I wanted the second floor to be nicer than the first. While I had nothing against my very first floor, it wasn't exactly 'good looking'. It was literally just a sorta complex cave system bound to confuse at least someone. But the second floor would be better.

My work on constructing it began slowly. The amount of dungeon points streaming in wasn't enough for me to get it all done at once. For the time being I'd have to work on the second floor in tiny increments until it became one glorious whole.

So after getting rid of an extremely tiny amount of stone, my attention again returned to the first floor. Another crab had come. Like it's predecessor, the crab was relatively massive, giant even. Unfortunately for it, I had informed every single one of my minions on how they were to deal with any giant crabs.

Two of my snakes snuck up on the unaware Crustacean and as soon as the opportunity presented itself, they struck. Almost as if they were one complete creature they jumped at the same time and bit the crab. One slithered around the crab's right pincer and sunk its fangs down into soft crab flesh. The second snake did the same on the crab's other pincer.

The crab fell dead seconds after the twin doses of venom invaded its body.

And I received a tiny sum of Dungeon points as a reward.

With the nuisance of the crab gone and a bit more dungeon points to work with, I got back to work on the second floor. Stone crumbled away in the rough shape of an extremely crude looking entryway. It definitely wasn't my best work, but it would do for now.

Next, I hollowed out an artificial cavern to serve my very dungeon-y purposes. The scope of the cavern was truly massive. At just a glance one could mistakenly assume that they might have stepped into another realm entirely. It was so incredibly large that I'd have no trouble fitting - or making - a Dragon within its confines.

Instead of doing that, I formed a few massive pillars of stone that rose from the bottom of the cavern to the top. The four columns stood tall like bleak towers reaching for the sky. In an attempt to make them less Bleak I tried something new. I made something grow. 'Not Stone' was my first thought when I saw it: Bright orange crystals that shone in the dark of the cavern.

The crystals held a certain allure to them. A beauty that I couldn't not appreciate and captivated as I was my thoughts searched for a way to put them to use. A slew of ideas came to me, all of them uncertains and in need of testing. One in particular, though, stood out to me.

Fusing the crystals with my snakes. Making even more modifications.

I spent a couple of dungeon points on spawning in a few snakes. Like the snakes I had originally started out with, they were small and unassuming; probably not even poisonous. That was the first thing I changed about them. Their fangs were elongated and made to deliver the same venom into their victims the rest of my minions did.

Then I made them bigger, bigger than even the snakes on the first floor. In a burst of magically induced growth, the snakes became massive serpents each as long as a rowboat. It was after their sudden growth that the experimenting began.

Like how I made the crystals grow out of the stone, I made them grow out of and off of one of the snake's scales. The snake in question looked surprisingly uncomfortable, enough so that I actually stopped to forcefully put it to sleep before continuing.

Stolen novel; please report.

Again, I made crystals grow from scales. From those crystals grew even more crystals that spread out over the snake's body. Soon most of its back was covered in patches of orange crystal. This, oddly, seemed to have the effect of making the entire snakes body more durable overall. Its softer underbelly was-

The front door - not an actual door, purely metaphorical - of my dungeon was blown in right as I let myself focus. Four larger than dog sized crabs strolled in at the same time. Their claws, or pincers, were shaped in ways they shouldn't have been shaped. One had a claw shaped like a sword, another like a gun, and the third's was shaped like a shield. The fourth and final member's claw was shaped like a needle.

My attention lingered on them for all of five seconds before I refocused back on what I was doing.

A mistake.

No sooner than I had got back to work on turning my crystal snake into a giant crystal lizard, did the crabs grab my attention once again. Several of my serpentine minions died all at once. At least as many as five.

A quick scan of my first floor revealed that the four crabs were already a quarter of the way through. I watched the crabs as they moved forward as if they were one thing rather than four separate entities.

The sword crab and the shield crab met my snakes head on. While one cut and attacked the other blocked and protected. The shield moved to stop a potentially fatal strike, fangs bouncing off the red of hardened shell, only for the sword to split my minion in two.

While from the rear the gun crab fired off... Something at any snake it saw. Every shot was a guaranteed kill, blood splattered everywhere with each bang of its claw. Which didn't seem right. Even stranger was the needle crab. It moved like a phantom and struck with fast and precise moves targeted towards my snakes heads.

At the rate they were going it wouldn't be long before they cleared the first floor and made it to me. Very much wishing for that not to happen, I spent the rest of my dungeon points spawning more snakes. Then I used some classic dungeon magic on making those snakes as large as possible as fast as possible.

Some reached sizes that would make them large enough to intimidate even a lion. While others reached sizes that were truly titanic. The largest of these snakes ended up so big that it could only barely slither through the first floors tunnels.

I gave this snake, the largest one, a very special command. I told it to run the intruding crabs over. Loyal as could be, my newly created titan slithered with all its might and straight after the crabs. Both I and the, hopefully, soon to be crushed crabs could hear my creation long before it reached its destination.

In a fashion most unwise, the crabs prepared themselves for a fight. The sword and shield took a few steps forward and prepared to meet my horror head on. While the stabber and shooter - new names - took position so that they might be able to instantly lend their assistance. The entire time they prepared the Rumbling of my oncoming giant grew louder. Soon it reached such a volume that the crabs began to waver.

They shared concerned glances that screamed second thoughts on whatever they had planned. And then... My titan arrived. Completely caught off guard, the crabs failed to react in any appropriate measure in time. Instead they stared up at my minion utterly dumbfounded.

And were promptly ran over.

For a moment, everything was silent. Then my consciousness was assaulted with half memories and nuggets of knowledge. Things that the crabs once knew, their lives, and their collective knowledge on too many topics. The unimportant, useless, bits were cast away until all that remained was the stuff that could help me.

From them I learned the very basics of how magic probably worked. I also learned that they were from a guild of some sort that hunted dungeons, only everyone in the guild was a crab... Or a lobster.

In the midst of me shifting through the knowledge a notification appeared before my... Me and pulled me from my musings.

Emergency dungeon assist powers deactivated.

Warning: Under normal circumstances a dungeon is not allowed to alter or add to a floor while there are any invaders on it. Due to your status as a newborn dungeon in dire need of help, you were given the ability to ignore this rule. Such an exception will not happen again.

After reading the notification I filed what it said away as well as the information about the crustacean guild. Both needed to be processed, immediately after I got over the fact that I nearly died.

Which wouldn't take too long, probably.