Chapter 3
“And so, peasants,” sneered Duke Hallowedlash with extreme scorn, “that is why nobles are clearly superior. Mana has chosen us nobles. It is why we have cultivation, because our forefathers fought and died and sacrificed to free humanity from our slavery at the hands of the beast-kin, to create the cultivation styles we have today. And we still protect you ungrateful wretches from the beast-kin scourge. And for what? Cheaters, murderers, filth; that's all I see when I look out amongst your faces.”
“Did he really come here to pontificate on why nobles are better than commoners?” Kiera asked Therese as the duke rambled on. Continuing with a completely deadpan face and a soft whisper, she asked, “To a crowd of commoners? He really must love the sound of his own voice and the smell of his own sh-”
“Shhh, if he hears you, he'll get mad,” Therese interrupted sternly.
So, Kiera just kept her thoughts to herself. The fat duke continued blathering on about how the nobles led the king's armies to keep the workers safe, and the commoners were all just unappreciative leeches on society. Kiera sighed. I really hate this prick. I hope he dies of being too fat. Heh, that would be amusing. I wonder if people can actually explode from being too fat. Like a balloon. The mental picture of a popped Duke flying away due to the air he was spewing brought a fleeting smile to Kiera's face. But when she looked up again and caught another glimpse of the man sitting behind Duke Hallowedlash, it wiped her grin away.
The Duke's son, Earl Anatole Hallowedlash, was sitting behind his father, looking bored. Apparently, when his father wasn't around, Anatole was a vile, disgusting human being with a notorious reputation. Well, presumably, Kiera thought wryly, he's still a vile, disgusting human being with his father nearby; he just hides it better. The Earl was responsible for multiple cases of violent rape and sickening torture of farm workers, all across the Duke's lands. It was why Kiera and Therese were standing in the far back, as hunched over as possible.
By this time, a fuming Coyne, face red and hands firmly clenched by his sides, lost a battle with his self-control, and he decided to speak up to the Duke: “We grow everything you nobles eat! Without us, you would all starve. We should have rights too!”
“Oh no,” said Kiera, seconds before Earl Anatole jumped up, rushed off the stage, and swept Coyne's head right from his shoulders with a single swing of his sword. The poor simple kid who liked to tell Kiera that she was pretty was dead, just like that.
“Nooooo,” screamed Therese. She started to run forward, before she was restrained by Kiera. “Let me go, let me go, he killed my son,” Therese yelled. Kiera knew that nothing good would come of letting Therese go, saying, “You're still alive, and you have to stay that way if you want to do anything.”
Anatole Hallowedlash smirked at the crowd, wiping off his blade with the shirt from a headless Coyne, before heading back to the stage. His father just gave a small sigh. He used the incident to make the point that commoners were ungrateful one more time. Then he continued his tirade. Meanwhile, Coyne's body just laid there, bleeding out, while his head stared at the sky with wide, open eyes.
----------------------------------------
“We have to do something; we have to show them that they don't own us. That we have power and that there are consequences,” said Kiera.
Therese just sat there morosely, practically catatonic. Kiera was really worried about her; she hadn't spoken or eaten or even moved since the incident two days previous. Kiera was worried that Therese was going to sit there, slowly wasting away, until she died of dehydration. It was a thought Kiera herself had had at various farms, whilst thinking back on her life. It was usually what prompted her to up and leave for a new farm. At Kiera's declaration, Therese finally turned and looked at Kiera with heavily shadowed, dead eyes, and a voice scratchy with disuse: “Do what? We have no strength, no weapons. No magic. We'll be crushed immediately by the Duke's troops,” Therese said, all without any change in inflection and the same eerie, blank look on her face. “We can't do anything; we can't show them that they don't own us, because they do own us and because we have no power and there are no consequences for their actions. What he did wasn't even against the law.”
Kiera sighed; unfortunately, Therese was right. While Ilsan was no shining beacon of morality or equality, compared to the political and social landscape of Khal, it was practically a utopia. Kiera hated being powerless, and she had never felt more powerless than when she watched the earl rush out and casually behead an innocent, fifteen-year old boy, simply for interrupting the duke and asking for basic human rights. Even when she had run away from her brother, and the noble who wanted to own her, to be an adventurer, she had not felt this powerless. She wept herself to sleep that night.
In the morning, Kiera found Therese's dead body, hanging a few feet off the ground. She had somehow found a rope and managed to hang it over the rafters in one of the little enclosures designed for the farm workers to sleep in. To be truthful, Kiera wasn't all that surprised. Saddened, but not surprised. Therese giving up hope made Kiera feel like giving up as well. The very thought was insidious and deadly, causing Kiera to panic slightly, before coming up with an ill-conceived plan.
Kiera was going to burn down this entire okra farm. She ran outside, to the center of the okra farm. She then pushed as much mana as possible out of her body. She didn't really know what she was doing. It was all instinct, rather than any knowledge, that drove her actions. She pushed and pushed, until it felt like she was about to pass out from mana deprivation. Then, something clicked, and the mana surrounding her flared. Kiera had no idea what, if anything, she had accomplished, for she had passed out at the same time she felt the click. Unaware, a small burst of flames radiated out around her in the shape of a sphere, with her unconscious body lying at the center of the small ring of burning crops.
Unfortunately, an untrained mage cannot accomplish much, even when driven by extreme emotions. The flame caught only a small amount of the farm on fire, which was promptly put out by the Water mages there to water the crops. Kiera's unconscious form was dragged off to a shoddily made jail and locked in a cell.
----------------------------------------
“You tried to burn down a farm on Duke Hallowedlash's land. If you had displayed your magical talent in any other way, you would be headed to his militia to fight gloriously for the land. But instead, you'll be executed in the morning,” said the farm manager in charge of her, when he noticed Kiera had awoken. Kiera, tired from her earlier exertion, said nothing, simply resting on the ground of her cell. Outside the jail's open door, Kiera could see that it was already dusk, with the sun setting somewhere behind. It made the inside of the jail rather dark, and it fit her mood well.
“Destroying noble property, attempting to cause sedition, treason,” continued the farm manager. “A pity, such a beautiful thing will be swinging in the morning. If my inclinations ran that way, you'd be regretting your last hours before dying. You can thank the gods for the small mercy; you'll be re-united with the hag and the imbecile soon enough.” After reading her the crimes for which she had been found guilty and the sentence, the farm manager simply turned around and walked away, leaving Kiera in the silence of her cell. Kiera hadn't felt anything, hearing the manager insult Theresa and Coyne. She just felt cold. As a frequently traveling migrant farmer, Kiera was fairly accustomed to leaving behind a friend or two. That the two this time were dead really didn't change much for her. Either way, she would have never seen them again. This reaction made her wonder if slowly, her humanity was being stripped away, and someday, she would simply be an unfeeling automaton. It was a cheery thought for one locked in jail, awaiting execution.
As for the farm manager, he wasn't worried about Kiera escaping. He had been assured by the mages on scene, that the fire she managed to conjure showed clear signs of no knowledge; she definitely had no abilities using mana or any ability with magic spells. At most, she would be able to burn herself alive, along with the tiny jail. Fortunately for Kiera, they didn't know about her superior strength. While it wasn't considered even a D-level skill, it was enough for Kiera to bend the bars of her little cell. In the middle of the cloudy, dark night, she quietly sneaked away. It was time to move on, head to another farm, maybe make some new, doomed friends, and mourn the few old ones. Plant and pick another fruit or vegetable. Desperately cling to a meaningless existence.
She headed for the forest southeast of the farm. She knew that there would be monsters in the forest that would probably kill her, but better than being executed in public. She might survive the forest, but she definitely wouldn't survive staying. Better the chance at life, however pathetic, than the cold certainty of death.
Walking through the forest at night was a terrifying proposition. She fell and stumbled constantly, ripping her clothes and getting small cuts all over herself. It was truly miserable. After walking for half the night, she just couldn't go any further. It was a miracle that no monsters had attacked her, so far. She decided to just lay down in the small clearing and go to sleep.
In the morning, Kiera looked around in shock. She was still alive. What is going on? Where are all the monsters that must exist in a forest such as this?
What Kiera didn't know was that animals and monsters could clearly sense the presence of the silver dragon, and thus, in a forest this close to its lair, there would be no monsters. Unaware, and somewhat uncaring, of the reason, Kiera simply walked all day through the forest, marveling at the safety. Forests were known nests of monsters, and Kiera simply couldn't understand what was going on. Unfortunately, Kiera was not exactly an expert trekker. She unknowingly got turned around, and when she reached what she thought was the other side of the forest, all she saw was that mountain in the distance.
The mountain made her stop and think about Coyne and Therese, again. Fuck. She avoided the thoughts, turned around, and walked back into the forest. With the daylight, she was able to navigate her way through, this time. When she reached a new farm, she once again signed on as a migrant worker again. She was still working for Duke Hallowedlash, but now she wasn't about to be executed. It's the small things in life, I guess. At least I can always leave and move somewhere when things inevitably go wrong. Thank the gods my parents had a cultivation style book, or I would be dead dozens of times over.
----------------------------------------
“Alright, so the first thing we need to do is move you,” said Emelia.
“Well… shit,” replied Dorn.
Dorn thought he had the perfect setup. He was a regular-dodecahedron diamond, gently spinning in the air, a few inches above a crystal platform, with 11 elemental, static mana shield spheres surrounding him. Unfortunately, he was also in the first room from the entrance.
“I have a better idea,” Dorn said. He continued, “Let's just sink this entire floor into the ground and create a brand new first floor. Then, I can always be a level beneath whatever my 'final' floor in the dungeon is.”
“Normally, I would say that that would be a waste of DP's, but I forgot about the ridiculous number of DP's waiting for you in the form of creatures, weapons, jewels, herbs, and all the other shit you have back there, so you don't exactly need to be worried about lacking DP's for the moment. But remember, with your core floor moved down, when you start a new first floor, there will have to be a connection between the two floors, in the form of either stairs or teleportation glyphs.”
“What, why?”
“Rules of the gods. Adventurers must be able to access your core, and your core must be located in the deepest part of your dungeon 'body,' so that the mana your core releases flows out into the world properly.”
“I'm really starting to be annoyed by these gods and their stupid rules.”
Giving him a withering stare, Emelia said, “Whoop-de-do. Just fill out a standard complaint file and I'll mail it to the Higher Realm for you, addressed to 'whichever god made the rules for mortal access to dungeon cores.' Meanwhile, why don't you just purchase your second level, so you are allowed to build a second floor, and then you can move this floor down?”
“First, I don't care for your sass. But seeing as I doubt anything I could say or do would change your actions, I won't mention that… again. Actually, I probably will. Stop acting like a thirteen-year old child, who just discovered what sarcasm is. It's boring and too easy. I demand well-thought-out and highly intelligent jok-”
Dorn stopped as he noticed Emelia's glazed expression. He wished he still had a throat and lungs, so that he could sigh. Instead, he soldiered on: “Moving along, when it comes to levels, why don't I buy to level five in one go; that way, I'll get access to the Dungeon Store, and I'll be able to build my first four floors, thus having my first real dungeon floor.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Sure, go ahead,” Emelia shook awake and said, “might as well. You're rich as hell.”
“Good. So how do you buy levels?”
Emelia quickly replied, “Woops, forgot to show you that. First say status.”
“Status.”
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: None
Dungeon Level: 1
+1 for 200 DP's
Floors: 1/1
Dungeon Points: 10,500
Dungeon Rating: D0 – You have no danger!
Dorn took a look and said, “Well, for something designed by the gods and called the 'System,' this is astonishingly simple. Although, that Dungeon Rating seems a little too cheerful about the fact that I have no danger.”
“Are you now accusing the System of being sarcastic?” Emelia questioned.
Dorn ignored Emelia's sass once again and instead, mentally clicked on the +1 next to his dungeon level, before taking a look at his new status.
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: None
Dungeon Level: 2
+1 for 300 DP's
Floors: 1/2
Dungeon Points: 10,300
Dungeon Rating: D0 – You have no danger!
Dorn thought out loud, “So the cost just goes up by 100 for each level? I thought you said I only had enough points to level seven times?”
Emelia replied, “I did, and I was right. You, on the other hand, are wrong. The price for each level is not plus 100 for each level; it is instead determined by the Fibonacci sequence.”
“What the hell is a Fibonacci sequence?”
“Funny you should ask. They made us memorize the name in dungeon pixie school, but I never understood what it actually was, so I couldn't tell you,” Emelia said cheerfully.
Dorn looked exasperated. “Has anyone ever told you that you're incredibly infuriating?”
Emelia tilted her head and thought for a second. “Yep!” she said.
Dorn mentally sighed. Then he purchased the next 3 levels for his dungeon. The levels cost 300, 500, and 800 points.
Congratulations! You have now gained access to the Dungeon Store.
“Status”
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: None
Dungeon Level: 5
+1 for 1,300 DP's
Floors: 1/5
Dungeon Points: 8,700
Dungeon Rating: D0 – You have no danger!
Dorn paused and thought, before exclaiming, “Oh, I get it. The price for each level is added to the cost of previous level.”
“Huh?”
Dorn rolled his non-existent eyes and begged the gods for patience, a task he guessed he would be repeating sometime in the near future. After thinking about the cost of levels a bit more, Dorn gasped in shock, saying, “Wait a minute! The price for 100 floors would be ludicrous!” Calculating in his mind, he started saying, “It would cost at leas-”
Emelia interrupted, saying, “Nah, the rules change at level 10. It's apparently rather arbitrary.”
Once more annoyed by the rules of the gods, Dorn ignored the fact that Emelia most likely had no idea what 'arbitrary' meant. Instead, he just asked, “Now what?”
“Now we name your dungeon. I've been giving this a lot of thought. How about 'Dungeon of Mysteries.' Oooo, I know, how about 'Silver Dungeon?' Eh? Or, 'Emelia's Dungeon? Yeah, that's the ticket; let's go with 'Emelia's Dungeon.' Wait, even better, let's call it the 'Fuck Tina, that Shit Dungeon Pixie Rotting in the Underworld; Ilsan's Nature Dungeon is Dorn and Emelia's Little Bitch… Dungeon.' ”
Despite somewhat enjoying the last name she gave, Dorn begged for patience a second time, before saying, “The name of this dungeon will be A Dragon's Dungeon.”
Dungeon Name changed to “A Dragon's Dungeon”
“Now can we get to the actual dungeon building?”
Emelia, sad that her suggestion was not used, pouted and said, “Fine. First extend your influence through the rest of this floor. Once you've done that, we'll move this floor down into the earth by the depth of four floors. And before you even ask, just will your influence outwards with your mana. It's similar to using mana manipulation.”
Dorn instantly expanded his influence to include his entire throne room, sleeping chambers, and treasure horde. Then he looked at Emelia and said, “Now what?”
Emelia, stunned by this development, replied, “How the hell did you do that? That was supposed to take weeks, if not months. Oh right, you're a 3,000-year old dragon. How silly of me. Actually, once I show you how the dungeon features work, you're not even going to need me any more, are you?”
“Emelia, when I first met you, I just thought you were annoying. Now that I've gotten to know you, I have instead determined that you are infuriating. Thinking about the day that I can finally boot you out of here has made me happy, so congratulations, you've cheered me up!”
Emelia suddenly sobbed and flew off into his treasure horde, to the tree in the center of the monster room.
“Emelia, come back; I was just joking, for gods' sake” Dorn said. “I promise not to boot you out of here. Now come tell me how to move this floor down.”
Emelia ignored him. Dorn thought to himself, the annoying flying bug can't even take a joke. Which doesn't seem to affect her constant sarcasm and sass. Hmmm, last time I asked her how to expand my influence, she just told me to will it with my mana. Let's see if that works.
Instantly, the earth started vibrating, before it moved to full on shaking. Emelia came screaming back into the throne room, yelling “Earthquake! Quick, run!”
She then zipped right up to his crystal, passing easily through his elemental shields, and then strained with all her might as she tried to lift his core. Without progress.
Dorn quickly said, “Emelia, calm down, it's not an earthquake, I'm just trying to move this floor down to the fifth level. Also, how did you pass through my shields?
Emelia glared at him. “Well, you could have told me that you were moving. And of course I can pass through your shields, remember how the dungeon-pixie bond makes me immune to your traps and monsters? It also makes me immune to your magical protections as well.”
Dorn was simultaneously relieved, that Emelia seemed to have forgotten his joke, and annoyed, that Emelia could come through his shields and bother him from close proximity whenever she felt like it. The earth kept on shaking as his entire floor sunk into the earth. When everything stopped moving, Dorn finally checked his status again:
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 5
+1 for 1,300 DP's
Floors: 1/5
Dungeon Points: 700
Dungeon Rating: D -1 – You are now buried in the Earth and not accessible! Congratulations! You are now, somehow, even less dangerous than before!
“I'm telling you, these Dungeon Ratings are fucking with me. Who's even in charge of them?”
“Your subconscious,” Emelia said.
“...” Dorn had a brief moment of silence, before saying, “Well, actually, that explains everything.”
Dorn then looked at Emelia and said, “Now what?”
Emelia looked at him for a solid minute, before saying, “If you say 'now what?' one more time, I'm going to cut you in half.”
Dorn mentally smirked, before he simply and earnestly replied, “You can't. I'm a perfect diamond.”
Emelia begged for patience, a task she guessed she would be repeating sometime in the near future, before saying, “Now, you need to absorb a little of all your weapons, metals, gems, herbs, plants, animals, monsters, and mana crystals to recoup your losses. Oh, and since you didn't make the air in here breathable yet, your slaves should probably start dying any second now. That should give you a nice infusion of Dungeon Points.”
Dorn looked alarmed for a second, and was about to take action, when he reconsidered. Actually, what she says makes sense; I am desperately in need of points at the moment, so I might as well take the extra Dungeon Points up front, rather than waiting for their cultivation to slowly fill match their worth. First, he checked his current DP's and saw that they were 700.
After seeing his status, Dorn just about exploded. “It cost eight thousand DP's to just move a floor four levels into the Earth? Those gods are scumbags; there's no way that much entropy was lost moving my floor down a little ways.”
Dorn immediately decided to stop waiting for his slaves to die and extended a massive amount of mana into his treasure horde, before turning it into fire magic. Instantly, the entire treasure horde roared and a massive ball of fire came rushing out into the throne room, before rising to the ceiling and super-heating the earth above him. Some of the earth above him liquified and started melting into long stalactites. Mindful of the classics, Dorn encouraged this process with his mana, and even grew stone stalagmites into the ground. He then created little sources of water that ran down the stalactites and dripped onto the ground. Finally, Dorn actively decided to absorb all the resources that were still in his treasure horde.
Noticing this, Emelia said, “Hmm, now I see how you ended up killing Tina (that bitch). You respond to minor irritants with overwhelmingly disproportionate and violent impulses, without waiting to consider the consequences. For example, instead of absorbing just tiny filings of mithril and adamantium to gain their pattern, you absorbed both ingots. For those two metals, you probably received about 600,000 DP's or so. To re-make the two ingots, you'd need roughly 600 million DP's.”
With this bombshell, Dorn would be gaping in open-mouthed astonishment, if he actually had a mouth or jaws. He was completely speechless and unable to blame anyone but himself. Plus, Emelia had been correct, logical, concise, entirely coherent, and used rather large (for her) words correctly. He briefly considered which was more alarming. With nothing better to do, he decided to at least check his dungeon points:
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 5
+1 for 1,300 DP's
Floors: 1/5
Dungeon Points: 849,987
Dungeon Rating: D -1 – You are now buried in the Earth and not accessible! Congratulations! You are now, somehow, even less dangerous than before!
“Well, I won't have a use for the mithril and adamantium for a very long time. Huh. Emelia, if the mithril and adamantium only gave 600,000 DP's, where did the other 250,000 come from?”
Emelia, who had switched from coherency to watching the dripping stalactites in a trance, just mumbled, “Oh, that'll mostly be the slaves and the mana crystals.”
“But, the nature dungeon in Ilsan told me that those mana crystals were worthless.”
Emelia rolled her eyes and replied, “And do you believe everything strangers tell you? Especially when the stranger happens to be the demented piece of shit bonded to that bitch, Tina?”
“Well, when you say it like that, I sound stupid, but yeah. Why do they give DP's then?”
“Remember, it's all about entropy. Mana bound up in crystals is low in entropy, and by absorbing it all, you drastically raised its entropy, and the System awarded you your cut of DP's. That piece of shit dungeon was almost right however; considering just how much time and energy you sunk into making those crystals, and the fact that your slaves probably netted you about 100,000 DP's, 150,000 is actually astonishingly low. If you had instead spent that time collecting more adamantium, you'd probably have hundreds of billions of DP's right now. Oh well.”
“Don't 'oh well' me, that's 1,000 years of life I basically wasted!” Dorn raged.
“Pssh, don't be such a whiny little bitch.”
Dorn, finally out of patience, just started screaming at the top his non-existent lungs.