Chapter 15

Dorn had combined two things every adventurer enjoyed, good equipment and collectables. Dorn had finally purchased some Dungeon Puzzles and put them to good use. In certain caves, instead of having a boss monster or goblin chief at the end, he would have a puzzle on the wall. Adventurers would have to guess the riddles correctly or face a trap. But if they guessed right, they would receive a token made from high steel with a carving, which could be a type of weapon or piece of armor. Each adventurer could only use a single puzzle once, but there were hundreds more scattered in caves around the canyon.

Near the exit teleportation glyph, Dorn raised a small stone building. On it, he explained that three matching tokens would allow an adventurer to acquire the respective piece of equipment. The arms and armor would have minor enchantments; this was sort of a boon that would help the adventurers face the kobolds in his D-level boss floor.

He also hoped that adventurers would start killing each other for their tokens. The current crop of adventurers were all too friendly with each other. Maybe he should invite some beast-kin to his dungeon. The humans seemed to hate beast-kin to a level unseen in other inter-species relations, such as between dwarves and elves.

Emelia was busy trying to guess the answer to some of the riddles. “I don't get it.” She then quoted the riddle she was looking at: “I have holes in my top and bottom, my left and right, and in the middle. But I still hold water. What am I?”

Dorn said to Emelia, “You have to learn to think how a riddle thinks. Place yourself in the position of an object, and consider if it fits.”

Emelia said, “Is the answer 'time'? The answer to riddles is usually 'time'.”

Emelia dodged the gout of flame that blew out of the puzzle mechanism, despite being immune to dungeon traps.

Dorn just sighed that he had received such an inept dungeon pixie.

Anyways, he turned to Kiera and told her that floor nine was complete. He didn't want to connect the boss level until he had completed his C-Housing. Which was going to be expensive. He was going to need some more B-level adventurers to die in his dungeon. He was already down to around 900,000 DP's with the completion of his ninth floor, and he had to save those for the auction. He also needed to make an enormous Colosseum for the C-Housing floor. Then he'd have to teleport the entire structure to lower housing floors as he made them. That was going to cost a mint. “Maybe I can kill Jeromy; that should get me around the points needed to build the C-Housing.”

Kiera responded furiously, no killing Jeromy!

Dorn said somewhat exasperatedly, “What do you see in that guy anyways?”

See in him? Are you intimating that I'm falling for Jeromy? Kiera started continuously giggling before breaking into full-throated laughter.

“What's so funny?” asked Dorn

Jeremy is so obviously gay. How have you not picked up on that? He's clearly here because Warley is here.

“Wait, what? He is? Is Warley gay too?”

No, so he's set himself up for disappointment.

“Oh, well, that sucks for Jeromy. At least I know what's different about him now.”

Different? What's wrong with being different?

“Nothing, it's a completely neutral word. In fact, I'm kind of glad he's gay.”

Why? Kiera asked suspiciously.

“No reason. Now, how do you like the new steles? Oh and go check out my ninth floor.”

The new steles are awesome. I love getting free housing. And is the new floor the enormous canyon level?

Dorn was a little amazed that his blatant and obvious attempt at changing the conversation topic had worked. “Yeah, you should go ahead and prepare things like tents and travel rations before going. But water should be aplenty, if you don't mind the occasional crocodile,” said Dorn.

Kiera went to rally her team.

***

“I am choosing to trust you, dungeon; do not make me regret it. If you do not return a celestial golden pine tree, I will destroy you. I do not care what shields you have in place.”

“The dungeon would like me to assure you that this trust is not misplaced; it will immediately begin building you a celestial tree,” said Jerry3. “As long as you maintain silence about the deal with the dungeon, he will keep the elves' secret about cultivation.”

Thalia placed the cutting of the celestial golden pine tree on the ground. It was about one foot in size, softly glowing and giving off pure celestial mana. It was slowly absorbed into the ground. Thalia looked almost physically ill. A few seconds later, a small shoot of golden tree popped up from the dirt. Thalia looked relieved, before feeling excited, with tears running down her face.

“My people will again thrive,” said Thalia.

Thalia sent a voice message back to chief Ailmer Enfina, before she headed back towards the human quadrant; it seems that her team wanted to dive to the ninth floor of this dungeon. She wanted to go meet the dungeon face to face and thank it for its contribution to all elves in East Lucenia.

***

Vossan welcomed his brethren with the traditional greeting of dwarves: head butting. After bringing them to the dwarves' clearing in the D-housing floor, they all immediately headed for the bar to buy ale. After drinking, they got down to work. Vossan took the team of dwarves on a tour of the entire D-Housing floor before heading down to the D-Mining floor. Everyone's eyes gleamed when they saw the massive amount of resources available, be it gems, metals, or stone. After everyone spent a few hours mining, they headed back up to the housing floor to drink more ale.

After another few rounds, Stroggean Oakmantle, a lieutenant of the King under the Mountain, stood up and called for silence. “Men, I won't lie. This settlement will eventually rival our homeland, and I intend to build such a place as quickly as possible. No longer will we be forced to live without seeing the sun; no longer will we live in fear of the pointy ears, the beast people, or the humans. We have a land that only dwarves can access, and we will build the greatest of cities here, on the D-Housing floor. Other cities will come later, but the D-Housing floor will always be our main home.”

Everyone cheered, before Stroggean called for silence again. He then began to lay out the tasks before everyone. The miners were told to begin quarrying stone, so that they could build the city. A deep trench was built around the clearing of the village while they waited. Luckily, Dorn decided to let them build a wall, as they wouldn't be using it to keep people out, but rather, to keep people safe in the future.

Vossan asked Stroggean why they were building a wall if they were safe in their quadrant. Stroggean just said that the dungeon might not always keep the Space magic shields. “Especially if it figures out how many deaths it could reap by opening the shields. We must be prepared to defend our new home.”

Dorn had to give some admiration to this new dwarven lieutenant in his dungeon, for he was planning to do exactly that at some point in the future. To encourage people to move to the better housing floors, he was planning on removing shields back to the arches rooms on all housing except for the deepest housing floor. For example, once he created the B-Housing floor, both the C-Housing and D-Housing would lose their shields between the races.

Dorn was merciful in creating danger-free housing, but he was not above allowing races to kill each other. Of course, this was a plan for far in the future; he wanted his dungeon to be a bustling metropolis before he started enacting plans that could destroy significant portions of his population of adventurers.

Quickly, Stroggean had the entire clearing of the village encased by a giant trench, except for three narrow dirt bridges to the North, East, and South. For the trench, instead of putting in wooden stakes, as might be found in a humans' city-defending trench, the dwarves put in their standard trap. They placed strong gravity enhancing glyphs all along the trench. Anything, or anyone, trying to fly above the trenches would immediately be crushed and pulled into the trenches at over 100 times the normal force of gravity. This was an effective defense against both flying mages and siege weapons.

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Then, they built a wall behind the trench. Dorn was impressed by their industriousness. The wall went up within a few days. Finally, it was enchanted with Earth magic to protect from elemental attacks, such as fire, ice, or lightning. With all these defenses in place, Stroggean pulled out the final defense at the center of the clearing. It was a small orb that could be attached to a long pole they had procured. They hammered the pole into the ground until only about six feet was left above ground. Stroggean had one of the dwarves shimmy up the pole and attach the orb. After the orb had spent some time absorbing ambient mana, it created a shield that surrounded the entire clearing. This was an anti-teleportation shield, which would make sure any enemies that came to attack the dwarves had to face their enchanted defenses.

Finally, with all the defenses in place, the dwarves started building their essential buildings. Smithies, tailor shops, crafting shops, and breweries were all put up. Vossan looked happy every day, to be able to sell his gains from the mines.

Vossan was now heading to the humans' quadrant to meet up with his team.

***

“It's time for the auction!” Emelia yelled.

“Already? Okay, I'll admit I'm pretty excited. How do we go?”

“Automatically, a portion of our consciousness will be taken to the auction.”

Attention Dungeon!

In four hours, you will be taken to a

virtual auction hall to attend the

yearly Dungeon Auction. At this

time, please prepare any units or

patterns you wish to put up for sale.

A representative of the gods will be by

soon to pick up the goods.

“Hmm, what should I put up for sale?” asked Dorn.

“Well let's see; you can't put up the adamantium or mithril, without becoming targeted. How abou-”

“Wait, wait, what do you mean by targeted?” asked Dorn.

Emelia said, “Some of the super-dungeons from the Central Fantisa continent can fly. If they find out that a dungeon in East Lucenia has adamantium, they will come and initiate a challenge. Or, a dungeon's avatar can travel to your dungeon to initiate the challenge. Either way, you would most likely be destroyed,” said Emelia.

“Wait, wait, what the fuck is a challenge?” asked Dorn.

“Oh right, remember those yearly battles you will have with other dungeons when you hit A-rank? Well, something similar was designed for dungeons that come into close contact with each other. It was a method designed by the gods for when dungeons overlap, to prevent physical wars between dungeons. When two dungeons are close together, one can initiate a challenge. The same type of virtual battle between avatars and dungeons will occur as in the yearly A+ level dungeons, and the loser will be destroyed. Half the proceeds go to the winning dungeon.”

“Fuck, so now you're saying we absolutely cannot disclose our location or what items we are selling without fear of being destroyed?” asked Dorn.

“As long as we keep a low profile and stay silent about where we are from, the flying dungeons will not come searching for us. The sale of items is supposed to be anonymous, but the super-dungeons sometimes have their ways of finding out who is responsible for selling. You never know which sentient in your dungeon might be a dungeon-born spy for another dungeon. As a new dungeon, we can't sell anything too shocking.

As I was saying, this means no selling the pattern for mithril or adamantium. All your other resources are available through the Dungeon Store. Now, as for your non-legendary herbs and weapons, that should all be fair game,” said Emelia.

Dorn then asked a question he had been thinking about for a while now, “How much would the pattern for a silver dragon be worth?”

Emelia looked incredibly nervous, “It would be a very bad idea to sell that, as it would definitely send the dungeons flying for whoever had that pattern. Plus, won't a silver dragon eventually be your final boss?”

“But they would never expect it of a new dungeon, right? And they won't have spies in my dungeon yet, correct? It's only been a few months, and it's a long trip to my dungeon from the Central Fantisa continent, except by teleportation. They would have to have agents already here to set up teleportation markers. What are the chances of there being Central Fantisa dungeon agents here in the weakling Khal kingdom?

As for my final boss, it will be multiple bosses, including a dragon of each magic type. I know the anatomy of dragons inside and out, as well as the mana distribution. I can create any dragon I want as long as I have the DP's. Plus, my core guardian will be my avatar, who will be able to teleport back any time it is in danger.”

Emelia looked really scared, but said, “Okay, we can sell the dragon pattern, but ABSOLUTELY not the mithril or adamantium. Every dungeon in Sorenia will go crazy, looking for whoever had it. They would even suspect a new dungeon as you could coincidentally have been formed over a small deposit.”

“Okay, okay, we'll just sell the dragon. As for my other resources, we can try to sell some of the sub-legendary herbs and weapons.”

“Don't expect too much for the sub-legendary items, they will at most net you 100,000 DP's,” said Emelia.

“What about the dragon pattern?” asked Dorn.

Emelia looked both nervous and excited, saying, “Let's just say, building your ideal Colosseum will no longer be a problem.”

A minute later, a bright white teleportation gate opened up and began spilling celestial mana into his core room. Thank gods the Churches are gone, or this would be awkward, Dorn thought. Through the gate came a remarkably human-looking being. If humans had eyes that were all white, that was. The minor god came and, looking bored, asked, “Do you have any patterns or units you wish to sell at the yearly Dungeon Auction?”

He looked like he was hoping Dorn would say no so that he would have less work to do. Dorn sent over the pattern for a silver, Space magic dragon. The god's eyes widened slightly, before he asked, “Are you sure you wish to sell this pattern?”

Dorn said, “Yes, and here are the herbs and weapons' patterns I will be selling”

The god responded, “All right. Hopefully you don't regret selling your first pattern.”

***

The four members of Kiera's team stepped onto the teleportation glyph, all thinking, floor 9. When the team arrived a minute later, they all looked around, flabbergasted.

Kiera said, “This is an underground floor?”

Jeromy said, “This is the single most amazing dungeon floor I've ever seen.”

The sun was high and bright in the sky, with fluffy white clouds providing a little shade. The canyon was absolutely stunning. Thalia walked close to the edge of the canyon walls, looking down. “I can barely see the bottom, it must be at least 5,000 feet deep,” she said.

With her elvish eyes, she was easily able to see across large distances. She then said a single word: “Goblins.”

The team looked curious at this. They walked towards the edge and looked at the small path that was carved along the side of the canyon; it meandered down towards an outcropping of stone. On this outcropping was a series of small huts, and little green goblins could be seen walking around outside.

Vossan noticed the compass dispensary. “Hey guys, come look at this building.” The side of the building had writing on it:

These compasses will point towards

the exit teleportation glyph.

Taking a compass, Vossan turned around in a circle, watching the red needle continue to point towards the other corner of the floor in a diagonal fashion. “Well shit, this could take a while,” he said.

At this point, the team realized exactly how long conquering this floor would take, before heading back to D-Housing using the teleportation glyph.

They all walked over to the general store to buy some of the sundry goods that were coming into the dungeon daily. The general store manager was a portly human man with a permanent smile on his face. “So how are my richest customers doing today? Coming to sell again?”

Kiera spoke, “No, today we need to buy. We need four camping tents, blankets, lots of rope, water bags, and a week's worth of travel rations.”

The human man looked bemused. “What, are you guys going camping in the dungeon?”

Thalia said, “Essentially. The newest floor of the dungeon is utterly enormous, on a scale I would not believe if I had not seen it with my own two eyes, human.”

“Hmm, so this stuff's going to become very valuable in the days to come,” said the human store owner. “I'll have to place orders for more tents and rations.”

“How much for everything?” Kiera asked.

“7 silver and 52 coppers.”

“What a rip-off,” Kiera and Vossan both said.

“Look, if you don't want to buy here, feel free to go to another general store,” the store owner said with a wide smile.

The team reluctantly forked over the money before taking their goods and placing them in their respective bags of holding. Then they headed back out to the floor. They pitched their tents in the forest close to the canyon, after checking to see if there were any monsters in the forest. Not finding any, Jeromy said, “That seems pretty normal. With goblins being on a D-level floor, even though it's a D9-ranked floor, there can't be too many other monsters, or this level would have C level difficulty.

The team then headed out to the canyon. They spent the rest of the day just sight-seeing. Walking along the cliff, they stared at the stratification of rock and looked at the eagles flying in the sky beneath them.

“How long do you think it would take to reach the bottom if you jumped?” Jeromy asked, edging closer to the cliff to scare the others.

Thalia, the ever kill-joy, said, “You'd die from the rapid change in air pressure long before you ever reached the bottom.”

“What's air pressure?” Jeromy asked.

Thalia rolled her eyes, “The air has weight. The more that's stacked above you, the heavier it is. Just like water or stone.”

Kiera said, “That's neat. I never knew that.”

Thalia said, “It's why if you climb a mountain, it'll be hard or impossible to breathe at the top. Just not enough air to breathe, there's too little pressure to push air into your lungs.”

The group watched as the sun slowly set beyond the horizon. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful vistas any of them had ever seen before. As they headed back towards camp, Vossan said what they were all thinking, “It's colder than between an elf maiden's legs out here.”

Thalia notched an arrow and shot it at him. Chuckling, Vossan easily dodged the slow-moving arrow. They all sat down at a fire that Kiera started with her magic, making dinner with some small game they had caught in the forest. Finally, everyone retired to their respective tents, excited for the morrow's exploration of the giant canyon.”