Chapter 7
As Kiera plunged her black gold dagger into the chest of the last bandit, she thought to herself, gods, why did that fucking dungeon in Ilsan have to be destroyed and cause a civil war? It was the civil war that had pushed so many desperate people into Khal, creating bandits like the group she had just killed. As a woman riding alone, she looked like an easy target for the bandits, not a master wielder of dual daggers. That was the sixth time I've been attacked, and this time it was during the day and only a few miles from Khal City. Gods-damned nature dungeon.
“Ah yes, the nature dungeon, that was my mistake. I accidentally destroyed it in a bout of rage. If it makes you feel better, I did slightly regret doing that afterward,” Dorn projected into her mind.
Instead of being angry at Dorn reading her thoughts again, she was instead more stunned at what he had said. You're the reason why the dungeon was destroyed? What the fuck could have possessed you? You basically caused the destruction of one country, possibly two after they invade Khal, and the deaths of thousands.
Dorn didn't seem too apologetic, “Eh. It'll push more people towards my dungeon, and there will be less competition, so overall, it's a net positive. As I already said, it was a fit of rage. I had just learned that I had wasted about 1,000 years making hundreds of thousands of somewhat useless mana crystals.”
You have hundreds of thousands of mana crystals? Couldn't you have given me a few?
“No, I absorbed them all. And what exactly do you need more money for; I already gave you 500 gold coins. You could buy a medium sized village with that much coinage.”
Kiera just thought back, gah, you have no idea what it's like to live as a poor human in this world.
Dorn said, “Well thank the gods for that. That I didn't have to live as a human, not the poor part.”
Kiera just snorted and thought, wow, thanks for the clarification. Go back to building your dungeon; you don't have much time until adventurers come. Kiera then continued digging a small ditch to bury the dead bandits in. They didn't even have anything worth taking, only owning some shoddy iron cutlasses and daggers.
Finished with burying the bandits, Kiera sat down in front of their small fire pit, warming her hands in the cold spring morning. She looked out at the forest surrounding her. The pine trees helped cover up the smell of blood and dirt that had tainted the air. She looked into the fire and watched as the flames danced left and right. She loved staring into flames and thinking. This time, she was thinking about the fact that in a little while, she would be in a big city for the first time in nearly a decade. She sighed, got up, and walked over to Saturn, her horse. Saturn didn't seem to mind that they were headed towards the city. But then again, Saturn didn't grow up in a city before effectively being exiled. Actually, Saturn didn't grow up at all, he sprang into existence fully formed.
***
Dorn felt the earth shake as he moved his core floor down seven more levels, from the fourth to the eleventh floor. This cost him nearly 14,000 DP's, and he had just bought the eleventh level upgrade for 11,000 DP's.
“Emelia, I thought you said that you only get one floor per level for the first ten levels?” Dorn asked.
Emelia said, “I did. Starting with level 11, things change. You get a new floor every other level, and the cost of each level no longer follows the Fibonacci sequence.”
“It makes me wonder why the gods are so arbitrary about these rules.”
Emelia replied, “They probably just didn't give it much thought. They aren't that concerned with the lower realms, so they probably set up the rules for the System quickly, a long time ago, and they've never bothered to change it since.”
“But what about the auction items they have every year?” Dorn asked.
“That's taken care of by some lesser god who they offloaded the assignment to. It's more like the shit job that was foisted upon the weak.”
Dorn once again shook his non-existent head in annoyance at the lack of, well, giving a shit, by the gods. It did make him understand why they hadn't done anything about the devil and demon realm.
Dorn looked up towards his fourth level. It was time to build his first real dungeon floor. He was nervously excited. First he checked his status page:
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 11
+1 for 12,000 DP's
Floors: 4/11
Dungeon Points: 178,947
Dungeon Rating: D0 – I'm about ready to just
give up on you.
Congratulations! You have unlocked
the Automated Loot System.
He had just shy of 180,000 DP's, which was perfect. He was planning on building floors 4-6, including instances. Instancing a floor cost 10,000 DP's. So at the end of the day, Dorn had 50,000 DP's to play with on each level. Further, excavating rooms and tunnels was a net positive, even if he lined the walls with stone, as any absorption of matter gave a small chunk of DP's. Dorn decided to go with a fairly easy fourth floor, as it would be the training floor for adventurers who had never been in a dungeon before. The goal was to slowly introduce new adventurers to the feel of a dungeon. Mostly, it was about acclimatizing to the creepy environment that was a dungeon and to learn to heighten awareness to the highest level.
Dorn decided to have a simple layout for the first level. The glyph room, where adventurers entered was a square room made of stone. It was of course a safe room, with no dangers. There would only be one exit and one entrance for each room, and the order of the rooms would snake across the floor, creating a total of nine rooms and ten tunnels. The final room would be the boss room. Only after defeating the boss would the door to the exit teleportation glyph open, allowing adventurers to leave. The tunnels would introduce the simplest of traps. There would be pitfalls and arrow traps with trip wires. In the pits, Dorn would eventually place a few slimes, but he currently didn't have the pattern for a slime, and slimes would be too dangerous for this floor anyways. The arrows, while sharp, were not poisoned, like they would be in later levels.
For the rooms, simple fights with small monsters was what Dorn set up. For this floor, he decided to mostly use lizards. Of course, he would pump up the size of the lizard to be big enough to become a threat. Spawning a lizard in the first room from the glyph room, Dorn looked at it and wondered how to make it larger.
“Emelia,” he asked, “how do I make it bigger?”
“That's what she said,” Emelia said
“What, who's she?” Dorn asked.
“Ugh, never mind, you really were a recluse, weren't you? No, don't bother answering. To make the monsters bigger, just pump a few DP's into them, while focusing on what changes you wish to effect.”
Dorn looked at the lizard and imagined it being about the size of a large dog, with teeth sharp enough to puncture leather armor and scales strong enough to resist a few sword swings. Then he pumped 50 DP's into it.
It exploded. The entire first room was covered in gore. Dorn received 25 DP's back from the creature dying.
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“What the fuck?” Dorn asked.
“Okay, two things. First off, when I said use a few DP's, I meant around seven to eight. Second, you have to add the DP's slowly, or else you will have a gore-covered room like you do now.”
Dorn grumbled that she could have told him earlier, and she just sniffed and said it was common sense. Dorn cleaned up the room by absorbing all the gore (recovering 10 more DP's) and tried again. He spawned a lizard and slowly pumped eight DP's into it. It grew to be six feet long and two feet tall. Dorn had to strengthen the bones and muscles of its legs to enable it to walk around, but it was still slow.
He decided to just leave it in the first room by itself. As a dungeon-born creature, it had no need of sustenance or other bodily requirements other than the mana that Dorn gave off into his dungeon. It promptly proceeded to take a nap.
Dorn decided to place two lizards in the third room (second from the glyph room) and three lizards in the fourth room. Then he switched over to snakes. Luckily, he didn't have to modify the python he created as it was already about ten feet long and big enough to crush a grown man to death. The fifth, sixth, and seventh rooms got, respectively, one, two, and three pythons. The eighth room would be the boss room, with a closed door to the ninth and final room, with the teleportation glyph.
For the boss, Dorn decided to go with the lizard, as a giant snake seemed too dangerous for the D4 floor. He spawned the bearded dragon and began to pump it full of DP's. This time he added 15 DP's to the monster slowly, almost twice as many DP's as the common lizards in the first few rooms. The bearded dragon grew to be a massive twelve feet long and four feet tall. He decided to just leave it alone as a large monster, without any other strengthening.
Then, Dorn put the finishing touches on the floor. First up, he placed removable torches on the walls of the entrance glyph room, as well as permanent torches in the rest of the rooms. He placed doors before the boss room that would open simply with a push. Finally, he placed a treasure chest in each room that would only open after slaying the monsters in the room. Dorn set up an automated loot delivery system for each treasure chest. Most often, only a few coppers would spawn in the chests. However, every 100th monster slayed (cumulative with other adventurers) would spawn a piece of trashy leather armor.
Dorn stopped and looked over his fourth floor. He was pleased with how it turned out. It seemed like the first floor that many new dungeons built, and he was happy with that. It would be a great way to introduce adventurers to a dungeon.
Emelia smiled and said, “Finally, you have an actual dungeon floor. Congrats!”
Dorn smiled and checked his status:
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 11
+1 for 12,000 DP's
Floors: 4/11
Dungeon Points: 129,362
Dungeon Rating: D4 – The average
human toddler would not be able to
make it through your dungeon!
After seeing the Dungeon Rating, his smile promptly disappeared. Emelia sensed he was about to explode and quickly said, “Come on, don't focus on it. Just start making your fifth and sixth floors.”
Dorn knew he was being managed, but decided to turn towards his fifth and sixth floors anyways.
***
“Five coppers,” said the bored city guard.
Kiera just tossed over the coins and rode Saturn into Khal City. After finally returning to a city for the first time in a decade, Kiera's first thought was, wow, what a shit-hole. And the smell. This is disgusting, don't they know how to carve a sewer?
It was simple for earth mages to make a rudimentary sewers system, like what existed in Ilsan. Khal was a much poorer country, however, and here, people just threw their shit in the streets. Walking through the slum, Kiera saw a huge number of refugees begging in the streets. She continued on and came to the center of the city, where the King's castle and the rest of the government buildings were located.
Dorn's voice suddenly appeared in her head. “First, head over to an inn in the merchant's district to stow your horse. Then immediately go to a tailor, followed by the bath house. There is no way anyone would believe you if you were to report a dungeon in your state. When you're properly dressed, you can go to the government building to find out what noble owns the land I'm in and purchase it from him. Good luck with that. Then head over to the adventurer's guild in the mercenary's district.”
Kiera thought sarcastically, thanks Dorn, I never would have guessed any of that. But Dorn was already gone, focusing on building his dungeon.
Kiera was so excited about finally getting to take a bath that she breezed through her appointment at the tailor without even thinking about her family's old business and her repugnant younger brother. After taking her bath and picking up her new dress at the tailor's, she returned to the inn she had left her horse at. After changing, she noticed every head in the bar turning to watch her as she departed. Smiling, Kiera left the inn and headed over to the government building.
Walking inside, she headed over to one of the desks with a foul looking man standing behind it.
“What do you want, wench?” asked the man behind the counter.
Oh boy, it's going to be a miracle if I make it through this without shoving a dagger in his eye.
“I want to purchase a parcel of land from whoever owns it. It's to the east of-”
“Where's your husband? Women can't be the owners of land.”
Don't murder him, don't murder him, don't murder him.
“I do not have a husband,” Kiera stated. She slapped a gold coin down on the desk. “Now, are you going to tell me who owns the piece of land or not?”
The old man quickly looked around before taking the coin and hiding it in his pocket. He still looked unhappy, however. “Where is the piece of land?” he asked.
“To the east, a mountain known as Mount Silver and a mile of land surrounding it on all sides.”
The old man headed into the back to grab a map. After unfurling the ancient map on the desk, he quickly located the mountain in question. After checking the words written on the map, he told Kiera, “You're in luck, the land is owned by the king and is therefore available for sale. If you want to purchase the land, you will have to head upstairs to Royal Affairs. The land you want is one mile of land, circular in dimension, centered on coordinate G-4738. Good day.”
Kiera turned and left, before her anger got the better of her. After bribing another three government employees and dealing with the casual sexism of all of them, Kiera was the proud owner of a writ of ownership for land in the Khal kingdom. She was also 47 gold pieces poorer.
Dorn spoke up at this point. “You do know that I'm not going to just give you unlimited amounts of gold, right? After this trip, you're on your own. Also, keep an eye open, you just spent a large amount of gold.”
Please, Kiera thought, all I have to do is tell the adventurer's guild about the dungeon and I'll have all the money I could want. No problem.
Heading back to her inn, she changed once again into riding gear before wandering over to the mercenary's district, where she was pleasantly surprised to see women in fighting gear in many of the groups. Walking into the adventurer's guild office, she saw even more women lounging around at the tables near the bar. Well at least some part of this gods-awful kingdom is egalitarian.
The receptionist looked up and asked, “Hello, welcome to the adventurer's guild. How can I help you?”
Kiera headed in close and whispered, “I'd like to report the location of a new dungeon I have discovered.”
The receptionist's eyes went wide, before she ran into the back and up the stairs. A few minutes later, she came back and told Kiera that the head of the adventurer's guild would like to meet with her. Kiera followed the receptionist up the stairs and into a large office, before the receptionist let herself out. The guild master was a tall man who was younger than Kiera was expecting. Although, she was expecting someone ancient, so almost anyone would be younger than what she expected. He had short-cropped dark hair, pale skin, and a stare that seemed to see inside her and understand everything there was to know about her life. She also felt the pressure of a high-level chi practitioner. The pressure made her shiver.
***
Warley looked at the beautiful red-head who stood before him. If he were 70 years younger, he might even consider flirting with her. As it was, he was an old bachelor, and was probably going to spend the rest of his life without a wife. Of course, as an A-ranked chi practitioner, his life span was around 300 years. He still felt that he was too old, at 105, to be dating such a young girl. He was surprised to see such a young, C2-rank adventurer. She must have come from a distinguished family to have a style book good enough to raise her to C rank at her age.
“So you're the one who says you've found a dungeon. Do you have any proof?”
She cocked her head for a second, as if she was listening to something someone else was saying before reaching into her bag and pulling out a black gold dagger. Stunned at the casual display of wealth by the young woman, he was even more stunned when she plopped the dagger down on his desk.
Warley lifted the dagger and examined it. It was definitely made of black gold, and it was extremely sharp, but the craftsmanship was only mediocre. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “Are you expecting me to believe that a new dungeon gave out a dagger made of a magical metal? Where would it even get black gold from?”
“Yes, I am expecting you to believe that because that is what happened. Maybe it swallowed some bandits or adventurers before me and got the design of a dagger. Maybe it's situated on a black gold deposit and used the only metal it had access to. I don't know, and I don't particularly care. Now, can I get my reward?”
Warley had to laugh at the fire in this young woman. The dagger she had just placed in front of him was worth at least two to three times as much as the reward she would receive from reporting a dungeon. He internally chuckled while keeping his face passive. Finally, he told her, “No. We must first send a team to this dungeon to determine if the dungeon is real. If you are in a rush, you may accompany the team to the dungeon, where, if the dungeon exists, they will hand over your reward. If you decide to go with them, you will procure your own horse. I would also suggest keeping that dagger a secret, until you have left the city.”
Warley handed back the dagger, before continuing, “It's standard practice to send a low B-ranked team out to confirm the presence of a new dungeon, just to make sure nothing bad happens on the way to or from the dungeon. It's overkill for a new dungeon, but that's the policy. And the B-ranks are the ones with the fewest jobs, as they are too strong for most adventurer tasks, but too weak for the nobles to hire. You can meet your team here tomorrow morning at first light. Was there anything else?”
Kiera took her dagger and told him that was all, before turning around and leaving. After she left, Warley steepled his fingers and leaned back in his chair in thought. Hmm, what team can I send that would not harm the girl, and I would trust to actually hand over her reward? Ah, I know. Warley didn't even consider that she might be lying; most liars would have cracked when they learned a B-rank team would be accompanying them, but the girl only blinked a little. If she had had no reaction, Warley would start to wonder if she was stronger than her apparent C2 rank and was simply hiding it with a profound application. The kind that assassin organizations utilize. Warley called his secretary in, ordering her to bring the Scarlet War-Mages into his office.