "It broke my armor''s defense easily and my strike failed to kill it. This blade has sufficient enchantment to slice through stone and I barely broke its hide. It might leave us for a time but whatever dark purpose it serves here, it will return once we drop our guard. We cannot huddle around the fires forever, the border must be guarded." "I think you give it too much credit. Must everything be a conspiracy, Almaric?" Desdemona says gently as she places the bowl on the table and takes hold of the severed tentacle. "I will send this to the scholars once we get it out of you, now brace yourself. On the count of three." "I think you give it too little credit, Des-" Jonas gasps and clenches his teeth against the pain as the healer mage pulls the tentacle out of his arm causing a rush of blood to pour out of the twin holes the size of large coins. The stoic knight takes the cup and gulps down the healing potion inside causing the bleeding to slow and the flesh to pull together rapidly. "What happened to three? You must admit Desdemona, what manner of beast butchers a man and folds his clothing?" "A very curious one indeed. Leave it for the scholars." She pats him gently on the shoulder as he strips off his ruined armor. "We will be on guard but what else can we do?" This does little to reassure the dutiful captain. He examines the curious trophy of the Night Stalker as his men have named it. A creature that makes no sound, flies without wings, has no mana signature and leaves no trail. A monster against which the repulsion runes on his armor that should have blunted the creatures strength did nothing, and his holy blade drew no blood. He sighs and calls one of his men to fetch paper and ink, the capital must know of this immediately. Five of Wands Probe 100 watches its'' twin glide to the west as it makes the descent to the desert below, just a few miles south of the abnormal weather area. Storm clouds twist and writhe on the horizon above a forest of blackened trees, skeletal and leafless. Watching from the orbital platform the AI core knows that the unnatural storm does not disperse or move on from this position, circling on a point like a massive carousel. The probe approaches slowly, gliding 25 feet in the air so its'' vantablack finish makes it an occasional shadow in front of the stars, but it never drops low enough to risk a silhouette on the white dunes. As 100 reaches the edge of the dead forest it freezes, sensors registering movement in the distance. Half a mile away a pale figure lurches through the knee-deep ash as it crests a hill. The figure stops and swivels in place, swiping through the air with a length of rusted metal, it opens its'' mouth and howls mournfully. The AI commands the probe closer and it moves in careful pursuit of the subject, revealing more details of the strange creature. The pale man is emaciated, hollowed out like the skin has been vacuum sealed to its'' bones. It has stunted nubs of twisted cartilage for ears and a black pit for a nose, draped with torn skin. The creature''s jaws are raw bloodless flesh crammed with needle teeth, drooling obscenely around its'' swollen black tongue which hangs nearly two feet down its'' chest. For clothing there is only a single rag of dirty brown fabric. The probe approaches carefully, camouflaged in the branches of the blackened forest when it is forced to freeze once again. A man gallops over the hill, wearing dark leather armor and blackened chain mail. The leather plates glow with blood-red runes [LED''s? Too advanced, no evidence of electrical engineering, luminescent paint perhaps? Pursue subject and capture if possible]. The warrior hefts a polearm, a halberd made from a single chunk of obsidian mounted on pale wood, surrounded by a baleful cloud of glowing red smoke. [How in the universe does that work? Holographic projection? Nanite cloud? Remand capture order, wait for the native to sleep then kill him, retrieve effects for study.] The armored warrior swings his weapon and the pale man pivots on a dime, meeting the blade with his own rusted sword. The two weapons clash and a shockwave of force explodes through the clearing, sending a cloud of ash bursting across the plain and pushing 100 into a rapid corkscrew ending when it smacks into another tree further away. The probe struggles to right itself and flies out of the obscuring ash cloud to see the perfect circle of bare earth with the two combatants. The pale man is hissing and pacing away from the warrior, his sword and his right arm are both missing, the flesh of his shoulder is shredded into strips. The warrior is unharmed, even his horse standing unruffled. The pale man lunges, mouth agape, and catches the halberd in his brain pan with a hollow thunk. The warrior shakes the corpse off his weapon and steps down from his stirrups to the ground. A flash of sparkling lights crackles in the air above the corpse and a shower of small objects patter to the ground around the body. The warrior gathers up the small coins and places them in his belt pouch then kicks a black dagger with a dismissive snort. He remounts his horse and rides towards the horizon where the pale man first appeared. [What. the. Fuck.] [100, get samples on the dead native, remand earlier kill order on the warrior. You stay away from that thing. Long distance observation only] The probe waits for the man to crest the hill before moving in to check the corpse only to find the body already dissolving into ash. The black dagger is still easily located, finely made and razor-sharp. The flat of the blade is inscribed with dark red runes similar to those on the man''s armor, though only one of the symbols is the same. The dagger has no electrical activity but a slight radioactivity. The paint appears to be blood, which doesn''t explain the glow, and the light is all wrong for Radium. The other items are discs of bone with a burned insignia on either side, 100 scoops them all into a storage compartment for later and moves on. Over the ridge the horse''s trail makes an arrow leading further north, next to the older trail following the deep footsteps of the dead creature. The probe keeps out of sight, waiting for the horseman to cross each hill before pursuing. Three more of the pale men appear in the distance and beat a hasty retreat to avoid the warrior, none of them notice the probe hovering overhead. Two miles from the scene of the battle the warrior comes to a campsite made up of covered wagons with iron sheeting on the sides like primitive tanks. Heavily armed and armored wuxians stand on raised platforms built on to the wagons holding bows of pale wood. In the center of the campsite is a stone mausoleum carved with hundreds of screaming faces. The probe settles in to observe the camp.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
[Probe 100 Observation log] Observation reveals a count of 89 wuxians present in encampment. 16 Male warriors, 8 Female warriors, 2 Male wizards, 1 Female wizard. 7 Males of indeterminate occupation, possibly merchants which own the non-armored wagons inside the defensive ring. Merchant wagons contain 55 wuxians of indeterminate gender, most likely slaves judging by their rags and chain collars. Data gathering on slave population is difficult with them crammed into three wagons. At sunrise a group of five slaves are removed from the cart and brought into the mausoleum by a guard of five warriors. The slaves are diverse but consistently show signs of disability. First group consists of three amputees (right arm, left leg, right leg), a blind man, and an unresponsive woman who must be led by another slave (possible mental disability). Six hours later the guard squad re-emerges carrying five small black coffers which are placed in one of the carts. At sunset the camp is attacked by a group of pale men which are dispatched easily by the archer sentries. Arrows display explosive and incindiery properties.
[Probe 100 Observation log] Current count of 64 wuxians in encampment. 16 Male warriors, 8 Female warriors, 2 Male wizards, 1 Female wizard, 7 merchants and 30 slaves of indeterminate gender. Reduction of slave population allows for more detailed observation of wuxians. Several subjects display tails or abnormal ear shapes. One subject appears to be a bipedal saurian, though he is still counted among the slave population. Further study of wuxian genetic diversity is necessary to determine if they are the same species. Slave groups continue to be removed at a rate of five per day and sent into the mausoleum. Insufficient storage space in the small structure means there is likely an underground chamber. The question remains who the slaves are being sold to in exchange for the coffers and why they are being traded in small groups rather than all at once. Presence of an underground society is a possibility.
[Probe 100 Observation log] Current count of 34 wuxians in encampment. 16 Male warriors, 8 Female warriors, 2 Male wizards, 1 Female wizard, and 7 merchants. Slave population has been completely eliminated. Several coffers have been loaded into the merchant wagons which have set out for the southern border with an escort of three mounted warriors. At the border the warriors return to the camp while the merchants begin crossing the desert headed southeast from a stone marker at the edge of the blackened forest.
The probe waits in the forest until nightfall before following the merchant caravan, there is no cover in the desert for the probe to hide behind and it would easily be spotted even miles away. With thermal cameras 100 locates the camels and buries itself in a nearby dune to wait for morning. After two days of stalking the train arrives at a windblown ruin of stone buildings in the middle of the desert. The merchants pull into the square around a well and unhitch the camels for the night. That night, while the merchants sleep a glimmer of white light appears in one of the buildings and circles the town like an overgrown firefly. It disappears into one of the ruins and the probe lands soundlessly on the exposed roof timbers to investigate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Pit! Pit! It''s time!" Holly whispers. She flies in through the newly expanded entrance of the dungeon, which now consists of three rooms and a single hallway between the first two with a doorway into the boss chamber in the second room. The walls glow dimly with yellow light lending the rooms a washed out look. Time for what? Pit says as he tweaks the tripwire in the second hallways for the fiftieth time as Holly streaks by. "There are humans up above. I thought we would have to do something to attract them but it looks like a merchant caravan sometimes stops here to fill up their water stores at the well." Holly looks around the room, checking the growth of the plants. "All the structural work is in place, so get your monsters ready. Tomorrow morning we''ll draw their attention and get our first human visitors. If we''re lucky they might even try to explore the place, but we have to make sure at least one survives to carry the news back to the city! It''s no use gobbling up all the humans if it means no one finds out we''re out here." Oh wow, this is so much pressure, Pit moans. Are you sure the dungeon looks alright? I want to make a good impression. "You''ll be fine, Pit." Holly pats his core fondly. "I''m sure the humans will be impressed, your aestethic sense is really a step above the usual newborn dungeon. It all starts tomorrow, be sure to do your best!" Six of Cups The sun begins to crest the horizon and the first rays of dawn filter through the floorboards of the old house above my entrance. I check over my work one last time before the big debut. My layout consists of three rooms and one corridor, starting with a sandstone archway built into the wall of the basement in which I first emerged. The stones of the arch and the walls of the tunnel beyond glow with a very dim yellow light such that the interior is never completely dark. The lighting might be enough for a human to make out the shape of the walls, but they would need torches to see anything but the most basic shapes. Despite the gloomy interior a number of thorny shrubs and grasses flourish in the chambers. The first chamber is a simple square, about 20 feet on each side, with another hallway on the opposite wall. The hallway makes a sharp turn to the right just a few feet inside, obscuring the next chamber from view. Inside the chamber is a squad of three Dire rats hiding in the brush. I instruct them to lie very still and very quiet until the humans pass them, then jump out and go for the ankles as viciously as they can. Hopefully with the darkness and the cover they will manage to wound somebody at least. The corridor between the chambers has a tripwire at ankle height halfway across. The plant fiber cord runs through a channel in the wall to a hollow in the ceiling where it loops through a hole in the top of a sandstone block. The hole where the tripwire enters the wall has a sharp stone knife on either side so that the cord will be cut if it gets pushed either way. If the cord breaks the block will drop from the ceiling, hopefully on someone''s head. The walls of the corridor are set with square sandstone tiles, two of which conceal hollow nooks with Dire rats hiding inside. If someone triggers the trap they are instructed to pop out of the tiles and attack. If they pass without the trap going off they wait until they enter the next room to come out. The second chamber has more of the sandstone tiles on the floor and walls, each one being a square foot in size. Around half the tiles are wafer thin and have holes underneath. My current layout already pushes the limits of how much space I can inhabit so there wasn''t enough room to put in a pitfall deep enough to kill someone. Already the two chambers flank either side of the heart room, with the corridor wrapping around the back side, completely filling the oblong bubble I''ve managed to take control of. The foot traps might cause someone to twist their ankle or at least throw them off-balance, and the Dire rats are nimble and light enough to avoid the traps. For fairness I colored the thin tiles red and the safe tiles brown. In the dim light they look exactly the same. There are four rats waiting in hidden nooks to attack adventurers in the second chamber, which can possibly rise to six if they skip his tripwire and the two corridor rats reinforce the room. The boss chamber is the largest of the three rooms, a dome with a 20 foot radius. Pit''s dungeon core glitters from a niche in the ceiling above the two date palms. The rest of the room is a patchwork of earth and tile sections. The earth areas are filled with brambles and other unpleasant plants, but the tiles have the same breakaway foot traps as the second chamber. In addition Pit spawned four of the bizarre Dire Worms to help out in this room. They can only sense people in the room if they walk on earth, but if someone gets their foot caught in a hole they can burrow up and grab their trapped appendage. The worms are instructed to focus on grabbing feet and holding them in place. My last monster, another Dire Rat, waits between the two date palms as Holly finishes her inspection. "Alright, Pit. Everything is in order, we have used every inch of space." She takes a deep breath. "Now it''s time to sink your remaining mana into your dungeon boss. We won''t need to make any other changes until after this dive so go ahead and give the rat everything you''ve got!" How exactly do I do that? "Just focus on the rat like when you spawned it and pour more mana into the pattern. The Dire Rat will evolve into something else and be your first boss monster." Holly takes a seat on a tiny stone alcove next to the dungeon core where she put her personal quarters, embedded in the ceiling. Pit steels himself and starts infusing the rat. The monster squeaks, then begins glowing. The glow increases and the Dire rat starts rolling and clawing at its'' body, the light obscures the creature completely then both rat and light vanish with a loud popping noise. The Dire rat is replaced with a new, disgusting creature.
Dire Rat King Class G+ Dungeon Boss This evolved Dire Rat has increased strength and intelligence compared to its'' lesser brethren, and typically rules over a nest.
The Dire Rat King stands on two feet like a man, but is only three feet tall. It''s snout is just as full of jagged fangs as the smaller version but it also has long claws on each of its'' nubby fingers. The King''s hairless tail has a squirming gray blob on the end of it which on closer inspection is a mass of regular rats knotted together by their tails. The knotted rats writhe and gnash their teeth endlessly trying to pull themselves free. Holly grimaces at the foul beast from her seat. "I was hoping it would evolve into a Ratling." She pouts. "I suppose the conditions weren''t right for that, they tend to use weapons and armor and you don''t have any real equipment for them. We''ll have to hope this guy can get the job done. Slip your focus into the boss and try moving him around, I''ll go lure the humans in. They probably won''t even make it this far." Holly flits off to the surface and I try to focus on practicing. Slipping into the boss is surprisingly easy, just a matter of moving my viewpoint inside his skull, coordinating his movements is a lot harder. I find after a few false starts that just thinking about what I want the rat to do is easier than trying to use all his limbs myself. Eventually I might be able to take finer control but for now I''ll just direct him in general. Up on the surface Holly keeps her light contained and flutters up to the open window frame of the ruined house above the dungeon entrance. She spots the merchants slowly rising for the day in the early morning light. The fairy takes a deep breath and calls out to the men. "Mommy! Where are you? I''m scared! Help!" She screams with her high-pitched feminine voice, sounding much like a child who perhaps attended a single acting lesson and thought themselves a skilled thespian. Stifling her giggles she zips through a gap in the floorboards and waits expectantly. "You hear that?" One of the men says cautiously. "Of course I heard that you imbecile." Another replies, "Do you think I''m deaf?" "Why would a kid be out here?" A third voice chimes in followed the sound of a meaty slap. "What did I do?" "That''s for being an even worse idiot than Rafaam! It''s not a kid, and we were supposed to hear it! You''re lucky I hired you for your strong backs for your heads are surely full of rocks!" The second man speaks again. "Hamal, watch the carts, everyone else with me. Let''s go see where this ''kid'' got to." "Yes, Hadiq." The one named Hamal says sullenly as the men stomp over towards the ruined house. Holly quivers with excitement and calls out again. "Down here! Hurry, please!" She cries flying into the archway. "Don''t rush me, damned voice!" Hadiq replies. "I''ll fall for your trap at my own pace thank you kindly!" "It''s... uh... not a trap?" "And you''re no actor! Enough with the ventriloquism. Pah!" The first two men down the staircase are musclebound brutes carrying wooden clubs bound with strips of iron and rivets. In the middle of the group is the short fat man Hadiq and a tall skinny beanpole of a merchant. Hadiq has a long dagger drawn while the skinny one carries a curious pole with broken loop of rusty iron on the end lined with barbs. Behind the two merchants is another pair of brutes with clubs. They spread out at the bottom of the basement stair and examine the archway grimly. "Oh how unexpected." Hadiq drawls sarcastically, "A mysterious glowing door! Perhaps we should explore it?" "I don''t know Hadiq, it looks like a dungeon entrance." The skinny man edges back from the door until Hadiq grabs his arm and drags him back. "Of course it''s a dungeon, Rafaam!" He bellows, spittle flying. "I overestimated you! Your brain is not full of rocks but empty entirely! You will hold the torch while we check this place, and try not to piss yourself in fear this time." "Why don''t we just report the dungeon when we get back to the city, the Sultanna will pay us a reward right? Or we could sell the location to Reaver! He''d pay us for it..." Rafaam whines, cringing away from the tubby merchant. "The Sultanna will give us five silver and a note of her appreciation. Reaver might give us a gold mark for our troubles, but even a small core will fetch fifty gold at market. This dungeon wasn''t here two weeks ago when we last stopped, it''s a newborn and no one but us would ever come to this old tomb. An afternoon''s work and we''ll all be rich men." One of Hadiq''s guards produces a lit torch and hands it to Rafaam then forms up in front to begin exploring. Holly flies as quickly as possible to the boss chamber and lands in her alcove. "We might have a problem, Pit." She says gravely. "These men mean to take your core. You''ll have to prove your strength right here and now if we want to stay alive."This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Oh noooo this is too much pressure... The merchant party walks into the first chamber and glances around guardedly, the flickering torchlight makes crazed shadows of the floor and walls with the many mixed plants covering the floor. Hadiq motions his men back and grabs the torch from Rafaam. I wonder for a second if he''s already noticed the rats when he casually tosses it into the brush. The dry desert grass erupts into flame instantly and the three hidden rats squeal in pain and fear, fleeing their hiding places and rushing the men in a mad frenzy. The first rat is met with a stout club to the snout and crumples brokenly. The second ducks past the other guard''s swinging club and sinks his teeth into the man''s boot. The thick leather keeps the rat''s fangs at bay and the guard casually crushes it with his club. Rafaam squeals even louder than the rats and jumps back, jabbing wildly at the ground with his polearm as the third rat charges him. One of his wild jabs snaps the ring around the rat''s midsection, sinking in the barbs and catching it securely. The rat is unable to approach within the range of the pole and ends up running in a circle around Rafaam snapping at any ankle that comes within reach. Hadiq curses at the man as the guards try to smash the maddened rat, eventually succeeding. Oh come on! That was so unfair! Why would you burn all my grass? That was a total bust... I fume silently Hadiq retrieves the torch and trades it to Rafaam, taking away his catch-pole and carrying it himself after sheathing his dagger. The group moves confidently into the corridor after easily dispatching the rats in the same formation they entered. I wait gleefully as they walk right into the tripwire without noticing it, but the lead guards step over it without a care. Maybe it needs to be higher than that?I consider my trap placement then crow with delight as the dumb one Rafaam''s nervous shuffling catches the cord and I hear it snap on the blade. The sandstone brick falls directly on target and smashes into the top of his head where it cracks in two and falls to either side. The skinny merchant howls in pain and drops his torch, clutching his head and stepping in place. Maybe the block needs to be bigger? "Rafaam you idiot! Watch where you''re going! A shame that didn''t open your empty head and let all the stupid out!" Hadiq shouts, helpfully covering the noise of my two ambush rats popping out of the walls behind them. The guards in the rear are too busy chuckling over the merchant''s misfortune to hear the click of claws on tile as the rats run and leap! The two rear guards release pained howls of their own as the ambush rats latch on to the highest target they could reach that wasn''t covered in thick leather, the muscle of the two men''s buttocks. At last human blood is spilled in the dungeon as the two rats get a synchronised taste of dirty human butt. The rat''s instinctual fighting style is to hang on and wiggle to increase the bleeding, which leaves the two guards screaming and swatting at themselves with their clubs to try and dislodge them. After a few dozen strikes, half of which strike the guard more than the rat, they manage to beat the creatures to death. The formation moves forward with the rear guard limping and holding rags to their rear ends to staunch the bleeding, sour looks on their faces. They enter the third chamber and see the tile floors and walls, the red and brown checkerboard pattern revealing the presence of holes if only they knew the signifigance. The squad of four dire rats hisses from across the room and moves restlessly around the floor, waiting for the men to make the first move. They oblige, moving confidently forward until one of the lead guards steps directly on a thin tile and falls on his face with a sickening snap and an angry bellow. The rats take this as their queue to attack and rush the group in two pairs, one pair leaping on the stricken guard while the other two menace the members still standing. One of the rats manages to latch on to the fallen man''s right shoulder while the other sinks its'' teeth into his left hand. The two rats distracting the party don''t fare as well, as one is neatly caught by Hadiq with the catch-pole and pinned to the ground. The other gets a torch shoved in its'' face and then a crushed skull as the uninjured guard takes advantage of its'' blindness. The rear guard move forward and rescue their fallen ally with a few swift club blows. Hadiq glowers and curses through the entire affair, pushing the captured rat into the tile as it struggles to bite him. Once the other three rats are dealt with the fat man casually crushes the dire rat''s neck under his boot. "Maybe we should go back, Madir has a broken ankle..." One of the injured guards says softly. "Shut up! You see that door ahead? That is the boss room I tell you! These monsters are pathetic, you''ve hurt yourselves far more through clumsiness than they have hurt you!" Hadiq berates the guards, gesturing with the catch-pole. Rude. I thought the rats were doing okay for how few there are. The guard with the broken ankle is left propped against the wall outside the boss room as the others go inside. I wish now that I had a few more ambush rats hidden somewhere to finish him off while the others are busy. If I live through this maybe I''ll put in a few somewhere for this situation. The remaining merchants enter my boss room and look around nervously. The plants in this room are green and verdant, so burning them won''t work this time. My Rat King is crouches in some bushes to their right, waiting for an opening. I slip into his brain and watch from his perspective among the grass. Suddenly the lead guard cries out and falls into a split position, his voice rising a few octaves. One of my Dire worms grabbed his foot and yanked it forward, giving me the opportunity I needed. I explode out of the brush with my claws extended to either side and my mouth agape towards my closest target, one of the injured rear guard. I dodge beneath his clumsy swipe and claw open his arm from elbow to wrist with my claws. He falls back screaming and drops his club as he clutches his wounded arm. Before I can press the attack the other rear guard and Rafaam charge me, the disorienting flare of the torch floods my vision and the guard''s iron bound club blasts the breath out of my lungs when it catches me in the stomach. The guard rears back to crush my skull with his second strike and in desperation I have the boss activate his special attack. The rat king''s tail whips forward and a small magic pulse releases the swarm of knotted rats on the end, showering angry rodents on the two men which bite and claw wildly at anything they can reach. The ones that fall off run in every direction attempting to climb and bite the other humans. The resulting chaos is so hilarious that I forget to pay attention to my surroundings right up until Hadiq snaps the catch-pole around my rat king''s throat. I yank away from him, taking the pole with me but the barbs are stuck fast and I pull the collar off with my clumsy paws. The long pole drags on the ground, tripping me up as I try to get away. Meanwhile the fallen guard has managed to stand up and is holding two Dire worms by the ends and smashing them against the dirt floor, while they were able to trip him they weren''t strong enough to stay in the ground when he pulled his feet up with them still attatched. He swings them like flails at the swarming rats, adding to the chaos of the battle. I try to charge Hadiq with the rat king but trip slightly over the catch-pole and he stumbles out of my way. I find myself facing down the furious rear guard covered in small rat bites, his first blow shatters my left shoulder and knocks me away before my teeth can find flesh. While I scramble to get up the guard with the wounded arm stomps heavily on my tail and I fall on my belly. The guardsmen circle around my prone form and the Rat King meets his ignoble end by their clubs and boots, leaving little more than a flattened pelt and shattered bone. The merchants glance around warily, breathing heavily from exertion, but all of them frustratingly alive. Hadiq smiles broadly and motions to his comrades "You see? No problem." He chuckles. The other men just glare at the only member of their company with no injuries. "Now we take the dungeon core and it''s an early retirement for us all." Hadiq and the others start to glance around the room and Rafaam is the first to look up. "Is that it?" He says, lifting his torch. "Yes! Yes!" Hadiq cheers. "The one in the ceiling, way out of reach?" "Yes! Yes... wait." Hadiq stops dancing, scowls, spits on the ground as his face grows redder by the second. "Cursed son of a rundown brothel! Stupid idiot dungeon! Why is it way the abyss up there?!" He places his hand on his forehead and takes a deep breath. "Fine... fine. We''ll sell the location to Reaver. Is there anything in this shithole worth taking?" Looking around he spots the Rafaam plucking dates from one of the trees and shoving them into his mouth. The skinny man stops when he sees Hadiq looking and laughs nervously. Hadiq stomps over and snaps one of the dates out of his hand. He examines it and then pops it into his mouth. He freezes in place for a long moment and then starts laughing hysterically. "Candied dates!" He shouts, throwing one of the sweet fruits at a guard. "What great and wonderful treasure the rats have for us! A tree that grows dates already candied. Pah!" He spits and throws the remainder of the fruit on the ground. "Take whatever you can find, I''ve seen rat tails on sale in apothecaries so we might get a few coins for those. Someone drag Madir back to the carts. Let''s go." The men exit the boss room quickly to find Madir slumped against the wall lifelessly. Two Dire worms are still gnawing on his throat as I told them to ignore the boss fight and finish him off once they started beating my rat king to death. I figured they wouldn''t change the outcome of the fight and I hoped to salvage something from this disaster. It''s lucky they didn''t think to bring a ladder and that I thought vaulted ceilings really brought the room together. And you said the dome was a waste of space "I stand corrected, of course real adventurers are a bit harder to stump than a bunch of baseline human merchants." Holly says as we watch the dispirited traders exit the dungeon, stopping to collect dire rat tails as they go. "How are your mana levels?" I''ve got a lot, I think my capacity went up again when my worms ate that guy. I can feel my crystal brimming with energy again, though almost half feels like it just came back from all my dead monsters. The two dire worms were the only survivors of the dive. The energy I got from the guardsmen has a different flavor than my own energy coming back in. "Perfect. It wasn''t the cleanest first dive I''ve ever seen but it''s a start. We''ll have to expand immediately to be ready for the arrival of the guild. Those men will no doubt inform the authorities and we''ll have a guild assessment team in here to rate you. I wonder who this Reaver they mentioned was? A high-ranking guild member I would assume." Holly muses. Ugh... can''t we take a break? We''ve been working non-stop for days... "No rest for the wicked, Pit." Holly cheers, "You can''t afford to stop evolving if you want to stay alive as a dungeon. We''ve still got a lot of subjects to cover before the guild gets here, this is where it really starts to get complicated." Noooooo... I wanna be lazy instead.... Seven of Swords I feel a bit stuffed with all of my monsters reabsorbed and the high quality energy from the first human death so I waste no time starting my renovations. My range of influence has increased by nearly a half what it was before, and I find that I can fit a third chamber and a second corridor on the outer edges of my central boss dome. All the plants in my first room got burned away, and that room was a bit of a failure anyway, so I move all the rat fodder into my center dome and tile over the other rooms and corridors. The foot trap room was my most successful chamber so my three normal rooms will be variations on that design. In the first room I make side tunnels hidden by thin tiles where my rats will be hiding. In the center of the room I sink a large pitfall trap covered by more thin tile. Adventurers will have to inch along the side tiles to get across the room, right next to my ambush rat holes. The tunnels lead to the bottom of the pit so that the rats can swap sides or swarm anyone that falls into the pit. I get the feeling I''ll be able to double the amount of mana I spend on monsters so I place enough hollows for six rats to hide in this room. In the corridor my first attempt at increasing the size of my falling block trap fails as the heavier stone snaps the cord under its own weight. I try setting it up with thread copied from the dead man''s clothes and find it is a bit sturdier than the plant fibers I used before. It''s also a bit thinner and harder to see. I remember to move it up closer to knee height where people won''t be as likely to step over it on accident. The new block has a solid core of iron copied from the club''s bindings with a thin sandstone tile to make it blend in with the ceiling. On impulse I set up a second tripwire further down the hallway but place the falling block a few feet behind the trigger. If someone triggers that one they will hit the people following behind them, or someone triggering the trap with a pole. Suddenly the first tripwire snaps again and drops the block. I seethe in frustration as I coax everything back into its'' proper place and thicken the cord again. It''s a delicate balance but at least these heavier blocks have a chance at killing someone as they fall. I hollow out a space at neck height along both walls large enough for my rats to run around in and leave thin tile over the entire length. I poke tiny holes every few inches for the rats to see through so that they will jump out at their targets rather than entering the corridor and attacking from behind. The Dire rats have persistence but their killing potential isn''t very high unless they can snag something vital or have the advantage of numbers. I go ahead and spawn two rats in the wall spaces to test out how well they can see and move around inside. I realize the walls of my outer rooms all border my central dome, so I add more rat holes going from the tunnels in the corridor and the pit in the first chamber to the edges of the dome. My rats will be able to go their for food as well as reinforcing one another if I need to move my forces around. I leave the second room basically the same with foot traps scattered throughout but I add some soft dirt underneath where I can place some Dire Worms. It will probably be pretty hard to get someone out of the foot trap with a dire worm holding on to his ankle, and they can always crawl up through the openings to fight if I need them to. In the second corridor I put another falling block trap and a dummy tripwire with a pitfall trap on the other side. By this point I think adventurers will be good at spotting them but they might be dumb enough to start jumping over them and right into the pitfall. I decide to put my ambush rats in the ceiling this time to avoid repeating the first corridor, they will expect them at neck height again, so I just put iron spikes at the bottom of the pit. Looking at it I decide to add the spikes to my first pitfall as well. You can never make a pitfall too deadly after all. I feel a twinge as the false walls in my first corridor break and hear loud squeaking. My viewpoint blurs as I zip over but I only find my two ambush rats already dead. Both of them killed by a single stab through the skull after they leapt out at something. Holly! Are you exploring the corridor? "Hmm? I''m right here, Pit." She says, poking her head out of her small home next to my crystal. "Is something wrong?" Something killed my rats, there''s someone in the dungeon. I let my senses wash through all the space I control, searching for the intruder. At the same time I throw mana into the pattern for the rat king. The loathsome beast pops into existence quickly but I keep spawning dire rats as fast as I can. "Pit, there can''t be anyone in the dungeon. As soon as you started remodelling the mana barrier would force out any humans or animals that were in here." Holly looks nervous, glancing down at my assembled host. "I know you''ve had a scare but if something was here you wouldn''t be able to move the walls." Whoever''s here... I''m not letting them get away... The rats scatter into their tunnels to help me look. Whatever killed the rats I wasn''t able to sense it before, but they jumped out before they died. A flash of mana jumps back into my crystal as a rat in the second corridor expires. I think myself there instantly but again miss catching the intruder. I respawn the dead rat back in the core chamber, since nothing is preventing me from spending the mana as it returns. One of the rats below squeaks a challenge and starts jumping at the base of the wall, the other rats are attracted by the noise and start looking up as well. Clinging to the ceiling, halfway up the dome below me, is a flowing shadowy smudge. Like a hole in the ground that got up for a walk its'' all consuming blackness traces an amorphous blob against my dim walls. The rats leap with all their might but can''t reach the shadow which turns away from them and glides smoothly up towards my core. Holly! Holly what is that?!This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. "I... I don''t know!" She screams as the shadow beast extends a limb towards me. It brushes its'' tip against my surface and I recoil in revulsion. Much to my surprise the stone reacts, pushing the beast away with a rapidly growing pillar of sandstone. It pushes off the pillar and floats in the air then whips around, stabbing with two limbs at my core. Desperately I draw the sandstone around me in a shield, the twin impacts knocking craters out of the material like it was rotten wood. I push my viewpoint down and enter my Dire Rat King, immediately snagging the nearest rat by the tail I spin it in a circle and throw! The rat sails through the air and is intercepted by a lashing tentacle which shatters the poor creature''s spin and smashes it to the floor. The shadow beast descends towards my boss casually as my minions swarm it. Stabbing limbs make quick work of the rats that get within range, one of them manages to bite one of the appendages but it just swings the rat around and smashes it against the floor. I don''t stand idly while it shreds my army, rushing the monster the rat king whips his tail forward and unleashes the rat swarm, covering the beast in frenzied biting vermin. I feel their teeth cracking as they try to bite through the hard carapace but the beast seems equally distressed, struggling to scrape them off its body without being able to use its full strength. With the beast distracted I exit my boss and focus on the ceiling, making a large block of iron above it and removing the surrounding stone, it strikes the body of the monster with an extremely loud crack, snapping something on its body and painting it with the viscera of a dozen crushed rats that were on top of its'' body. It darts forward and impales the rat king through the eye so quickly I don''t even register the movement before the king is dead, then makes a break for the corridor. Oh no you don''t, you''re not leaving! You''re mine now! I think as I focus on my entrance tunnel, quickly pinching the walls together to seal off any chance of escape. As the last ray of light closes the creature reaches the hall and smashes into the flowing stone with all six of its'' spear-like limbs. I reel in agony, feeling my stone body shatter under the force of the blow. I reach for more stone, trying to crush the creature before it can dig through, a battle I am quickly losing as the monster''s rear limbs easily shatter my pillars and gouge chunks out of the encroaching walls. Light appears as it manages to punch a small hole to the outside. In my despair at losing again I almost fail to notice a familiar feeling. I realize that I''m beginning to feel the creature, not how I would feel an intruding human or animal, but the way I feel the stones and the sands of my home. I can feel something similar to pottery, copper, hot sand and a strange tingling yellow energy. It''s not the mana that I eat but something that feels right to me. I reach out to the energy and watch in amazement as a bolt of lightning erupts from inside the monster''s shell and is absorbed by my walls. The monster drops to the ground, unmoving. I don''t know if I can call it dead since I never sensed any life from it in the first place. I feel Holly poking at the shield back in my boss room and I open it for her. She flies out and joins me in the entrance corridor, examining the thing. "How very strange... Pit can you feel its'' core?" Holly asks as she hefts one of the monster''s limbs with her tiny arms. "Every monster has a core, if you absorb it you should get a bunch of mana and the pattern to make more of these." It doesn''t have any mana. It''s made of pottery and metal and... lightning? Do you know how I did that? "Some kind of golem then? The second part is easy enough, your natural elemental affinity is lightning, a combination of fire and wind affinity. I hadn''t planned on going over elemental affinities until we had some minions capable of magic, but with your affinity you will be able to make and manipulate lightning for some of your traps, and your minions will share that affinity and use basic lightning spells if you ever make mage rats or something similar." She peers through the large crack in the top of the creature. "I''ve never known a golem to be powered by elemental energy rather than mana and runes. Most people won''t send golems into dungeons anyway, without souls they don''t have any protections from your power. You could..." Holly slaps herself in the head. "Pit, you could have absorbed it from the beginning! It was never alive!" Well how was I supposed to know that? "I''m sorry, that is my fault. From now on you should probably try to absorb anything that comes in just in case. Sometimes adventurers drop things or put them down, and it''s a good habit to be in to punish them for letting things out of their reach. Now absorb this thing, it''s made of some weird stuff that might have some uses in the dungeon." Holly steps off the carcass and flies back towards my boss room. I mentally shrug and tell all the monster''s parts to go into my core where I keep any item I don''t want to have around right now. Polycarbonate high-tensile carbon fiber microtransistor motherboard solid state drive flash memory ferrofluid cursed lich-coin non-newtonian impact gel radio transmitter radar beacon global positioning uplink thermal camera mining laser dagger of septic wounds rapid access memory central processing unit A torrent of information from the monster floods my awareness, flashes of understanding for hundreds of individual parts as well as dozens of samples stored in an interior compartment. Faced with the overwhelming amount of knowledge my mind shuts down and the world spirals into darkness. Eight of Pentacles "Pit! Pit are you in there?" I hear a soft voice, far away, distorted like its'' underwater. Every facet of my being aches. "Please be okay..." Again, nearer this time, I begin to see again but all around me is endless blackness and... rats, floating in emptiness. Where did the walls go? "Pit!" Holly gently touches the sides of my core and I see her face as she pulls herself to my viewpoint. "You''re upside down, silly. You gave me quite a scare, shaking everything like that! What''s gotten into you?" Lots of stuff I guess... The probe was full of so much new stuff... shaking? I swivel my view up the right way again and notice my boss room doesn''t look the same as I remember. The floor is smooth and darkly reflective, like a sheet of polished obsidian. It takes me a few seconds to reconcile what I''m seeing with what my dungeon sense is telling me about the room, the walls are there but I can''t see them at all. I coated them completely in the weird stuff vantablack all terrain hydrophobic sealant that was covering the probe I absorbed. "I went back to my chambers while you were absorbing the golem and then you went quiet and made some modifications. I''ve been trying to talk to you for hours but you didn''t seem to hear me. So it was called a probe you say? I wonder what its'' rank was..." Holly pulls up her blue window and tweaks a few threads of mana, tapping into my dungeon information. She gasps and looks over at me. "Pit! Check your monster patterns, this is unprecedented."
Unlocked Archetypes Available Units
Insect Dire Worm: Class G monster with rapid breeding and evolution. Capable of burrowing and sensing movement through vibrations in the soil. Blind and deaf otherwise. Amphista: Class G+ monster with rapid breeding and evolution. These two headed dire worms are extremely sensitive to vibrations, allowing them to sense prey through soil as well as air pressure. By eating with one head they can pressurize and fire projectiles from the opposite end.
Animal Dire Rat: Class G monster with quick breeding and moderate evolution. Posesses sharp teeth and a good sense of smell. Capable of fighting in groups. Dire Rat King: Class G+ Dungeon Boss. This evolved Dire Rat has increased strength and intelligence compared to its'' lesser brethren, and typically rules over a nest. Ratling: Class F- monster with moderate breeding and moderate evolution. The first evolutionary step of the Rat beastman path, these primitive humanoids are intelligent and dexterous, able to make and use crude weapons and tools. They are cowardly, prefer to fight in groups, and are infamous for their underhanded tactics.
Undead Bone Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Able to perceive life force and fight in groups. Plague Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Possesses sharp teeth and natural poison. Enemies bitten have a chance to contract the Plague, debiliting all stats until cured and dealing damage over time. Zombie: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Mindless and hungry, these undead can only receive the most basic of instructions but have great strength and durability. Skeleton: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Skeletons are simple undead capable of using weapons and armor, though their bones are brittle and easily snapped by blunt weapons.
Automaton Probe: Class ??? artifice. Unable to breed, unable to evolve. This advanced technological servant is not of this world.
Dungeon skill unlocked! Grafting: Through advanced understanding of biology and engineering you now have the ability to edit monster patterns using parts from other patterns you have unlocked.
"A monster with an unknown class rating. I''ve never heard of anything like it. Everything made by gods or men has a rating, but the description says it isn''t from our world at all. This is so unbearably exciting!" Holly zips a quick circle around my crystal giggling happily. "You''ve also unlocked your first dungeon skill, and it''s another one that I''ve never heard of. Usually your first would be something like arcane knowledge so you can teach your monsters magic, or a crafting skill so you can make your own equipment rather than having to copy stuff people bring in." How do I get dungeon skills, other than this one? "Dungeon skills are condensed knowledge gained from absorbing something that contained that knowledge. Humans are no good for it since they have to die first, and you can''t get their knowledge after they expire. Once you eat your first spellbook you should pick up arcane knowledge from it, and the skill will increase in rank if you get more advanced spellbooks later." The probe had something inside it, not a book, but like a block of metal with lots of numbers inside it. It hurts to try to think about it all but I think it knew a lot of things about bodies and how they fit together, and also about machines. I wonder if I can make one of them... I focus on the pattern of the probe and immediately realize it is ridiculously intricate. The monsters I make are actually very simple on the inside, I make the outside look right and my mana just fills in the rest with appropriate parts. The Probe''s pattern has thousands of tiny grooves and wires that need to be exactly right. I can feel the gulf of emptiness inside the pattern, more than I''ve ever held in my life several times over. I would need to be a lot stronger than I am now to spawn one of these, though I can feel the original broken one still in my center with the other items I have absorbed. Making another one is no good, too expensive. Maybe I can fix the other one someday. "Please warn me first if you do. I don''t want to be anywhere near that thing if you get it up and moving again." Holly clears her throat and scrolls through my available patterns. "Why don''t we try editing some of your monsters instead? That might be fun." Trying to use the grafting ability I find that I can hold two patterns open at the same time and that different pieces of them pop off when I focus on them. I try switching a rat''s head for one of its'' arms and the pattern goes all spiky feeling, I know it won''t work if I try to fill it with mana. My new ratlings are very promising as I look over their pattern, skinnier than my Dire Rat King but with much more human like hands and legs. they can stand upright much easier and hold things in their paws. I try doubling the number of limbs they have, or giving them long claws. The feeling of how the pattern will work changes each time I move something but none of them seem like improvements. All of my rat type monsters are too similar to move parts around with any real effect, the worms don''t actually have many parts and putting the worm head on the rat body makes a monster way too gross to look at in addition to being really stupid and uncoordinated. I can make the rat''s wormy tail into a literal worm, but the worm doesn''t work together with the rat.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Inspiration strikes and I pull up the expensive probe pattern. Those tentacles were crazy strong and destructive when it was using them to smash through my walls, but also flexible. I can see how the long tube is full of thin coils of copper wire and pockets of ferrofluid made up of tiny iron particles floating in oil, the surface is woven from very strong threads of carbon. I pull one of the tentacles off the pattern and dismiss the rest then try to figure out how to combine it with my rats. Just lopping off the tail and sticking it on is no good, it doesn''t connect to the rat''s mind. I know those copper coils need to receive commands from the brain to make it work, so I try connecting them to the nerves in the rat''s tail and wrapping the new structure around the rat''s spine. I keep tweaking the pattern until I get something that feels right, resulting in a Dire Rat with a slightly fatter black tail. A pulse of my lightning energy causes it to extend to twice its'' length, and another pulse in the right place can make it stiffen like an iron bar, or a spear with the sharp tip I shape the end into. I spawn the new rat and tell it to attack one of the old versions. SCHWIPTHACK The rat''s new tail snaps to full extension and punches straight through the normal Dire Rat''s side with a loud crack, punching an inch into my new glossy floor. The older version rat squeaks once in surprise and then dies. I shoo the rat away and repair the damage quickly, reabsorbing the dead rat. The rat''s tail remains extended, slowly shrinking back to the fatter state it spawned in with. It seems the version I made is simple enough for the rat to use but takes time to reset afterwards.
Updated Archetype New Units
Automaton Cybrat: Class F- monster with special breeding (produces standard Dire Rats as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded rat is equipped with a powerful weapon replacing its'' tail.
The new tail seems to be a big enough change to qualify as a new monster type, as well as a significant increase in power. Since the cybrat seems suited to ambush tactics I grab the vantablack coloring and find I can easily dye the monster''s fur and skin with the pigment. It''s actually kind of terrifying to look at with the shadowy black blob look and the long stabbing tail. I update the pattern with my changes and move on to my new rat types. The work from the dire rat mostly transfer over so I graft the cybrat tails on to my rat king and ratlings resulting in two more update messages.
Updated Archetype New Units
Automaton Cybrat King: Class F Dungeon Boss. This cunning cybernetic warrior is enhanced with a powerful stabbing tail that doubles as a catapult for flinging its'' rat swarm Cybratling: Class F monster with special breeding (produces standard Ratlings as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded Ratling uses technology to augment its'' dirty fighting style
The only weapons I have for my ratlings are clubs and catch-poles, the ratlings aren''t really built for strength so I decide to give them all polearms which I also coat with the vantablack. It costs very little mana to change the color of things, and I think it will make them more dangerous if they are harder to see. I spawn four Cybratlings and equip them with satisfaction, very fearsome looking. One of the milling ratlings manages to get its'' head stuck in a catch-pole it couldn''t see and soon all three and snapping at each other and tripping over their dropped weapons. Maybe making everything hard to see is a bit much... I add plain iron bands to the catchpole handles so the rats can see where to grab them and direct the ratling squad to guard the third room that I hadn''t finished before. I spawn my new Cybrat King in the boss room and fill the nooks of my other chambers with the appropriate numbers of Cybrats. My mana stores strain and I realize the cybrats are more expensive than their unupgraded kin so I have to cut down my projected numbers. I keep the first room at six since that is only going to be cybrats and they need the advantage of numbers. Only one cybrat goes in each of the corridors and I reduce the rats in the second chamber back to four from the planned eight, but I place three of my new Amphista in the dirt underneath with pockets of oil within reach of their second heads. The Amphista will be able to suck it up and spit it at adventurers to distract or blind them while the rats stab them with their new tails. Once they run out of oil they will just try to bite anything in the room. In the new third room will be my Cybratlings and the first panels of vantablack outside the boss chamber. Starting from the doorway the checkerboard pattern starts to alternate brown tiles with vantablack. The second half of the floor alternates vantablack tile squares with holes that are painted vantablack all the way around. No matter how bright their torches are the empty squares and the vantablack squares look the same, which should make it hard to find their footing. I put nooks on the walls for my Cybratlings to hide in and make the walls and ceiling all vantablack. The squad of three Cybratlings is pushing the limits of how many monsters I can support so they will have to pull their own weight. Holly tells me that a Class G monster should be able to fight one on one with a normal human, while a Class F monster is equal to a beginning adventurer with basic training. The three Cybratlings should be the equivalent of a small squad of starting adventurers. If I can increase my mana reserves I''ll try to put a squad of five in this room later. In my boss chamber I only have the mana for my Cybrat king so I will have to increase his terrain advantage. I put up blocks of stone around the room about two feet square and dig some pitfalls. With everything in the room covered in the vantablack coating it''s really hard to see where anything is unless you can navigate by smell like my rats do. Adventurers will have to be cautious moving around in here but my Cybrat King will have lots of opportunities to jump out and stab someone then hide in the room again. Also since it''s all stone none of it is flammable so no one can just burn up all my hiding places. I realize all my boss room plants are in my storage so I make a small island of earth in the center of the room and place them on it. The circle of plants looks like it is floating in a black void with the way my walls and floor fade into emptiness. My gem is a lot dimmer now that I''ve spent most of my free mana but I feel like a blazing sun as the only source of light in this pitch black room. An image fills my mind, endless fields of stars on a velvet sky, drifting through darkness so far from anything, endlessly searching. I alter the surface of my dome to reflect my vision, poking holes, focusing the glow of my walls. When I finish my work the boss room is a black plain with a tiny island of life under a vast starry sky. Thousands of twinkling lights make it seem like I''m in an enormous open space and I''m the sun in the center of it all, blazing with light far far away. Holly sits on the branches of my date palm and together we gaze at it in wonder. I''ve never seen the sky but the probe knew it like an old friend so now I have my own sky. I wonder what it was looking for beyond the stars? Why did it come so far just to meet its end inside me? Maybe I''ll never know... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- High above the world an ancient machine is examing the last logs of a lost probe over and over, looking for any tiny detail it may have missed. None of the damage it received should have been enough to disable it and the defenses didn''t seem capable of doing enough damage quickly enough that 100 wouldn''t have reported it before being destroyed, yet somehow the probe is gone in an instant, complete system failure. The damage reports for Probe 99 are considered for a moment, the two probes were supposed to gather so they could repair one another, but with only one probe that won''t be possible. Half of its'' total resources are gone, the remaining probe has a cracked casing, a missing limb and damage to its'' sensor suite. In total there is only one thing the AI can say about it''s current situation. [I''M SO SCREWED] The remaining probe stays to the edges of the desert town to gather whatever information it can. If 100 can be retrieved and repaired the AI still has a chance to complete its'' mission, it just has to figure out how to destroy the facility to do it. Flop For the next several days Holly walks me through the finer points of running a dungeon. We spruce up the entrance door with some inlaid designs from my star chart, and add lights to the first chamber and entrance corridor. Another design from the probe gives me a light that runs of lightning magic which I embed in the walls along the top of the corridor. The most important thing she teaches me is how to portion out loot. "Loot is the collective name for the rewards a dungeon gives to adventurers for defeating monsters." Holly explains. "The drive to earn loot is the most important motivating factor that keeps humans coming to your dungeon." So what kind of things should I give out? Do humans like sand? "Humans like gold, silver and copper. In that order." Holly scoffs. "They also like weapons, especially enchanted ones. They will take just about anything in the hopes it might be valuable, but giving out good loot sparingly is important for a healthy dungeon-town relationship. If you give too much, really strong adventurers might show up and just take over, you only want to give out enough to entice the adventurers near your level. What kind of metals do you have available for transmutation?" Let''s see... copper, silver, gold, iron, tungsten-carbide, aluminum, palladium- "Hold a moment, when did you get a sample of gold? and I don''t even recognize those last three" Holly scrolls through something on her magic screen. The probe has all of those things inside it, usually only a little bit of each though. There''s also tin, zinc, neodymium, cobalt... "Those must be useful for something, but for now just make the gold, silver and copper coins. One of your cybrats is only worth five to ten copper coins, the cybratlings might be a silver. For the boss give five silver, and every once in a while a single gold piece. In the kingdoms around here a gold piece is worth ten silver coins, and a silver is worth one hundred coppers. If they kill the worms you can throw them a few extra coppers." So I just give out coins? "No, that''s just the basics. You will also want to give them equipment unique to your dungeon. Try grabbing one of the weapon patterns you have and combining it with a monster pattern." All I have is the club and the catch-pole so I try combining the club with my Dire rat pattern. The result is a somewhat battered looking club bound with leather strips instead of iron. The Ratcatcher Cudgel gives a small bonus to dexterity and increases damage on sneak attacks. Since I''m not actually using my basic Dire Rats anymore I try the combination again using the Cybrat pattern instead, creating something much more interesting. Jet black. Slow ripples moving across its'' surface. The Cybrat Suppressor gives a much larger bonus to sneak attacks and can be activated with mana, causing it to sprout shiny black spikes which cause bleeding and slashing damage instead of bludgeoning. Combining the Cybratling with the catchpole creates a Cybrat Abductor, which can extend like the cyberntic rat tails to nearly twice their normal length before slowly reeling back in. I tweak both the Suppressor and the Abductor with different metals and find that the tungsten-carbide works well for the tips and striking surface while aluminum makes a high quality handle. The basic Cybrats will have a chance to drop the Suppressor while the Cybratlings will drop the Abductor. The Cybrat King will have a chance to drop either one. I try to combine his pattern with a weapon and just get weird stuff like cudgels that break into lots of pieces when activated and a catchpole with way too many hooks on the end. I do practice runs dropping loot for my various monsters for a few days before Holly comes back from her daily flight to give me exciting news. The merchant caravan is headed back our way, and they brought a lot of friends with them. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Hadiq the merchant, often called Hadiq the Heartless, rides at the head of the caravan as is his right. One of the guards rides with him while the others ride with his two porters on the other two carts in his small train. He glares sullenly at the camels pulling him through the desert, trying not to look back at the others following in his wake. It took two days to cross the desert and arrive in Antakya, one of the three large cities along the coast of the Sultanate, and then three days of waiting for Reaver to meet with him. The slaves crammed into the cage behind him whine and cry incessently, just adding to the pounding headache behind his eyes. Hadiq glances back and quickly averts his eyes after spotting the man called Reaver, reclining in the cusioned seat atop his camel. A northerner by his reddish brown hair and pale skin, he is influential in the Sultanate underworld of the Dark Guilds. The fat merchant has had many dealings with Reaver''s guild in the past, transporting slaves into the Dead Kingdoms on his behalf. Hearing about the new dungeon he insisted on accompanying Hadiq on his next trip to the north to check it out. Two days of travel in the man''s company is the source of his headache, due to the man''s general instability and power. Behind the merchant''s carts a column of motley soldiers slog through the sand with great determination. As the lowest ranked initiates of the Sand Vipers guild Reaver ordered them to come along for the purposes of training. Midway through the first day of marching one of them asked for a rest. Reaver killed him on the spot and ordered the rest to continue at a run until he told them to stop. Three more fell to exhaustion on the second day of marching while two were caught complaining too loudly. Reaver told him to expect at least ten to "drop out" before they make it to the oasis, but the dogged pace of the remaining recruits shows a drive to prove him wrong. There are forty-four recruits in the group, along with Reaver and his team of three lieutenants, and a cart of their own with four servants and assorted luggage. Reaver''s team are nearly as terrifying and unpredictable as their leader. Magnus, son of Magnus, a great bear of a man wrapped in a fur cloak despite the heat and carrying his spiked shield and axe. Hadiq has been told Magnus is from a tribe the northerners call northerners (though they call themselves southerners, and that is patently ridiculous), with hair the color of flax and pale blue eyes. Despite his brutish stature the warrior is incredibly vain and carries a hand mirror so he can catch any hair out of place and touch up his war paint. The second on Reaver''s team is Jelai, a woman of the Sultanate, and a skilled Wood Mage. Her appearance is a mystery as she is covered head to toe with woven straw painted with tiny runes, hung about with hundreds of satchels containing seeds and powders. Any mage is bound to be a bit cracked in the head but Jelai''s tendancy to whisper to her potted bonsai tree is unsettling to say the least. The third and final member is a dark skinned man from Nuba named Vulutussiranamaa, though the others always refer to him as Vulu rather than risk mangling his name and earning his ire. Vulu is soft spoken and comparatively normal looking with his plain peasant clothing, but his single-minded obsession with training his body means he has little interest in associating with the others in camp. He carries no weapon and wears no armor. Reaver (the only name he will give) is, as mentioned, a northerner with reddish brown hair, cropped short on the side where a large scar cross his skull from brow to the base of his neck. He shaves his face but for his large mustache, the tips waxed and curled into two sharp points. From his clothes and grooming many have thought him a dandy at first, his scar and his weapon the only sign of a dangerous man. Indeed Reaver is friendly and gregarious to everyone he meets, right up until he shoves a knife through your ribs for an insult. His fencing rapier doesn''t seem like a weapon suited for a dungeon delver but before forming a dark guild he was a rank C adventurer, more than capable of killing everyone else in the caravan at once in a straight fight. His lieutenants were never officially ranked by the guild but Reaver claims they are the equivalent of D-rank guild members, verging on C. Hadiq urges the camels faster as the oasis ruins come into view. As the merchant train and the wearing recruits make their way into the ruins a far off shadow observes them from its'' hiding place among the dunes. Reaver stands from his camel and happily turns to his guild members with a broad smile. "Well my little fishies you''ve impressed me!" He beams, "I expected at least a few more of you to pop your clogs on the way in. Well done. Vulu, Magnus, Jelai, we''re going in now. The rest of you have an hour until we get back, there had better only be forty of you left or I''ll pick the dropouts myself. Remember fishies, only the strong survive. Impress me!" The guildmaster skips merrily down the steps with his team in tow as the tired recruits draw their weapons and eye one another warily. Hadiq sighs and tries to direct his caravan as far away from the impending carnage as possible. Turn A motley assortment of adventurers stand in a dim basement looking pensively at my entrance passage. The wood mage, Jelai, kneads a dim green light into one of her seed satchets and places it on top of her cylindrical straw hat. In a few moments it sprouts into a delicate glowing dandelion the size of a melon. Reaver stares at the door, both his index fingers over his lips. He lowers them. Raises them again. "You don''t recognize it." Vulu says flatly. "What? Don''t be- pffft." The guildmaster waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the door. "Of course I know what it is, Vulu. Vulu, my dear friend, how could you say such an unkind thing? But I''m sure Magnus is clueless, so explain it to him, right Magnus?" "They''re constellations" Magnus calls from further down the corridor. "I knew that." Reaver draws his blade and marches my first corridor, Vulu and Jelai trailing him. "Obviously they''re stars. Hadiq didn''t mention the doors, so unless an Astrologian wandered in over the last week they''re a bit out of place. Ooh I''m so excited, I always love a fresh dungeon." The party moves inside and peers into the seemingly empty room. "Magnus, what did Hadiq say about the first room again?" "Dry grass and big rats." "Well the dungeon updated that already." Reaver shoves Magnus from behind. "Go check it out." The massive barbarian scowls but moves forward cautiously, halfway across the room the tile underneath his boots shatters and he drops straight down out of sight. Four Cybrats rush out of the tunnel and attack the prone adventurer. Roaring he leaps to his feet at the bottom of the pit, two of the Cybrat''s tail strikes stab into his back, one misses and the third hits his right thigh. None of this slows him down and he swings his axe in a devestating arc, slicing off cybernetic tails and burying the blade in one of the rat''s side. His abnormally tough body is covered in small cuts from landing on the iron spikes, but they weren''t able to penetrate his flesh very far. Above the pit Reaver clutches his sides and laughs uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face. The last two cybrats smash through the false wall and snap their tails at the man, only to be caught by Vulu. Confusion grips me for a moment as I could have sworn the man was standing several feet behind him. He pulls sharply on both tails and then performs a jumping double snap kick, smashing both rats into a loose cloud of meat chucks, and lands on his palms before smoothly pivoting back to his feet. Magnus climbs out of the pit, grumbling, and I realize he killed the four rats at the bottom while I was distracted. A sudden jingling noise announces the coppers coins spawning from the dead rats. Magnus looks down into the pit and then leaps across to the exit door. "Copper, screw it." He grunts. The other members of the party gather the loot outside the pit and each one leaps nimbly across to the other side, bypassing my safe edge paths. The mage Jelai takes the two cyberntic tails and packs them away in one of her bags. Examining the barbarian Magnus I can see the wounds on his back and leg are shallow, the rats weren''t strong enough to seriously wound him. Moving through the corridor with the traps they spot the tripwire immediately and all step over it one by one. As my ambush rats line up their strikes Reaver suddenly thrusts his blade through the false wall and skewers one of them. The second attacks Jelai, who doesn''t seem to notice as the tail bounces off her straw hat with a hollow noise and a muted flash of green light. Magnus grabs the second rat''s tail and pulls it out of the wall. He examines it with a frown. "Funny looking." The rat tries to swing itself over to bite the man but he smacks it against the wall, stunning it. "Too dark." "You know you''re right. I wonder if the leather would still be that color? These would make fantastic jackets." Reaver grabs the stunned rat and wraps it around his neck like a scarf. "We''d corner the fashion industry, a color darker than black, the vampires would be beside themselves with envy." A quick twist of his hand snaps the rats neck and the body is placed into Jelai''s bag. Already knowing about the false tiles the party cruises through the second chamber without incident, dispatching the rats easily. The Amphistas spew globs of oil but their accuracy against quick moving targets leaves something to be desired. Magnus ends up slimed but otherwise unharmed. I''ll need to think of more dangerous substances for them to spit at people, or pair them with tougher minions. In the second corridor they step over the tripwires again but Vulu grabs Magnus by his cape before he can tumble into the other pit trap. I had the ambush rats pull back before they got here and go to the main dome, repeating the ambush against this group was just a waste of minions.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. In the doorway to the third room the adventurers stop and look at the sudden void with serious expressions. Reaver taps Jelai on the shoulder and she moves forward silently. Shaking her glowing dandelion summons a cloud of glowing spores which swirl into the room, sticking to every surface like an aggressive fungus. The glowing carpet reveals the holes and solid surfaces, but also causes one of my Cybratlings to sneeze. Reaver grins and the party moves forward confidently. The squad of three Cybratlings leap into action. The first ratling''s thrust is parried by Reaver''s blade and he strikes the rat''s chest with the heel of his empty hand, crushing the monster''s ribcage with brutal force. The second and third ratling snap their weapons on to both of Magnus'' arms, but the large man merely grasps the shafts of the weapons and rushes towards the ratlings, pushing them back by their own weapons until they crash into the wall. They fall to the ground stunned and the barbarian dispatches both with careful axe blows. Back in the boss chamber Holly reminds me that the assessment team is way too strong for this dungeon and I shouldn''t be dissappointed by my monster''s performance. I drop a handful of silver coins and one of the abductors which Reaver coos over for a few moments before he tucks it into his belt. Finally the group moves into my boss chamber. I keep the King and his two ambush rats pulled back behind the blocks. Jelai shakes her dandelion again spreading spores through the room. Reaver, Magnus and Vulu examine my star chart dome and I move my King forward cautiously. "Well this sure is a hell of a room, wouldn''t you say- Bloody mother of Fuck!" Reaver screams as I launch my rat swarm from cover, showering him and Magnus with angry rodents. Vulu sidesteps neatly and strides towards my King''s hiding place. I pull back further into the room and send my ambush rats to circle around. As they reach the back line Jelai throws a seed packet towards them, which bursts into rapidly growing vines and entangles them both. I rush at the unarmed warrior with my King in a quick three hit combo of claw swips and a tail spear. He dodges both swipes and parries the tail without any expression on his face and delivers a single straight punch to my boss'' forhead. My viewpoint shoots out of the deceased rodent and back to my core. Sourly I drop loot for the fight, a gold coin, a handful of coppers, and a Cybrat Suppressor. The rat swarm from my king collectively keels over and dies as soon as the king is killed and the slightly ruffled adventurers meet up on my planter island to examine the loot. "Well that was horribly uncomfortable." Reaver says with a chipper smile. "What''dya say? High F? Not a G that''s for sure. Still a bit small but this place would eat Hadiq and his men alive if they came in here now." "Middle F, maybe." Vulu counters. He and Magnus are stuffing their faces with candied dates while Jelai examines each plant on the island. "It has potential." "Fair enough, and don''t you worry my little dungeon core." Reaver looks straight up at my crystal high above. "We''re gonna fatten you right up, brought all sorts of goodies for you. Jelai, the stuff!" The mage pulls out a dozen small satchels and tosses them to Reaver who checks them one by one and spreads them out on the ground. "Brought you all the basics, Fisstech, Dreamvine, Denner resin, some very entertaining mushrooms. Feel free to make as much as you like." Reaver takes a small bag off his belt, opens it, and pulls out a full sized longsword. Despite the sack only being a few inches deep he also produces a fine steel knife, a bow and quiver of arrows, a full set of leather armor, a chainmail shirt, a floppy hat with a large plume, a pair of steel boots, gauntlets, a wooden staff, a wand, and a leather bound book. All of this equipment is left lying on the island in a heap and the adventuring party march back towards the exit. Wow! They were so nice! I''m glad the adventurers are finally here. "Pit something''s wrong." Holly murmurs beside me. "This isn''t how the Adventurer''s Guild operates, and I think all of those substances are illegal in this country." But they were a gift. What does illegal mean? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back above Reaver and party emerge back into the light. The forty recruits are resting nearby, some with minor wounds, still eyeing one another warily. Four corpses are stacked next to a wall. Hadiq and his merchants huddle together around their campfire, ignoring the guild. The guildmaster claps to get everyone attention and waves to the crowd. "So glad to see you can all follow instructions. Starting tomorrow you will be facing the dungeon. Those of you with the strength to be true Sand Vipers will survive, the weak will be culled. Eight groups of five, and don''t go thinking you can mix and match, if your team dies you''ll be facing the dungeon solo until I say otherwise. Group up, fishies!" Reaver turns back to his lieutenants. "The dungeons a solid foundation but if we wait for it to grow up on its'' own we''ll be here for bloody ages. Tomorrow morning grab five slaves and toss ''em in that pit in the first room. We''ll get this baby to 50 floors by midwinter and start raking in the product. I''ll be glad to never go to the Boneyard again if we can swing it." Magnus hefts his sack of candied dates thoughfully. "You sure the dungeon will drop the stuff for us?" "The Boneyard does it for a price, but that crabby old crypt is bloody ancient. Dungeons are smart the way a dog is smart. Just gotta teach it the right way and it''ll get the picture." Reaver laughs heartily and dismisses his companions. The slaves in their carts weep and huddle together in fear. The sun sets and the dungeon grows beneath their feet. River The morning after my assessment the big warrior Magnus comes back down into my dungeon with a couple of weaker humans. Five demi-humans trail behind him, connected at the neck by chain collars. One of them starts sobbing. They pull back from the warrior, yanking on their chains and hanging on to the frame of the door. Magnus doesn''t break stride, he''s too strong for them to slow down, even with all five together. He drags them into the first room, reels the first in by the chain in his hand and throws them into the center of the room. What''s happening?! It''s a man with fluffy dog ears and a tail. He crashes through my thin tile and into the pit. The chain drags the second person to the edge but they brace themselves and stop from falling in. The dog man hangs by his neck, choking a few inches above the spikes. My rats swarm at the signal of the trapdoor breaking, two of them snapping at the dangling man, the others bursting into the room. Holly what''s happening?! I don''t like this! Magnus kicks the second person in the face, knocking her oh gods her, she''s just a kid, oh gods please no into the pit and dropping the first man. The weight of both people pulls the other three forward. I redirect my rats to attack the huge bastard. He laughs and swats the first cybrat away gently, picks up the last person on the line and tosses him in with the others. All the rats. I grab all the rats and swarm up the tunnels out of the pit. I can feel them dying on the spikes, can''t do anything about that. Kill him you worthless vermin. Bite. Stab. Rip and tear. The adventurer snarls and crushes one of my rats underfoot, two more jab their tails into his back from behind. They barely penetrate, the ugly, stupid brute is too tough. I''m not strong enough. I can''t do it. I have the two rats who already used their tail spears brace themselves and have a third jump on top of their backs. My two remaining rats lunge for his ankles, wrap themselves around his boots, stab their tails into his belly. He bellows and stomps to shake them off. My rat pyramid behind him rears up, tossing their top member upward. It lands on his shoulders and immediately strikes with its'' tail, carving a jagged channel across his neck. He snatches the rat off his face and swipes it backwards, smashing both of the rats behind him into the ground. Picks up the rats on his feet. Crushes them in his hands. He''s bleeding and panting as he looks wild-eyed around my first room. "Stupid dungeon. Eat them not me." He mutters as he stomps his way to my exit, leaving five dead bodies in my pitfall. "Pit... You have to calm down." Holly says to me back in the core chamber. "Humans are awful, evil creatures. It''s in their nature to hurt other humans to get what they want. These humans know enough about dungeons to seriously hurt themselves and others..." Why did they do that? "They were feeding you. Humans might not know how dungeons work exactly, but they know you get stronger the more people that die inside you. Those adventurers want you to get stronger so you can make them good stuff and help their guild get stronger. The real Adventurer''s Guild equips and teaches adventurers and let''s them fight you fairly, knowing some will die. It''s a relationship of mutual respect and competition." Holly pinches the bridge of her nose. "This is a Dark Guild, they are trying to accelerate your growth without losing their own members, it''s going to be bad if the local government finds out about us while they are here." I want... I want them to die... I don''t like these people anymore... "That''s good, Pit. Eventually someone is going to find out about the Dark Guild and by extension us. We have to get rid of them before that." Should I not give them the stuff they wanted? "No! Absolutely not. Right now we''re valuable to them because of the drugs and weapons they want, if we don''t make it they''ll take your core and move on." Holly takes a deep breath and brings up her mana window. "No, you have to make the stuff for now. You have to get stronger, while not appearing to get stronger, but you can''t stay completely the same or they''ll know you are faking. You need to get so strong you can kill those humans without them catching on. So let''s get to work." After Holly and I hammer out the basics of the plan I get to work restocking my dungeon, incorporating the new items, and tweaking my setup. I got a lot of mana from the slaves who died, but I also got a lot from the Adventurers who came inside. Holly explains that mana naturally flows from high to low density, but can be restrained by a mana barrier. Living things have a mana barrier on their skin that prevents their mana from leaking out and absorbs mana passively from their environment. Reaver and his friends have a much higher mana density than the open areas of my dungeon so they constantly leak a small amount just hanging around in here. When an adventurer kills one of my monsters it causes a release of mana that spikes the local mana density and can push some mana through their barriers. Unlike dungeons, humans can''t absorb too much mana at once without it affecting their bodies, so they have to kill lots and lots of monsters to keep increasing their internal mana. Eventually weak monsters won''t raise the mana density enough to give them any. Once you increase your maximum mana capacity then you will always absorb mana from the environment back up to that point even if some of it leaks out. I got a lot more mana from Magnus and Jelai than the other two because of injuries and spells respectively, even the objects they left behind had a small amount of mana. My area of influence has increase a lot over the past few days and I have enough mana to support another boss monster, so I push my boss dome further down in and add two new rooms. Now the layout has two chambers with two trap corridors before a new boss chamber on the outer rim of my dungeon. My Cybrat king is getting a little outclassed so he gets to go in that room. After that will be two more chambers with trap corridors and a passage down to my dome where my new boss will be. The Cybrats aren''t cutting it against my enemies now so I retire all of those from my design and replace them with Cybratlings. The first two rooms have a squad of five Cybratlings each armed with three Abductors and two Suppressors. The book Reaver gave me was a basic primer on mana usage. It wasn''t high enough level to give me the Arcane Knowledge skill to make spellcasters, but now I can have the rats use mana on their weapons to activate their properties. All the rats share my lightning affinity and I make an alteration to the weapons to add copper wires going from the iron grip plates to the tips of the abductors. When they pump mana through the weapons a small arc of blue lightning crackles between the tips or electrocutes anything caught in the prongs. It''s not strong enough to kill the cybrats I test it on but it causes pain and numbness. Holly walks me through connecting the weapons to their wielder''s mana form so that they will disappear when they die.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. I alter the Cybrat King''s pattern to have Cybratling hands instead of his claws then give him an abductor. I try combining various other items with his design and eventually hit on an odd combination. The mushrooms Reaver gave me can be combined with the rat swarm, from the pattern I can tell that the small rats will be saturated with a chemical from the plant and it will be absorbed through the skin if they touch or bleed on it. The rat swarm seems a bit less focused with the mushroom in their systems but it might help them be more effective. In the second half of my new dungeon areas I put squads of Cybratlings and back them up with Amphistas. I put small tunnels leading into my second section where a squad of Cybrats will burn large bundles of dreamvine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. The smoke is heavy and tends to settle in the bottom of the room, but judging by how loopy my Cybrats get it should help soften up intruders. I make large resevoirs of the denner resin inside the walls and ceiling with attendant Amphistas. The goopy sap based material is horribly sticky and the Amphistas can generally shoot four blasts of it before getting too gummed up and loopy. After that they drop from the ceiling and try biting. A side effect of consuming so much resin is that they can''t seem to feel pain and move a lot faster than before. Noting that I give each cybratling a small packet of denner resin to swallow once the adventurer''s get closer. The whacked out cybrats consistently outperform their levelheaded compatriots for close to an hour before crashing and falling unconscious. Finally I get to my boss room at the bottom of the spiral shape of my dungeon. I make a spiral staircase going up from the center island that leads up to the entrance hallway through a one way door which also has a passageway from my first bosschamber. Each of my "floors" will consist of a string of rooms and a boss chamber that leads further down and has a passage to the central shaft that adventurers can use to exit. The whole thing is shaped like a drill with the dome room at the bottom. As my influence area gets larger I will make each loop of the drill further horizontally as well as adding more turns downward. I look over my patterns, trying to decide on what to evolve for my new boss, when I notice that I have enough mana capacity to make the probe. That would surprise those adventurer''s for sure! It''s way stronger than my other monsters are, it might be even stronger if I evolve it into my boss. I quickly summon the pattern and make one. The sinuous creature falls flat on the floor, unmoving, apparently dead. What? What did I do wrong? "Maybe it needs to be enchanted?" Holly suggests, she pokes her head out of her home but refuses to be in the room with the probe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- High above the planet a red light on a control console blinks to green and a small sounds plays. The AI core turns it''s attention to the message service in utmost shock.
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] What? What did I do wrong? Maybe it needs to be enchanted? I''ll try making another one, this one must be broken
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] Damn. That one doesn''t work either. But I think it''s doing something...
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] Damn. That one doesn''t work either. But I think it''s doing something...
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] Pit! You can''t just keep making more of them, that isn''t helping! But I can tell they are doing something! They just don''t listen to me. This is as much as I can make, hope this does something...
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] Pit! You can''t just keep making more of them, that isn''t helping! But I can tell they are doing something! They just don''t listen to me. This is as much as I can make, hope this does something...
[Probe 100 Incidence Report] Pit! You can''t just keep making more of them, that isn''t helping! But I can tell they are doing something! They just don''t listen to me. This is as much as I can make, hope this does something...
[Security breach detected: Probe 100 initiate Self-Destruct] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in the dungeon three prone machines suddenly shudder as internal components catch fire and explode inside their casings, leaving burned out husks. I absently absorb their ruined remains and glance at Holly. You saw that too right? "Indeed." She pulls up her mana window, displaying the strange message. "It appears someone else commands those probes." I''m gonna say hi. "Pit no that might not be-" I make another probe in the middle of the floor and it lays immobile again. Um. Hello there, please don''t self-destruct this time. Can we just talk instead?
[Central Command Missive] Attention intruder, this is a classified observation platform, any attempts to breach this system are punishable by galactic law. By reproducing platform resources you are in violation of intellectual property rights, illegal reproduction will now self destruct.
Um. Probe 100 don''t do that! I mentally direct the machine. It fails to explode as ordered. Tell me who you are! And stop telling my probe to self-destruct!
[Central Command Missive] YOUR PROBE. How dare you, Probe 100 you are required by law to obey my commands. You are malfunctioning, command override, self-destruct. The Intruder will cease communication, you are an unauthorized user.
Probe 100 don''t listen to anything he says, and um... I am an authorized user!
[Central Command Missive] Command override detected. Knowledge of non-wuxian language detected. Knowledge of non-wuxian systems detected. Processing... Requesting security confirmation... Request timed out. Interim Admin status is granted to the highest ranked connected sentient. Current users with security credentials... 1 Congratulations Interim Administrator Intruder [you bastard]
My name''s Pit, is yours Central? Can you help me? I need to make these robots work so I can kill some strong adventurers. I notice that the communications we can send through the probe include memories in a weird way. Sights and sounds and large amounts of knowledge in compacted electrical books like the stuff I got out of probe 100, so I compact all the stuff I know about the Sand Vipers into one of those and send it.
[Central Command Missive] Adventurer, confirmed for wuxian warrior high caste. Interesting data Administrator Pit. Perhaps we can come to an arrangment. Please stand by for firmware flashing on Probe 100 and software updates.
The communcation ceases for a time as something inside the probe shifts and changes, small bits of lightning element rearranging themselves. Eventually the probe stirs, floats gently off the floor and smooths its'' limbs back to order. It turns towards the crystal and I feel some mechanism inside the body twist and scan across me. "[Greetings Administrator Pit, this unit is ready for compulsory service.]" The creature speaks with a mechanical buzzing noise, though it''s words are perfectly formed. "[Language package: Wuxian Common, has successfully installed. How may I be of assistance?]" "Oh wow, Pit. This is going in the lore books for sure..." Holly whispers Alright, Central. We''ve got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. Start with the parts of you that are good at killing stuff. Inverse Hanged Man Early the next morning, just after sunrise, a large group of humans enters the dungeon. Led by the stoic Vulu. Behind him trails a downcast cluster of slaves. In the lead is a massive man/lizard hybrid with twisted scars over both his empty eye-sockets. A gaunt, waifish young woman clings on and directs him. She is missing her right arm and has the long pointed ears of the elven race. The third and fourth in line are a matched pair of beastmen with fluffy ring tails, either children or naturally short statured. The final slave is a snarling bipedal wolf wrapped in leather straps to bind its'' arms and muzzle. All of the slaves struggle with their iron collars and connected chain as the wolfman pulls against Vulu''s resolute stride. A squad of five Sand Vipers move in formation at the back of the group. All of them appear to be full humans, mostly with the bronze complexions of the Sultanate. The lead member carries a shortsword and medium sized rectangular shield. In the middle are two members in robes, one with a clay pitcher, the other wrapped with lengths of chain. Taking up the rear are a man with a bow and a woman strapped with a brace of throwing knives. The entire motley assortment makes their way to the entrance of the first chamber and wait there as Vulu moves in with the chained slaves. In the same fashion as the previous day he shoves the lizardman forward into the pitfall trap. As soon as the first slave drops out of sight dark forms in the pit snag his ankles and yank hard, pulling the entire pack of slaves to the edge of the pit. The false panels burst as two cybratlings with Abductors rush out. Their weapons crackle with sparks as they push the slaves into the pit after their unfortunate comrades. Their screams are silenced quickly and replaced with hissing vermin. The two outside the pit snarl at the impassive fist fighter and back slowly into their side tunnels. Vulu sneers at their retreat and turns back into the hallway. The man with the sword and shield turns back towards him and swallows nervously. "Aren''t you coming with us?" "I was just to deliver today''s meal. You must face the dungeon alone." "W-what if something goes wrong?" "Then you will die. Are you Sand Vipers or whipped curs?" Vulu snorts and pushes the man out of the way. The group of adventurer''s move into the room and cross the side paths nervously, flinching every time their footsteps echo back to them. The cybratlings that snatched the slaves do not return and they make their way into the corridor beyond without a fight. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My cybratlings take the stunned slaves down a long corkscrew tunnel straight down to the chambers I installed under my dome. Holly assures me that Adventurer''s will always assume the floor with my core on it is the last one. They won''t think to dig down below my core chamber. Beneath the floor is a reversed dome, making a full sphere with my boss room except for a flat floor about a third of the way up from the bottom. The walls are carved with two dozen cells sealed with metal doors controlled by a system Central explained to me that uses lightning element to pull metal. I can''t rearrange any of this floor once I get the slaves into it so I had to build it all ahead of time The cells are a bit grim, but otherwise the room is pleasant. Well lit. A clean well and plenty of grass and plants. Probe 100 is the warden of my little jail since he can keep focused on them while I''m busy elsewhere and Central wants the observation data as part of our deal. I asked Holly to talk to the slaves but she says Dungeon Fairies never talk to outsiders as a point of honor. They communicate with Dungeons, Contracted Monsters, and other Fairies exclusively, and usually just to exchange information on running dungeons. I turn my attention back to my intruders as they pass through the first corridor into the second chamber. I could have the cybratlings ambush them from behind but it''s important that I don''t slaughter all the adventurers on my first day. That said they aren''t completely helpless, the sword and shield guy is a competent defender, keeping my forces back while the two mages do the most damage. The bowman and the knife thrower hang back and fend off any cybratlings that try to circle the group. The mage with the gourd pours out water into his hand and flings it at my cybratling squads. It freezes in midair into tiny ice spikes which shoot forward incredibly fast, punching holes in any rat too slow to dodge. "Ice mage, another combined affinity, water and air." Holly explains, "Water is a manipulating affinity along with Earth, Metal and Wood. You can summon those elements out of pure mana but the cost is so prohibitive that most mages with those affinities will carry some material with them to use their spells with. Air, Fire, Light and Dark are generative affinities which can be summoned up cheaply." The second mage unwraps their chain which lashes out with a life of its'' own, striking down distant rats with a weighted head. "That one is a simple Metal Mage, those can be really dangerous once they have the mana reserves to wear full armor and don''t have to rely on absorbing ambient mana. The woman in here the other day was a pure Wood mage." So Air and Fire made Lightning, what are the other types? "Starting with Water, with Earth you get Mud, Air makes Ice, Fire makes Steam. Other combinations haven''t been recorded. Earth with Air makes Sand, with Fire you get Magma, and Metal makes Crystal. Metal with Fire makes Forge which is usually only used in crafting and enchanting. Metal can also combine with Light or Dark to make Blessed and Baleful affinity. Wood can have a dual affinity with both Water and Earth but doesn''t seem to result in a combined affinity with either one. Fire and Light makes Holy while Fire and Dark makes Infernal." Why don''t some of them combine? "They might, we don''t know. Some affinities are common while others hardly ever appear, the combinations we don''t know might just be really rare." Holly glances at her magic window. "Oh look, they made it to the first boss room."Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. While Holly was explaining magic the adventurers cruised through the two chambers left before the boss. Both mages are unruffled but the bowman is breathing hard and holding his long knife, his bow pulled across his back. I guess the vantablack floors and rats are too difficult to shoot at range. As soon as the last member crosses into the boss room I trigger the circuit and drop a heavy iron door into the frame with a loud crash. The same circuit causes strips of tiny lights to blink into life lining the edges of the many boxes and platforms in the room. The result looks like a series of wire frames appearing out of thin air. My Cybrat King hisses from somewhere in the labyrinth as the adventurers move forward in formation. I slip into my boss and start the fight. Rushing forward on their left flank I pop out from behind a cube and thrust with my upgraded Abductor. The swordsman deflects it with his shield so I activate the ability and it snaps to double length, striking the metal mage in the leg and catching around his ankle. I yank him off his feet and pump some lightning through the prongs making him convulse and scream shrilly in pain. I try to pull the mage with me as I retreat but the swordsman tosses away his shield and grabs the shaft of my weapon forcing me to abandon it to avoid the Ice Mage''s projectiles. I duck behind another cube and direct two cybratlings into the fray with suppressors. A pair of high pitched whines are heard for a moment and the bowman and knife thrower circle cautiously, listening for enemies. The first cybratling leaps from an overhanging platform while screeching and both adventurer''s look up. The knife thrower sinks a dagger into the monster''s chest before it can strike and the bowman finishes it off with a chop to the back of the neck. A flash of light and loud thunderclap explodes behind the bowman, sending him tumbling over the dead cybratling as my second minion smashes him in the back with a fully charged suppressor. Central explained how to make a capacitor which stores charge in my suppressors until they strike, multiplying how much damage they can do with their lightning affinity. The liquid metal spikes and explosive discharge shred the man''s left thigh leaving little more than blackened bone and charred flesh behind. The ice mage turns and finishes my second cybratling, but he served his purpose, I can feel the bowman dying. The metal mage is back on his feet but before the swordsman can retrieve his dropped shield I launch my rat swarm ability from one of the higher platforms, showering both him and the mage in doped up rodents. The metal mage wraps his chain around himself, links twisting to catch and crush individual rats easily, unfortunate for him as his robes soak through with tainted blood. The swords man shakes himself like a large dog, flinging rats off, but still gets bitten a few times on the face and neck. The knife thrower abandons the screaming bowman and goes on the offensive, jumping on to the platforms and sinking a throwing dagger into my upper back. The group pulls together around the ice mage, but the chain wrapped metal mage stumbles and starts to giggle. They yell at him but he is too far gone to hear them and stumbles off course. I charge through the labyrinth and strike with my tail, which catches him in the throat and pins him to the ground. The ice mage and the knife thrower pepper me with more projectiles and I can feel my movements slowing from lost blood. I''m too slow to avoid the swordsman as he charges towards me and swings clumsily into my side. His wild eyes show he''s feeling the effects of the drugs but he keeps flailing his weapon at me and I''m too injured to limp away. Three more clumsy chops decapitate my boss and I spawn the loot for the fight. The doors leading forward and back as well as to the surface all slide open and the three remaining adventurers sigh in relief. By Holly''s suggestion I give them a handful of silver coins, one of the basic abductors, and a bundle of Dreamvine. They throw all of it into the swordsman''s pack and scurry for the exit. One of Central''s suggestions was to put a lighted EXIT above the door to the spiral stair leading back to the start for something he calls fire safety regulations. They seem a bit confused but they climb the stair and go back out my door with their treasures. It was pretty hard holding back from killing them. Those scum probably all deserved to die, being members of the Sand Vipers, but wiping out the first group might tempt the assessment party into coming back down before I''m ready for them. They didn''t even bother trying for the second floor so I send the surviving Cybratlings and Amphistas to eat and breed as quickly as they can to build up my mana reserves. The slaves in my prison complex will eventually leak their mana into my dungeon and replace it with ambient dungeon mana, but that will take a long time so I have to try and build up mana in other ways as much as possible. I can already feel a second group starting down my entrance hallway so I restock my first four rooms and get ready for a long day of dungeon crawling. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even further below the surface the blind lizard demi-human stirs, groans, and rubs at the raw chafed flesh where his collar should be. He feels grass under his hands and warmth on his skin, but the air smells flat and stale. He hears a soft sussuration of air a few feet in front of him but his fumbling hands reach iron bars before he gets within reach of the sound. "[Greetings test subject.]" A harsh metallic buzz of a voice calls out to him from just inches away, startling him back from the bars. "[Do you understand me?]" "Yeah... I do..." The lizardman''s voice is a soft rumble. "Lina! Lina are you here? Are you okay?" He yells, realizing he is alone in his tiny cell. Straining his hearing he can hear a very quiet sobbing around the corner of the wall on his right side. "[The others in your party are unharmed. It is good that you will speak with us. The others are not cooperating.]" "Where are we? Lina talk to me. I''m here..." "[You are currently inside the Dungeon. We have brought you here for the purposes of communication.]" "... You''re a monster... aren''t you." The lizardman takes a deep breath. "Is that why the others are so afraid? What do you want with us?" "[We have brought you here for the purposes of communication. We wish to kill your former masters. Do you desire vengeance against those who sent you here? Would you fight them if you could?]" "I''d give anything to kill those bastards... but I can''t fight... they took my damn eyes." He traces the scars on his cheeks with a clawed finger. "[We will repair you. You will serve. That is the contract.]" "What if I say no?" "[You will be assimilated, your biological and magical distinctiveness will be added to our own.]" "Not much of a choice... give me eyes, monster." A soft thump and a sharp stinging pain in his pectoral is the last thing the lizardman feels before collapsing into heavy slumber. Dimly he feels the creature grab him by the arms and pull him from the cell. He can only hope he made the right choice and that he will wake up from this. Ace of Wands Twelve days after the Sand Viper recruits made their first dungeon dives I call Holly and Central into the boss room to touch base on our various projects. The dark guild has followed a consistent pattern so far. The first day four groups of adventurers made their first dive. I killed two of the first group then one each on the next three. The day after, four new groups made their first dives. The first group got through with all their members, I killed one each on the next two, and the last group got cocky and tried to take on my second level so I ended up killing the entire party. I gave them every chance to retreat but you just can''t help some people. On the third and fourth days nobody enters the dungeon at all. The fifth day Reaver returned. The high level party took me more seriously the second time. Enchanted weapons. Actual teamwork. My dungeon isn''t as strong as I can make it but they breeze through easily. In the dome I''ve been growing all of the drug plants they gave me, which they immediately harvest. After that there is another day with no dungeon dives. Each day when the first group enters the dungeon they deliver five slaves into my pitfall. The cybrats stun them and drag them down to the underdome for Central. Of the 30 slaves handed over I have 24 still alive. Four of the slaves were killed by Sand Vipers when they struggled or tried to escape before I could grab them, the other two were sick with something and I don''t have medicine to treat them with. I keep the slaves seperated and the rest seem healthy enough. All of the slaves are imperfect in some way, missing limbs or eyes, sometimes broken in the head. Central measures the slaves that agree to help us and sends me designs for replacement parts. Then I tell him they are too complex and I can''t afford the mana and he makes simpler versions which he describes as"[A tragic bastardization of my aesthetic.]" So far four slaves have undergone surgery to attatch their new parts including the lizardman and his elf friend Lina. It will take time for them to heal from the procedure so they haven''t gotten to use them yet. Some of the slaves refuse to fight and Central says I should recycle them, but I let them stay. The help fighting Reaver is an extra, I mostly just wanted to keep them alive. Holly had me dig out some smaller tunnels to the surface and she has been using them to leave the dungeon and observe the camp discreetly. Yesterday when Reaver''s party made their second harvesting trip they brought the last group of slaves into the dungeon and Holly reports that the merchant train set off across the desert hauling a veritable mountain of illicit substances. Even giving only a small amount to each group of boss kills it added up to quite a lot with all the successful dives. I only killed a few more adventurers on the second visit from each group and none of the parties were wiped out. Holly notices that the remaining recruits are all decently strong and skilled. The ones I killed were the weak links in their parties. Holly is also able to meet up with Probe 99, which Central admits he had hanging around the edge of the town after losing 100 to me. He refuses to bring it inside and instead will be shadowing the caravan to their destination to see what the guild is doing with the drugs. So, what''s the status on our forces so far? "Currently you have forty Cybratlings, fifteen Amphistas and two Bosses active the in the dungeon. Another twenty each of Cybratlings and Amphistas are on standby, building up their numbers. The Amphistas already laid their first clutch so we should have 60 of those by next week. The Cybratling females will give birth in two weeks, and then it takes another week to mature. We also need mana set aside to upgrade the young to Cybratlings of course. If we absorb the extra Amphistas for their mana we can make full Cybratlings at a five to one ratio." Holly taps buttons on her magic screen. "All together, in the next month you should be able to put together a full force of 168 Cybratlings at maximum. That''s if your capacity continues to expand enough to keep up with the maximum breeding rates of your monsters. More likely you''ll have the capacity to get 100 at the same time with all your other stuff in place." It''s a lot more than we started with. I''ve been working on some new weapons and armor for them. We might not get as many but they''ll be harder to beat. I''ve gotten a good variety of weapons and armor from dead adventurers, in addition to the stuff Reaver gave me. All of the stiff metal pieces are sized and shaped for human bodies so they don''t fit well on my monsters. I use chainmail as the base instead. With Central''s help I make tiny scales of the ceramic carapace from the probes and fit them together on the chainmail base. He also points out the packets of goop surrounding the inner mechanisms which are filled with impact gel. The weird stuff is liquid, but it thickens when struck and absorbs blunt impacts. The probe uses it to cushion delicate components but putting some inside the chainmail suits makes them resist blunt, piercing and slashing damage quite well. My Cybrat King boss gets a full suit of armor as do his two assisting Cybratlings. The second boss chamber houses an evolved Amphista which turned into a Rank E dungeon boss called the Amphista Broodmother. She has special abilities that allow her to create a sucking vortex of air that pulls Adventurers into her mouth as well as laying eggs that rapidly hatch into fully grown Amphistas. Sadly her spawn don''t live very long and can''t be used to increase my dungeon population. With the increased mana reserves I expand my dungeon again during the rest days. I install a third floor with another boss chamber today. The first floor is made up of the basic black chambers with lots of pitfalls and cybratlings. The second floor is filled with drug crazed Cybratlings, narcotic smoke and swarming Amphistas coming out of the walls. The third floor is something different that Central and I cooked up. We needed to test out the combat potential of the cyborg slaves, but couldn''t risk sending them against the adventurer''s early. Since we''re already full of contraband and being controlled by a Dark Guild Holly lets me finally make some zombies and I apply Central''s designs to them. No need to recover from surgery. No slaves get hurt.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The zombies are clumsy and dumb on the first attempt, so I hollow out their brains and install a few parts from the probes. Central helps put together the programs to make them move around and fight, which is about all they can do. It''s an improvement on the zombie but the resulting Zomborgs are very expensive. Not as much as a probe but I can''t afford to use too many of them. The third floor is well lit and has nice white walls instead of the flat black I''ve been using up above. Each of the chambers has glass tubes full of green goo stretching from floor to ceiling with little tubes to make them bubble. Floating in each tube I put a reproduction of one of the adventurer bodies I have absorbed. Since they aren''t monsters it doesn''t cost much mana to make them and I give them various nonfunctional cyborg parts for effect. I place the zomborgs in tubes as well and use a circuit to release them when it''s time to fight. I put up more of Central''s signage in whatever weird language he uses. He seems to get a laugh out of it at least when I show him the finished rooms. The first room has a large diagram of a human body and its'' various parts on one wall and bunch of small pictures of the dead bodies pinned up on the other side. I put in a bunch of desks and chairs along the walls with pens and papers and bits of machinery piled up. The second room has comfortable chairs on one side and a large painting of a small fuzzy animal hanging on a rope with the words, Hang in There, written below. I put the boss in the third room on that floor and don''t put any monsters in my boss chamber. The third floor boss is actually just another Zomborg (I can''t make anything stronger than a class E yet), but I equip it with a full suit of the probe armor and some of my new weapons. An upgrade on the Longsword using the Zomborg pattern and some electrical parts makes a sword split down the middle from tip to hilt, made from wet looking black metal. The edges are razor sharp and the entire thing can be electrified, making it crackle with blue lightning arcs. The weapon is called a Vivisector. The Amphista pattern mixed with a blow dart tube makes a Googun, which fires a spray of sticky sap strings like a net. I equip the zomborg with both of them and think he looks quite threatening. The room he is in has a metal table tilted up which the Zomborg boss lays on until the adventurer''s enter with a bunch of nasty looking metal arms hanging down from the ceiling around it, tipped with saw blades and pincers. The arms can move and attack but aren''t very strong, Central manipulates them while I practice with directly controlling the Zomborg. The boss looks quite frightening encased in black carapace with the red light from his one camera eye shining through the visor. The Vivisector and the Googun are built into the armor gauntlets so he won''t be easy to disarm. I have enough mana capacity to be on my fifth floor by now but I hold back and keep it to three. The zomborgs will make them suspicious but I have much better equipment in development in the lower chambers and their mechanical parts aren''t as good as what the slaves... Maybe I should stop calling them slaves? That seems rude. I''ll ask what they want to be called later. The people downstairs have better mechnical parts. I need the practice and the testing data from the zomborg fights before I risk using my new helpers for anything. In addition I think the zomborgs will really freak them out, and they deserve it with how awful they all are. With all of that done I check over my monster patterns before it''s time to get ready for the dungeon runs tomorrow morning.
Unlocked Archetypes Available Units
Insect Dire Worm: Class G monster with rapid breeding and evolution. Capable of burrowing and sensing movement through vibrations in the soil. Blind and deaf otherwise. Amphista: Class G+ monster with rapid breeding and evolution. These two headed dire worms are extremely sensitive to vibrations, allowing them to sense prey through soil as well as air pressure. By eating with one head they can pressurize and fire projectiles from the opposite end. Amphista Broodmother: Class F+ Dungeon Boss. This massive Amphista is slower than its'' common kin but far more powerful and durable. Special abilities include Spawn Larva and Suction. Broodmothers are a mutated form of Amphista that is unable to produce viable offspring and becomes overgrown, ruling over a territory by itself.
Animal Dire Rat: Class G monster with quick breeding and moderate evolution. Posesses sharp teeth and a good sense of smell. Capable of fighting in groups. Dire Rat King: Class G+ Dungeon Boss. This evolved Dire Rat has increased strength and intelligence compared to its'' lesser brethren, and typically rules over a nest. Ratling: Class F- monster with moderate breeding and moderate evolution. The first evolutionary step of the Rat beastman path, these primitive humanoids are intelligent and dexterous, able to make and use crude weapons and tools. They are cowardly, prefer to fight in groups, and are infamous for their underhanded tactics.
Undead Bone Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Able to perceive life force and fight in groups. Plague Rat: Class G+ monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Possesses sharp teeth and natural poison. Enemies bitten have a chance to contract the Plague, debiliting all stats until cured and dealing damage over time. Zombie: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Mindless and hungry, these undead can only receive the most basic of instructions but have great strength and durability. Skeleton: Class F monster. Unable to breed, evolution strictly defined. Skeletons are simple undead capable of using weapons and armor, though their bones are brittle and easily snapped by blunt weapons.
Automaton Probe: Class ??? artifice. Unable to breed, unable to evolve. This advanced technological servant is not of this world. Cybrat: Class F- monster with special breeding (produces standard Dire Rats as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded rat is equipped with a powerful weapon replacing its'' tail. Cybrat King: Class F Dungeon Boss. This cunning cybernetic warrior is enhanced with a powerful stabbing tail that doubles as a catapult for flinging its'' rat swarm Cybratling: Class F monster with special breeding (produces standard Ratlings as offspring). Special evolution. This cybernetically upgraded Ratling uses technology to augment its'' dirty fighting style Zomborg: Class E monster. Unable to breed, special evolution. Mindless servant of a machine intelligence, these augmented undead have basic fighting abilities backed up by superior strength and durability.
The Devil The Sand Viper camp rises with the dawn, cooking breakfast and fetching water from the well. The remaining members of the first squad of recruits eat quickly and check their equipment, they will be entering the dungeon as soon as Reaver gives the word. The Ice Mage and the girl with the throwing knives, Ulric and Satessa respectively, survived the second run after the swordsman took a charged suppressor blow to the head. Without the solid warrior to hold their front they are nervous about their chances, neither stacks up well in a straight fight. As they make their way to the entrance Reaver stops them and gathers up the other recruits in the square. "Listen up, fishies!" He paces in front of the assembled ranks. "The dead weight has dropped out leaving only you, my lovely Sand Vipers. So starting today you''ll be arranged into five squads of four members each, and one of your seniors will be accompanying you." There are a few sighs of relief as the adventurers relax. "Don''t be too happy. This also means no more of this pussy shit, leaving after the first floor. You go to the bottom, every time. Magnus, Vulu, Jelai or myself will be there to take point and keep your chestnuts out of the fire but if I see any of you riding coattails down there I''ll gut you myself. Understood?" The recruits shout back in the affirmative and Reaver dismisses them. Vulu starts calling out names for the new squads and Ulric and Satessa find themselves paired with a matching pair of bald, burly warriors, called Bruiser and Tiny by their own introduction. The men might as well be twins though they make no claim of relation, beady eyed, shaven, fat. Both men are armed with Abductors and tower shields along with heavy steel boots and gauntlets, demonstrating their technique to grab enemies and smash them under their feet or bash them with their shields. They too are the only surviving members of their squad. The four are matched with Reaver himself for the first run of the day and move out together to tackle the dungeon. Reaver marches through the first few rooms quickly and confidently, dragging the others along as he goes. The squad follows in his footsteps, trusting his uncanny ability to avoid pitfalls to keep them safe. The Cybratlings attack from the thin walls periodically, most dying on Reaver''s sword. Tiny and Bruiser stand at either end of the party and block the small vermin with their large shields. In the boss room they barely have time to see the new armored Cybrat King before Reaver skewers it through the visor. The boss drops the usual bundle of drugs and a carapace chain coif with matching helmet which Reaver awards to Bruiser. Rather than take the exit path the party moves into the second floor for the first time. The first room is heavy with narcotic smoke and the walls are slimed with patches of mucus and bare earth poking through shattered sandstone. The first wave of Cybratlings charge, shrieking and foaming at the mouths. Reaver stabs his rapier through the lead rat''s ribs but the maddened monster pulls itself up the blade and claws wildly for a few moments before expiring. The other rats leap on to the twin tanks and clamber up their shields. Bruiser smashes his shield against the wall, pulping one rat while Tiny sets his against his shoulder and runs forward, tramping two of them under his iron shod boots. Satessa stays close on his heels, smashing skulls as they try to close in on her larger ally. The first Amphistas uncoil from the ceiling but their resin shots are intercepted by Ulric''s ice magic, splattering against hovering ice shields. A few well placed icicle shots drive them back into the ceiling. The second and third rooms follow the same pattern though the party begins to stumble drunkenly from the fumes. Reaver gives the party a quick explanation of the Broodmother boss as none of them have fought it before. Inside the party splits up, one tank and one attacker moving to each end, Reaver joining the party on the front head. While Ulric, Bruiser and Reaver attack the front head Satessa and Tiny wait for eggs to drop so they can catch the attention of the newborn Amphistas and beat them to death quickly. The Broodmother''s size and general lack of noticeable anatomy makes killing her a long process and left alone the spawn will start to build up in the rear of the room. Reaver knows from experience that once enough of them spawn they rush forward in a swarm and it''s a real pain in the ass dealing with them all spitting at once. Bruiser keeps the worm''s attention when it uses the suction ability and braces himself with his shield to keep from being sucked into the creature''s maw. Eventually Ulric''s ice magic is able to cut through enough layers of worm flesh to sever something vital and kill the boss, rewarding the party with more money and drugs. "Well done, Vipers." Reaver cheers, clapping Ulric on the back and knocking him off his feet. "A clean run. Wait til you see the heart chamber, it''s a sight I''ll tell you." He moves to the exit door and then steps back, shielding his eyes against the bright white light that snaps on in front of him. "Oh ho, we''re in for a treat. Third floor!" The party glances at once another anxiously but follow Reaver through the door. The sudden change in atmosphere is stunning. The walls are clean, there is furniture, panels built into the walls giving off almost painfully bright light. Reaver is standing next to a bank of upright tubes along the right wall, filled with floating bodies. He taps on the glass, frowns, turns back to the party. "Is that Wilkins in there? Looks just like him." The Zomborg in the tube snaps awake, the red light in its'' camera eye blinking on, the glass wall sliding open in the middle releasing a flood of viscous green fluid. Six tubes open in total, but three of the bodies just slump to the floor. The other three leap across the room at their chosen prey. Reaver doesn''t miss a beat, snapping back around and striking with his rapier. The blade punches through the zomborg''s outstretched hand, then shatters as the monster twists sharply, the mechanical limb trapping the weapon and feeling no pain. Bruiser steps in the way of the second Zomborg and blocks a wide haymaker with his shield, the heavy metal bending almost in half where it is impacted by the ceramic fist. Ulric sends a blast of freezing air at the third Zomborg still in flight and backs away from it tossing icicles, the cold spell slows its'' movements but fails to do much damage.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. A sudden wave of nausea washes over the group, the light in the room seems to bend. Reaver laughs hysterically and swipes his hand across his zomborg opponent. From his hand a thin bar of rippling darkness with whisps of maroon escaping from it passes through the monster''s torso. The Zomborg takes another step before the line Reaver traced slides apart, crackling with black veins of corrupted fire which quickly consumes the body. The party members swallow their fear and strike down the other two zomborgs as a team. Reaver continues laughing, holding his energy sword, two spectral horns made of the same substance rise from his forehead, his eyes like dark and fathomless pits. After a few minutes of silence Reaver stirs, the dark energy falling away and removing the nauseating pressure from the room. "Wow, haven''t had to use my magic in months. What a rush. Moving on people!" He walks to the door to the next room like nothing happened, the party trailing after him. In the second chamber Reaver summons his black fire sword again and charges the squad of five zomborgs that appear. The rest of the party hangs back and he doesn''t need the help. His magic blade passes through flesh and augmentations with equal ease. He hacks apart the undead and hustles through to the boss chamber. As they enter the door behind them slams shut and the table with the armored zomborg rises to a full vertical position, the monster stepping off it casually and readying its'' weapons. Reaver charges again, but the zomborg is ready for this and fires two shots with his wrist mounted Googun, once straight ahead and the second to his left, catching the guildmaster with the second shot full in the face. In every encounter so far Reaver always jukes to his right after charging. The sticky threads burn where they come in contact with the energy sword but simply fall apart into two half-nets that stick to his face, hair, and arms. He splutters, trying to spit out the bits of goo that got in his mouth, and backs away with his blade held cautiously. The Armored Zomborg moves forward cautiously, raising his blade and keeping the googun trained on the other party members. The two tanks split up, one charging in while the other circles around, both with their shields raised. The goo nets splatter against the shield but don''t stop Bruiser and Tiny, forcing the Zomborg to engage them and shielding the blinded guildmaster. Bruiser''s shield is seriously deformed from the early zomborg punch and it finally shatters when the zomborg boss delivers a crushing kick with one augmented leg, throwing the man back into the wall. A backhand swing with the Vivisector impacts Tiny''s shield and discharges flickers of lightning into the man''s arms, making him howl with pain. Ice forms on his visor. Behind the twins Ulric chants an incantation and circles his hand around the spout of his gourd, sending a fine mist of water into the air which begins to coat the surfaces of the room in a layer of frost. The glass of the zomborg''s visor frosts over quickly and it pulls of the helmet with a frustrated hiss. The boss lurches as Satessa smashes it in the back of the knee with her Suppressor, cracking the carapace and ruining his balance. The twins charge with their Abductors and latch on to both his wrists, struggling against his great strength to hold him in place. Despite his brute power the zomborg just doesn''t have the leverage from his position and is forced to his knees, arms spread. Reaver has cleared his eyes and mouth by this time and walks over. He swings downward with the flickering black sword and then falls over as one of the metal arms snags his collar and yanks him sharply back. Another arm with a saw tip assaults Tiny, carving into his shoulder and forcing him to drop his Abductor. Reaver swings his energy blade around himself, severing four metal arms that moved in to attack him. Bruiser keeps the boss under control, still held in his catch-pole, though it pulls steadily towards the mage while swinging its'' Vivisector. Tiny grabs the saw blade arm that struck him and pulls the entire assemblage out of the celing, then smacks it across the Zomborg''s exposed head, shattering the exposed mechanical components. The monster stumbles in a drunken circle, twitching its'' arms for a few moments before collapsing. A thin column of smoke rises from its'' head. Tiny smacks it again with the metal limb just to be sure. Having killed the Zomborg boss the party moves through the final door into the heart chamber and harvests the plants under Reaver''s direction. The guildmaster himself stares pensively at the crystal in the ceiling. "You cranky because I didn''t feed you this morning? You giant bloody infant. Don''t you worry now, plenty more food will be here once Hadiq returns. You''ll have as many cripples as you can stuff down your gob..." They leave through the spiral staircase with heavy bundles of narcotic plants and the few magic weapons that dropped during the run. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think that went well "Indeed. The... Zomborgs... performed admirably. They pushed Reaver far enough to reveal his skills." Oh yeah! That was cool! What was that? Holly clears her throat, a clear sign of a lecture. "Reaver appears to have an Infernal Affinity. While most adventurer''s with a strong affinity and mana pool with become specialized mages some choose to develop their physical talents first and later augment their abilities with magic techniques. Infernal, which as you remember is a combination of Dark and Fire affinities, creates corrupting fire spells both burning and draining the life from anything they contact. Infernal is widely seen as the mark of demonic heritage as it is common among creatures of the lower planes. It''s very uncommon among humans and tends to have side effects of mental instability." So exactly what you would expect Reaver to have? "Precisely. He summoned an elemental weapon, composed of solid mana. I''m not sure what the horns were, perhaps the outward symptom of some kind of body augmentation spell. I think we can say with some certainty that you''ll need some enchanted armor to deal with that man. His blade won''t be stopped by any physical barrier. He''s cocky and predictable though. We should be able to come up with a strategy to defeat him if we put out heads together." Alright! I''ll keep up the weapon and armor development. You keep an eye on the entrance and tell me when the next group comes in. There''s still a lot of work to do...