++ Dungeon Boss ++
A week goes by with no activity from anyone from the outside. The dungeon and I mostly made small talk for the time. Since the dungeon has used up practically all of its Narath on our remodeling, there isn’t much we can actually do while we wait. As it turns out, The dungeon has some thoughts that strike me as something only a purpose driven thing could have. For instance, it doesn't care about any living being except for those that somehow contribute to the growth of the dungeon, meaning it basically ignores the existence of people who pursue professions like tailoring, cooking, farming or any other generally domestic job. It doesn’t hold any space in its mind for any random animals that would be out in the world other than basic description, so it loses out on knowledge of where things live or even come from outside of its elemental affinities which only has a purpose in a form of combat situation. The biggest exception to this quirk is the fact that it has a lot of information about other dungeon examples that are out there. And even if it doesn't help the dungeon grow, it keeps track of where other dungeons fail, what layouts some of them have, or even just the general strategies that get used by them.
That said, the dungeon does seem to think that if I deem a human or an animal as important, it should endeavor to include any information or knowledge I have on them. After talking about a few animals from my world since they are all I have active knowledge of since I'm not from this one, we ended up discussing some of the differences and similarities of fantasy creatures from my world. For a really well known example, general fantasy media will depict manticores as lions with bat or demon wings and a scorpion tail with a penchant for devouring humans. However in this world it's not the same thing, a manticore here has the same name but instead of a lion it sounds strangely rabbit like, it's got the same facial structure or snout, and the same body shape as a rabbit, four eyes that sound a lot like a hornets eyes judging from the dungeons description, a scorpion tail that's about three times as long as what was depicted back home with added crazy speed and range of motion, with the final terrifying detail seeming to be a sight based magic attack that is said to turn your immune system against you if you look at its eyes.
Speaking bluntly, with the descriptions of that and a few other monsters in the world, it sounds like the outside would be a hell-hole if it weren't for immunities and levels. I can’t help but wonder if something was copying something else's homework a little, but that's not really something I care to solve. Speaking of solving, I’ve been thinking about the feather shaped jewel we have in the boss chest. I'm starting to wonder if I could find a way to use it for something more involved in the future than just a trap room. Actually I’m technically not even using it for that, just its image.
All things considered I kind of like these long waits in between things… The early invasions of two separate parties were kind of a lucky event. I would imagine we wouldn't normally see that much activity that fast if that weren't the case. I’m just happy we were able to handle it since we could have been attacked by someone at level 100 before we even knew what to do.
We continue talking as much as we feel comfortable but not a lot gets discussed, eventually I start to get bored and ask the dungeon a question. “So… Can I sleep in this body?” The dungeon seems a bit confused by this so I briefly describe it to them, after they understand what it is I'm asking, I’m met by their own question. “Why exactly do you want to ‘sleep’?” My first response is a bored groan. “I want to sleep until something comes into the dungeon, our small discussions aren’t going to last much longer and I’ve frankly run out of things to ask you since most of your knowledge is just based on stats or how much Narath we could get out of ‘X thing’. I’m getting bored and the easiest way to pass time is to not feel it for a bit.”
“If you'd like, I could put you in an unconscious state until something enters the dungeon. But this can’t be a constant thing. I’m not sure what benefit you get out of it entirely yet but I suppose we aren't the same kind of being so that's to be expected.”
“I would be fine staying conscious if there were more to do. At the moment all I can do to keep my mind involved in something is to run through our dungeons rooms again even though nothing will change about any of them until we get more attacks, or swing my weapon around like a lunatic… Get some playing cards or a training partner for me and then we can talk about me waiting this huge silent period out while awake.” Honestly It isn’t quite driving me crazy yet but I know for a fact it will if we don’t get something for me to do on my own time. Here’s hoping that won’t be too hard to do.
The dungeon simply says “Alright” and within only a few minutes I slump to the floor in a welcome sleep…
I'm woken up much less calmly by the dungeon somehow forcing me to be fully awake and aware in mere instants. I stumble to my feet in confusion at the feeling, I have no idea what the dungeon did to wake me up but I feel like my fight or flight response was triggered twice and both times landed on fight. “Ah! What did you do?” Before the dungeon even answers I realize that it woke me up so there must be one thing and one thing only that's happening… Someone has entered the dungeon.
“Good you're awake, It’s a good thing you aren’t a human or you would have starved during this ‘sleep period’. Still don’t understand that component…” I try to shake off the confused twitching my body started doing after being snapped back like that and stretch briefly, knowing what’s about to begin. “So since I’m awake again, that means we have visitors finally?... wait did you say I would have starved?”
“There are a large number of invaders entering the dungeon as we speak, by my count there are fifteen of them.” I push aside the starving comment as best as I can as a new surprise hits me. “Wait fifteen but that’s huge for a dungeon party.” Normally in media dungeons have some kind of limiting factor, I didn't think much about the previous groups as they were undeniably separate parties but If all fifteen of these guys are on the same side and coming in together, that almost implies the only limiting factor is space. I very quickly start to think that the rooms I've built won't be enough to remove all of them by the time they get to my doorstep. “Yes it is a bit larger than I was expecting this early, and what's worse is there is a group of six more that seem to be staying outside. I cannot discern what they have in mind but it looks to me like most of their combatants are in the group that are in the entrance room.”
I stop listening for a minute to think. Twenty one enemies in total is a huge number to tackle. If they all came in at a time I would have to fight at least two thirds of them in my arena at once… The frustration causes me to start unconsciously making a rumbling sound during my thoughts. It’s not much better with only fifteen since they are apparently all combat types. If we're going to do this right I need to start fighting them before they get to me. I hear the dungeon ask me a question and, while I’m not sure what it said, I don’t really need to…
“I’m not sure I can stand up to all of the current party if they all survive. So to that end, I'm going to start possessing creatures. What's my limit, do I even have a limit?” My answer is a very curt “For now yes.”
As the dungeon doesn’t have time to elaborate I just trust its word and take a guess. With the knowledge there is some limit, I feel pretty confident that the limit would be in the form of at the very least only one possession per room during a raid. Right or wrong that will be how I utilize possession for now.
I unceremoniously drop my sword to the ground with a heavy ringing being created from it clattering to the side. Not that I hear it for long as I simultaneously begin focusing on the last rat monster in the first room in order to possess it before the bandits get into combat. Briefly I feel uncertain how I will feel fighting like this but I shake it off since I don’t have much more than a minute to get ready for this fight, which will almost certainly be an absolute mess…
The first thing I do upon fully possessing the furthest rat from the entrance, I look around in its perspective to find some spots where I might be able to knock people off into the tiny rat area below. And it’s only after looking at the entrance again that I get a pretty mean idea. Following my train of thought I crawl to the side of my platform and look below it, sure enough the body I'm in could definitely crawl underneath the basic wood planks and rope we created the platforms out of and still see the entrance while remaining hidden from sight. Honestly the lack of torches might be working in our favor this time. I work off of intuition and try to squeak out a command to the other six mob rats in the room to climb to the underside and mimic how I hide. Sadly I have no idea how to actually speak rat so my only option is to trust my gut that what I did will work.
Following my attempt at an order to the other mobs, I rush to get under the platform before the enemies enter. A brief sigh of relief comes when all the other rats and I are fully hidden before any of the invaders eventually glance inside and take their first few steps into the room. The person at the head of the group quickly scanning the room and seemingly not spotting us, quickly raises a hand to stop the heavy looking guy just behind him “Stop, give me time to look it over.” An irritated reply comes from someone obscured from view due to the large group. “Seriously we took five steps inside and you’re already slowing us down?” At this a small back and forth occurs from various members of the bandits before eventually being shut up by the group front-runner. “If you'd all like to die the dumbest ways anyone could experience then by all means, rush in and break a neck or two, but do that when I’m not the one who will take the accusations from the morons outside. This is a clear trap room, the floor inside is lowered and there are rickety wooden platforms with gaps in-between each other leading to the exit door.” The leader, or who I assume to be the acting boss of the group, switches seamlessly from berating his allies to describing the room, likely expecting not to be interrupted.
The second he stops talking however, another of the obscured ones in the back starts talking back. “Come on! You can’t honestly be taking this dungeon seriously can you? The last guys we sent were killed off by an adventuring team that got there before them, the guy assigned to following them confirmed that for a fact!. This dungeon isn’t a threat!” This statement is followed by only about half of the group giving sounds of agreement, the other half however, is quiet. Now that I think about it, a few of them seem almost nervous. The heavily armored guy next to the group leader is eyeing the room with lowered eyebrows, clearly he’s suspicious of the lack of enemies.
“This is why Relana said I needed to lead this raid…” The leader speaks under his breath before continuing to yell at his group. “I need you all to listen to me very carefully. Just because it's a newborn dungeon, doesn’t mean your own stupidity and carelessness can’t lead to your very rapid death. Most of you are strong enough not to die if you’re paying attention. But if you just blindly walk into a tripwire and just decide not to dodge because ‘it’s a new dungeon and therefore not a threat’ you'll find yourself a delicious soup that the dungeon creature doesn't need a bowl for. Am I making any sense to your-”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It’s during this lecture from the leader that someone finally makes a move, against their better judgment. A short sound of effort comes from the pack before someone with two daggers at their side, some leather armor and what looks like a long scarf out of a fabric I can’t identify at a glance somehow leap-frogs over the head of someone next to the leader. His disruption immediately causes the leader to shout at him in frustration but the bandit completely ignores him and leaps to one of the platforms. He gets about halfway across the room before stopping and turning back with a smooth half twirl to face the group, ending it with a motion of the arms that can only mean he's taunting the boss.
“See, this is the kind of thing I'm talking about! If those had been set to snap in your completely reckless sprint, you would have likely died from the fall.” The heavy armored warrior puts a hand on the leader's shoulder briefly before taking a more careful approach and giving his helmet another bandit along with his weapon, and shield, which look to be a tower shield and a halberd of all things, to another bandit. Then once relieved of the extra weight the guy hops to the first platform and tests its stability. Finding it to not buckle or even bend the other bandit tosses each item back to him. While this is happening the boss lets the rest of the bandits inside, and taking this as a sign he's allowed to continue, the one that crossed half the room continues to jump towards the final platform.
Just as the first bandit reaches the second to last platform and prepares to jump to the last one, which will put him just above me once he lands. I give out a short command squeak before rushing up to the upper side of the platform. My command startled a few of the bandits who hadn’t gotten onto the platforms yet but quite a few made it onto different platforms before I made the call. The impulsive one is in mid leap to my platform by the time he could react and following my plan, I launch myself at him in mid air before he even has time to draw his daggers. This elicits a very quickly interrupted shout from him “Shit there are rats in here!? Draw your-” I doubt anyone who could make use of that warning could even pay attention, as the heavy armored one looks to be trying to grab the rat that's currently clawing at his face, sadly to no avail as he does have his helmet on during the jumps now.
As my possessed rat and the bandit I leapt at collide in the air, both of our momentum begins to work against one another. The impact hurt my body I'm sure, but not by much, and while I’m not massive enough to stop him completely I did impart enough of a push against him to make him not land well enough to have any real stability at the moment of his landing. The moment he lands he reactively attempts to swing his weight forward in order to land safely on the platform. Impressively ignoring the less immediate threat of my being on him. As I feel him lurching forward, I quickly rush over his shoulder and use the rat's tail to pull at one of his shoulders before launching myself off the opposite one. As I jump toward the other nearby platform I can only hear his reaction and hope it's enough to send him off the edge. A quick grunt of surprise and a single expletive are all I hear by the time I land and check to see what happened. After seeing no bandit on the platform, I turn to assess the rest of the combat.
It looks like two of the rats that ambushed a bandit fell alongside their prey. They will be preoccupied for a good few minutes but that was what I expected to be the case. The heavily armored bandit has just managed to get his attacker off of his face but the rat was smart enough to back off and jump to a platform he isn't on. The other three rats did not have a target to pull off the platform and are now preparing to fight. I start jumping from platform to platform to get to the one that holds the rat that ambushed the heavy armored one. By the time I reach my intended spot, the heavy warrior has readied his shield and halberd, this makes it impossible to get past him without risking him just slamming his shield into us or skewering us mid-air. I start to make a plan of attack now that the ambush is over before I'm interrupted by screaming from the pit. It’s hard to tell but it sounds like it might only be two people, not three like it should be. I look back but still not seeing the other bandit I just shake it off and focus on the tank in front of me. The moment I look back, his stance shrinks slightly, almost to be more defensive but it doesn’t look right. While I’m caught thinking about what he's doing I notice movement on my side.
The rat that shares my platform is about to rush him. Actually I think the rat behind me is jumping to my platform to rush in as well. I squeak out a command to not engage and both rats stop in their tracks. The tank, seeing this, immediately shouts to his allies. “We have a commander elite!, confusion, rage, and attention skills won’t work!” Attention skills? Did he just try to ‘aggro’ us? I squeak out another order and both of the rats next to me jump. They stagger themselves though as the first one aims at the tanks shield. The second leaps at the pole just under the platform and latches on.
The rat landing on the tanks shield immediately tries to throw its weight slightly to the side but the take accounts for this and doesn’t get pushed. He only tries to shake the rat off once but that's all the distraction I need to jump to the platform and land safely. I try to rush between his feet as fast as I can just as he notices me. And according to my order, the rat from below crawls up and tries to rush up the leg on his halberd side while I climb up his back. “Argh damn these things! Could one of you idiots get over here and get them off my blind spot!?” I'm not dumb enough to think I can throw him off his balance even with tree rats, if the other two rats could get over here we might be able to knock him off balance but that doesn’t even guarantee he actually falls off the platform. Instead of him though…
A bandit with a spear Jumps to the closest platform and prepares to strike at me but the moment he gets close enough it squeaks again and both the mob and myself turn and jump toward the spearman. This works great as all three of us pile onto the completely stunned bandit, the tank barely even registers that we left. Sadly that's as far as my plan goes as just after we get a bite on the guy, my gut starts screaming at me to bail immediately. Following this feeling I release the bite and launch off the spearman away from both him and the tank towards an empty platform. Turns out my gut feeling or instinct was so dead on that the instant I was mid-air between the two platforms, I saw a heinous looking fireball tear through the air past me. By the time I landed the spear wielder and both my allied rats on him were flash incinerated…
“What the hell are you thinking? We can’t be making martyrs this early in a new dungeon. Have you lost your mind?!” The shouting is coming from a slim archer, most of his gear looks new but very cheap so I hazard a guess he hasn’t been involved in banditry long. Surprisingly the person that speaks up isn't the mage that’s getting yelled at, it's the group leader. “There was no sacrifice, he was already dead with that many mobs on him, I don’t know if you noticed but the few that fell into the pit from the start, excluding the rats themselves, have been mauled to death by the flood of household rats that only appeared after the first person landed…” The leader turns to the person that I can only assume is the one that was complaining about the leader's caution before. “How about it? Still think it’s a good idea to blindly sprint forward?” The bandit doesn’t answer but it’s clear he's angry about being wrong from his face alone.
The archer that objected to the sacrificial strike looks uncomfortable but he starts nocking an arrow along with a couple other archers in the group. I glance back and see that the tank has turned to face me, iI make an order to the last two rats still on the platform to harass him from behind and turn back to focus on the imminent danger of the archers. This is before I notice the mage waiting to cast the same spell again which gives me an idea. I sadly doubt the tiny rats could climb the pole like I can, nor could they escape the pit I put them in, but they aren't the only thing that can swarm…
The first archer looses his arrow and I dodge as best I can while squeaking one more order to the rats behind me. I take the hit and it heavily wounds my body but thanks to possession I’m a bit harder to kill than a mob rat so I survive long enough to jump into the rat pit. The two other rats follow me down and land down a short distance away from me with a thud. The tiny rats are absolutely everywhere, so I’m glad to see that it worked as well as it did. I start thinking quickly about what to do to maximize the remaining advantage of the room, what little is left at least. The idea I come up with almost feels illegal thanks to my old world’s fantasy games. I squeak a command and order each large rat to carry as many tiny rats on their body as possible, this includes me as weird as it feels to have a bunch of rats climb onto me. Each rat can only carry what looks like 15-20 rats, it's a bit hard to tell as they sort-of camouflage with the larger rats' fur. Whatever the number each rat carries, there are five of the larger rats left including myself. All things considered, this should hurt their numbers a good bit more.
Up above the pit I hear discussion and I believe a few of the bandits cross the room entirely while I prepare. I expect I only have a few moments before that mage opts to try and fry us from above so I order all the Mob rats to climb the pole close to the entrance immediately. We climb the poles but nothing seems to happen for a few seconds. Listening to the bandits is all I can do to find the right time to try this last strategy.
Sounds like the leader and the mage are bickering… “Not happening, either use a different spell or just wait for them to show themselves!” I'm not sure what I missed from this conversation but I’m surprised they aren't yelling again. The leader just sounds exasperated at this point. “Why can’t one of you give me an actually thought out suggestion for once!”
“What part of ‘My water magic won't work because rats are light, and the only other option is fire spells’ do you not get?” The only response I can hear from the leader is a long sigh and accompanying silence. I want to jump in already but at best I'll just surprise them for a moment before we’re all stabbed to death.
“How about I throw in the fireballs, burn the rats, then flood the area with a water spell?” The leader just responds with one ‘Fine’ before I hear fire crackling close to us. The mage quickly prepares the spell and launches a few rapid shots into the area below, incinerating the remaining tiny rats.
“There it's done, the rats should all be toasty dust now.” I hear someone click their tongue behind him, then a really hard to hear warbling sound. Assuming this is the sound of him preparing the water spell I give the order to the rats to attack while we can. Unfortunately this can’t be as successful as the first ambush as they stayed on guard but a few of them do look shocked after a second look at us. “What the hell? They have the little rats on their backs!” The leader immediately lunges forward with a longsword and swipes at one of the other rats, landing the hit and scattering tiny rats everywhere, only a small few landed safely on the floor, the rest fell right back into the inferno. “Okay the water spell is good to go! Should I wait or- Shit!” The bandit stops talking because I bit into his arm and gave a struggling order to the small rats on my back to swarm him. “Aah! Get off me you little bastards!”
That’s all I care to hear before I go for his neck which is made a lot less simple by him flailing around with a charged spell. “Aw to hell with this!” Suddenly the bandit twists to the side and fires his spell at the majority of the mobs attacking the group. Water rushes from his hand in a massive circular pulse, after only a moment of travel time it slams into just about every remaining mob at once, along with his allies. Most of the victims of the spell simply get slammed into a wall or the floor from the force, but on my side, only one rat survived the attack, and it’s barely 15 seconds before the leader gets back on his feet and skewers it. The mage collapses since he couldn’t deal with any of the rats on him, and I did still manage a nasty hit on his shoulder, but he likely survives this as I didn't hit anything bad enough to kill him. My possession doesn’t last much longer as I spot an archer quickly ready his bow…