Argent's administrations meant much to me but she lacked a Dungeon's fine senses. I could feel the care and attention she paid to restoring my fountain but even with her full focus on the task to my own senses it was...not crude but rough. Where I could create matter molecule by molecule Argent was creating in chunks the size of a fingerbone. She ran her mana across the surfaces with each completed section, smoothing it as best she could. She was mortal however, her creations were a constant draw on her power. Each time she finished restoring a splintered piece of wall, filling in a ragged crack, restoring the black bronze capping I ran my own mana through it to make it my own and give it permanence and smoothing the surface. Being tended to by my castellan was much slower than I would have preferred but it allowed me to turn my reserves to more pressing work than salving my ego.

Sedurzefon, The Emerald Fountain Core Dungeon Minions Level 2 Bastion of Artifice Floors: 5/6 Rooms: 52

Favoured Minions: 1/2

Argent of the Emerald Fountain

Mana: 38.4/500 (+0.5/s)

Dungeon Points: 184. Next level: 250

Named Locations: 2/2 Bosses: 0/5

Traits: Voracious Innominate, Heir In The Cradle, Dungeon Archivist

The Glorious Constructs (CONDITIONS UNMET), Tasglann Nilavarai (LOCATION UNDEFINED)

Schema Slots: 1/2

Schema: Goblins

Geas: Dungeon Conservator Infamy: 1. The World is almost completely unaware of your existence. Expeditions Locked

My infamy had increased to 1, a pitiful value but it did mean that somewhere something was aware of my presence. Whether it was whatever had attracted the Thaumivore, the battle with it or the beast itself, something had revealed me at least in part. I turned my attention to my uppermost level, now lying in ruins. Only three rooms remained, one of which was a hallway - the rest I had collapsed for the pitiful returns of mana that 'dispelling' them had given me. I restored them, not completely but to a state of ruined existence - sixteen in all. I made them a warren of traps for the unwary. I crushed stray cave spiders beneath blocks of stone, gained their form and seeded small colonies of the vermin throughout my entrance floor. I span thick cobwebs to obscure vision and catch any intruders that flew or crawled upon the ceiling - if another Thaumivore came for me, I would not be caught unaware again. I laid mottled stone sheets thin as a goblin's fingernail over shallow pits of serrated spikes. I pocked the floors and walls with acid, left scars and welts that spoke of the crawler's presence. They obscured the origin of my pits, making them look like damage rather than trap.

I hollowed beneath flagstones so they would shift when stepped upon - shifted enough to allow wall and ceiling to fall in. I left scraps of shining metal in dust piles, so impure that they would crumble and fall apart if anyone tried to collect them. I expended almost a dozen mana creating a variant of the Plump Helmet that would erupt in spores when brushed against. These little landmines I planted in shallow soil, spent another 7.2 mana threading the soil around cracks and crevices, burst the first crop. In time those spores would grow natural blooms free of my influence, requiring no upkeep to maintain. The spores themselves were large, enough that they might choke small vermin for a cheap mana supply and fragrant enough to attract them. In larger creatures they would cause coughing fits and runny eyes - nothing dangerous but it would make them easier prey for my denizens. The way from first to second floor I made a wide shaft, ripping stairs from the wall and collapsing supports. I covered the ragged hole in cobwebs, more soil for my new fungus, weakened every handhold. It would catch only the most foolish or unlucky of sapients but that was not it's purpose - it was uninteresting, natural in appearance, poor in hidden wealth. Its task was to deter, not kill.

[ Puffer Cap ]

This variant of the humble Plump Helmet is ill advised for consumption. A bulbous yellow cap contains the shroom's spores. Spotted with orange, these mark a thin easily ruptured membrane that sprays its seed to coat it's predators, which then spreads the Puffer Cap wherever it roams.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

I sank my core chamber once more, descending slowly so as not to disturb Argent. Her work paused only briefly, glancing briefly at me before resuming. We descended eight metres before stopping. I extended the space around me, one single enormous room with a nine vaulted ceiling.. I assembled it in tiered squares, three by three, held aloft by supports at the corner of each segment. Each corner I raised above the sides, myself I raised marginally higher. In each corner I raised a dias for the fragments of the History, along the sides I set shelves with evenly spaced flat discs bracketing the walkways. For the time being I spurned ornamentation, crafting the library of the simple basalt that surrounded me. As a simple but potent defence, outside the walls I ate away the surrounding stone but replaced it with nothing. It was arduous, forcing my light through the stone to eat away at the rock, leaving buttresses to reinforce my walls against the sucking pressure of vacuum. If any miner tried to dig straight to me, they would be pulverised by the force of suction through whatever breach they opened - or so I hoped.

There was no walkable path to the level above, which I disliked. I had a vision of portals, bound and warded to higher levels from a sealed chamber but that was beyond my wisdom and means both for the time being. Instead I raised a mighty gate in front of me, against the far side. I placed holds and indents for where my minions could mount great gates in time but for now left the way clear. Outside, I created a short hall smooth and undecorated except by simple supports and shallow niches along the walls. To the right I carved a simple etching of a doorframe. At the end I raised a pair of freestanding spiral staircases, scarcely wide enough for a single goblin to go up or down at a time. I gave them a simple bronze railing to guard against trips and falls, each branch winding slightly so they flanked a guard room above yet emerged on the sixth floor exactly side by side.

I closed the shaft though which I had descended, leaving an empty room above. I moved the workshops on the fourth floor to the fifth, sinking furnishings and tools through the stone. I restored the simple farm plot, seeded a first crop of Plump Helmets and Cave Wheat. The dorms of the Sundered Hold Tribe I set about tidying, leaving only a simple memorial plaque of broken iron made whole. I had created it by smelting one of the defiant warrior's spears. On the plaque I made a simple etching - the name of the Tribe, the impression of the Thaumivorous Cave Crawler, and the two warriors standing against it. The tribe had been powerless before their doom, yet those that could had stood against it. It was worthy of remembrance.

It wasn't much, I had used the bulk of my reserves on defences. The rest I made as I was able, allowing my mana to regenerate slowly. The wealth of metals, gems and resources I had been born to was a fraction now. Where once I had filled eight store rooms to bursting I now struggled to fill even one. The returns of mineral wealth for mana were meager indeed, I would not deplete my resources further. Even with my discount on creating and processing materials it was more costly to create than rewarding to consume - I suppose if it had been otherwise that would have been an unacceptable exploit to Fate. I would keep the stockpile in case I had need of an emergency supply or until I had minions to use them.

Argent finished her task, my structure restored. She had grown it to something grander than I had made, the pedestal I rested upon hollow and open to the sides so the falling water was lit by my reflected glow. The plain basalt was encased in brass, studded with chunks of hollow onyx that glowed from within. My light fell through the glass tube she had made, a simple oscillating mechanism at the base pumping water from the basin to emerge beneath me. The basin walls she had armoured in bronze, embossed and lined. I realised while much of it was blank there was a record on the metal - inaccurate but present. Argent had worked from her memory, a memory where I was already Named and sitting proudly upon a fountain. She had filled in my origin as best she knew - a plinth raising from broken stone with a small fleck of green glass atop it to represent me. Beside it was a simplistic but elegant impression of my first edifice, long rays of glass representing my light. Next came her creation, a silver figure kneeling before me. Next the Sundered Hold Tribe in solemn obsidian, next the Thaumivore in snail shell surrounded by obsidian corpses. Next a gear in green glass, suspended over the shell cadaver of the Crawler. I realised she had not witnessed my makeshift cudgel and guillotine, representing some engineered cunning that had felled the beast as a gear. Lastly she had recorded herself in red glass and silver, a bloodied figure holding a hand to one eye, the other hand palm up creating one anew with a green chip that represented me.

I was touched, humbled by her labours. I sought to uncover the History of Dungeons but had never thought to record my own. I had been motivated by a greed for experience and power, rather than the passionate drive for knowledge Argent embodied. There was a purity to her ambition, she craved the knowledge as much as I did but for it's own sake, not to gain it's power. Argent I realised was a creature that simply wanted to know, no more or less.

"Thank you, Argent." I said quietly. My words still echoed, crystalline and bright in the empty vault. "I would not be here without you."

She genuflected swiftly, falling to one knee and licking her lips nervously. "Dungeon," She spoke, quick and rapid despite her affected poise. "I live to serve, I-"

"No Argent, stand." I interrupted hurriedly, feeling the conversation starting to escape me. "Please."

The little goblin stood, smoothing her robes reflexively and pausing, unsure how to stand. It pained me, to see this creature that I had made and who had had provided the means to save my life, who had held me close in quaking hands I had found a comfort in, so discomforted by me. "Argent, first of my servants, you will never bow to any other ever again." I kept my voice quiet, steady, slowed my words and cadence to a normal mode of speech with effort. It was hard not to rush, stammer and stumble over my words. I didn't have a tongue to be tied, a nervous system to misfire and lose words. I almost wished I did. "You saved us, even if I swung the axe. It was your insight that realised the monster was unaffected by my magics, your actions that showed me how to hurt it, your words that told me the method. You returned the life I gave you. You owe me nothing."

She said nothing for several seconds, fingers rolling the fabric of her sleeve. At last she straightened, long fingers clasping before her. "And yet I serve."

There was steel in her voice, resolve that would brook no argument, but it was subtle beneath the calm of an entity fully at peace with their fate. I felt awe and jealousy at that, I was nowhere near as confident in my own. "I am..." I trailed off, struggling to find a word that encompassed my emotions. "Honoured is insufficient, Argent. It fails to convey the totality. So I will say this. You have earned my trust and respect, moreover you have earned my faith and so I tell you this last so you might comprehend the depth of my appreciation."

I took a moment to muster the courage, my minion standing with wide eyes and lips parted, realising.

"My Name is Sedurzefon, The Emerald Fountain. I entrust my Name to you, Argent of the Emerald Fountain, keep it well."