One moment he didn’t exist, and in the next, he did. Sudden corporealism is, as one might expect, very disorienting, so he relies on his instincts. Screeching like a bastard and flying as high as he can. Considering he is in a half-cave half-forest place, this ends up with him smacking high-speed into the black stone ceiling before wobbling onto a small sapling’s branches, feathers ruffled and very disgruntled.
When the others come into existence too, that’s how they find him, and that is also how he gets his name. Rufflefeather. It’s...a name, and while he’d have preferred something more along the lines of ‘Starshadow’, or ‘Cut of Night Sky’, it’s a serviceable name for now. Hopefully he’ll be able to earn a true name from their Dungeon, maybe even become the boss of the first floor! After all, there are few as beautiful as he-or one of his fellows, he supposes-and none that would take such a job as seriously as himself.
Well, if the Dungeon even knew about true names, they certainly didn’t seem to know most things a Dungeon should. No traps, no vicious beasts, heck the most dangerous thing in the whole floor is the spear-beaked greater raptors, and they were growing fat on rats rather than focusing on getting faster and more deadly. And what even is the room tone?! Three completely different themes in each of the main rooms, no variation in level, just a straight line, what the heck is that!
He squawks, flaps, and stamps his taloned feet to get his frustrations out, before taking a deep breath and getting back to his given role for now. He is technically the oldest and most experienced of the dozen of his kind, and he is an adult compared to the rest of them being adolescents, so he’s been left with arguably the most dangerous task, scouting out their Dungeon home. Although, with the Dungeon’s temperament, a chick could probably wander off on its own and be placed gently back into its nest with a stern scolding before being given a tasty worm treat, which while appreciated is not how things go in a Dungeon.
No, no, he’d already decided to ignore that for now. Job now, griping later. He’d already done a quick flyby, when he’d thought they were in more potential danger than they really were, so now he was going through each room meticulously and noting everything he could. Their home room, also technically the Boss room, had their Dungeon’s Core obviously, along with the foliage that was growing even thicker as he watched. The bloodpeckers and crimrose nectar birds would be good sources of meat, though he also figured one of the large rats might be easy to take down as a group if they ever felt like stocking up on food.
Flapping into the much more quiet water room, Rufflefeather perches on the central column for a quick drink of water, taking a moment to open his wings and preen at his glorious heart-feathers, enjoying the way they show off his sparkling personality as actual sparkles on the water. He takes some time to look over the room once he’s done, though he can’t really do much here thanks to pretty much everything being underwater. He does have to yell at one of the big swimming fur-wing beasts when they try to spit a stream of water at him, laughing even as it dives back below the surface.
Ruffling his feathers (yes, he recognizes the irony), he flies to the other side of the room, where intruders would start, before finding his gaze pulled back to the water room by a new sound. Apparently he’d tripped the puzzle, the constellation and the ceiling lighting up in the pattern he’d seen his first fly through, but this time a set of notes plays out, seemingly embedded in the water of the lake. The surface vibrates and ripples slightly with every note, each one simple but clear as they activate with each star of the constellation, echoing in the large room pleasantly. Well, he can at least appreciate the Dungeon’s aesthetics. It helps that a small amount of thick mist hangs over the water from the excitement, making it even more difficult to cross properly.
He picks up the room-feeling of embarrassment, the Dungeon apparently having focused in once the puzzle was tripped. Good, hopefully it would be able to filter out Dungeon monsters like himself. It completely ruins any attempts at sneaking, which will be needed when intruders inevitably come to hurt the Core. He moves on to the last ‘room’, though it’s really just a prettied up corridor. There is the surprise of the smaller rats that come out to see him once he lands on one of the little terrace ledges. A trio of them scurry up to him, each only about a third his height when standing on their hind legs.
Rufflefeather cocks his head from side to side, getting a better look at the trio. At first he assumed they were just smaller versions of the forest rats and was prepared for a quick meal, but stopped when he saw the gleam of true intelligence in their eyes. They weren’t base species like most of the other creatures in the dungeon, they were potential allies. They were ugly as sin with their lack of wings and weird non-feathers, but he could see the practical application in those little intruder-hands they had. Even as he watched two of them pull apart a piece of woody vine until they had a bunch of fibers, then started weaving it together with their little fingers. It seemed mostly for fun rather than practicality, the third trying to climb up his foot while they all chatter in their not-bird language.
He shakes the third off and ruffles his feathers in disdain, but preens a loose heartfeather out and drops it for them to play with. Obviously not for any empathy, the little creatures would be useful tools for defending the Dungeon entrance and a good start to relations would be best, and the feather was loose either way. He watched them play with the feather yes, but merely to make sure that they didn’t try to eat it or something! They might be intelligent, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t be stupid.
Before he could fly off back down the tunnel to report in with the rest of the Gleamwings though, the Dungeon set itself to rumbling, The walls of the corridor grinding, dissolving and growing in turn as its two walls receded. As he crouches in place, he can see as the walls curve, creating a crescent moon, arching around the pool room and leaving a thick wall to seperate the two zones.
Rather than the closed in walls he’d expect to see, columns of stone that spear up from the now circular terraced gardens allow the Dungeon to stay in control of the space despite the open air, more forming to fill up the whole space. In between the circular gardens, moss and shallow water puddles cover the pathways, and the columns grow little small-rat sized stairways, little bridges cropping up like angular tree branches to connect all of the gardens. Along the actual walls, larger sized pathways and holes crop up, also connecting to the small-rat paths, and as he watches a family of larger fox creatures start exploring them.
Feeling something stir underneath him, he blinks and opens up wings he didn’t realize were covering something. Popping out from beneath his wings come the three small-rats, chittering in surprise as they look around, and he huffs at his instincts. He leaves them to reconnect with their fellows, flying down the now arching crescent gardens, watching the mana-boosted growth of the new garden columns plants. Each one seems to have a different combination of the plants he’d already seen, just in different patterns. He squawks in surprise and indignation at the sign of what he sees at the end of the path though.
At the end, he sees the forest! Well, he sees a quickly growing expansion of the forest, but he can see it, the Dungeon just opened the path directly to the Core?! He’s ready to fly over there and scold it just for that, but before he can he thwacks into something right at the border of the two zones and drops to the floor, feathers ruffled. A vague feeling of panicked apology draws him out of his daze, and he climbs back up to his feet with an annoyed screech, preening his feathers back into place after the fall.
Cautiously hopping closer to the invisible barrier, his outstretched wing eventually presses against the mysterious object. None of his inherent Dungeon Monster knowledge can tell him what it is, so he’s completely puzzled. After pecking at it for a moment, the Dungeon room-feeling fades into anticipation and joy, and he watches as it materializes a circle of black metal with gold-love the shiny-etchings, pressing it against the barrier. Lines of light grow from the circle, creating very pretty shapes that outline a door from ceiling to floor in the barrier. After a moment, the light fades and the slice of barrier slides up into the ceiling, the warmer, more humid forest air mixing with the cooler, drier air of the gardens.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Rufflefeather flaps through, turning around to watch the door slide back down into place, becoming unnoticeable once more, with the black shiny floating into the rapidly growing plant life of the gardens. An interesting alternate route to the central pond room, though he’s unsure how it will hold up to the intruders. Still, he’s seen plenty enough for today, it’s time to get back to the little brats.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
“Hilda, I have a High Priority report that I believe you may need to hear as soon as you’re available.”
The small, glowing crystal on the desk dims slightly, before glowing brighter once more and repeating the message. It was once a well made desk, but has since been tarnished over time by spills, inkstains, and the slight deformations and discolorings from low-grade wood magic used for repairs. The office room the desk is in is of similar condition, showing a large amount of wear-and-tear that has been roughly repaired, prioritizing practicality over looks. Slumped over the desk, snoring loudly, a stout, literally bronze-skinned woman can be seen, face twitching slightly at the repeating noise but otherwise staying deep in her slumber.
After the 5th repeat however, the crystal goes more dim than usual, before flashing stronger than ever, coalescing into a ball of water and ice cubes above the woman. It loses its fight with gravity quickly, and as one might expect, she jolts up, smashing right through the back of her chair and falling to the floor, sputtering at the cold. Sitting back up and looking around with a fighter’s trained eye, she relaxes after a moment, her skin heating up a dull red to steam the water and ice away.
The heat fades soon after as she gets to her feet, sighing and rubbing her eyes to clear away the gunk. Sitting down at her new stool, Hilda looks over at the crystal, practically oozing with amusement from the mind connected to it.
“Alright Ezos, I’m up. What is so important you decided to go with the ice water method? You know how hard it is to find a carpenter that can make a comfy chair that can handle me.”
“A High Priority report, Hilda. It appears that a Dungeon has formed some 12 miles away, down at the cliff before the Cracked Marsh.” The dwarf has to just. Process that for a moment, simply from the ridiculousness of that statement. The Cracked Marsh was known to be a hotbed of magical irregularities, but a Dungeon was… Her eyes sharpen with the aura of decades of experience, going from ‘lazy guild leader in a backwash city’ to ‘master adventurer fighting the forces of evil.’
“What’s the approximate development stage? How many of the reporters were lost, and did they get any valuable info? And how the hell have we had this thing under our metaphorical noses without noticing before?!”
“Easy Hilda, easy! To sum up, it seems we’re actually quite lucky. The scouting team had a Feytouched among them, who led them right to it only a handful of days after its emergence. Even better, they were under the strong impression that it’s an Artisian Dungeon, rather than a normal kind. I’ve already sent out a Silver group to subdue the Dungeon for study if it’s not Artisian, or secure the area if it is.”
Hearing the measures already being taken, Hilda almost leans back in relief before remembering that her chair has been stool-ified, instead settling for resting her elbows on the table with her face in her hands, sighing in exasperation.
“How is it that you’re both the most stressful and the most calming part of my job, Ezos?”
“Someone’s has to keep your adrenaline going or you’ll get rusty. Might as well be me! How would you like to prepare for the inevitable flood of people that will come to see the new Dungeon?”
Hilda drags her hands down her face and groans, but knows that she has to think seriously about this. Obviously the other factions of Witmore would have a large say in the actual city-side of things, but for something like a Dungeon, she and the magical guilds would have the biggest say in their development, only seconded by the baron of the city. She had to think carefully of how best to guide the Dungeon’s growth, especially if it was an Artisian Dungeon. They tend to stick to one, solid theme based on maybe a handful of things it has recently absorbed for a few floors before moving on to something else. After some deliberation, she speaks out to the crystal once more.
“If it’s a normal dungeon, usual tactics, feeding in animals and plants with valuable parts. If it is an Artisian type, gather some samples of crystals, metals, and plants, both mundane and magical, anything useful for crafting really. We can squeeze some big favors from the crafting guilds if we push for practical material floors first, and it will let the economy boom along with the population growth to hopefully keep things relatively stable.”
“Excellent idea, Ma’am! I’ll see to it that the appropriate people are contacted and brought in for negotiations before sending out the Emergency Missives.”
Hilda snorts at her secretary’s cheery voice, long used to hearing the cunning snake behind her sunny disposition. She is very glad that Ezos is on her side. Still, she had mountains of paperwork to do with a Dungeon popping up, and all of the meetings as well. Best to get started before things really got heated up! She just hoped that the Silver team was one of the less...eccentric ones. No need to scare the dungeon after all.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Outside of the dungeon, a few dozen feet away, an odd, heavy clanking sound can be heard. The rapid clacks slowly grow louder, seemingly without an origin, before some odd creature comes into view, climbing down the side of the cliff despite its large size. It seems to be a golem, created to be a mix of a spider, a carriage, and a pagoda, obviously quite densely enchanted. It finishes its descent, seeming to scan the area before moving closer to the dungeon and settling down, the base of its main body setting itself on the stone. The door in one of its ten sides gets slammed open, someone jumping out with a holler.
“Whohoo! Time to fuck up a dungeon!”
In the light of the cloudy day, the person sprinting for the dungeon entrance shows the fact that they’re a reptilian woman, covered in charcoal-colored scales. Baggy pants and a short shirt are her only real clothes, covered in a waxy fireproof sheen, only some belts for equipment and pouches giving her clothes any flair. Before she can get more than a few feet away, something snaps out of the now open machine, wrapping around the reptilian woman’s waist and jerking her to a halt. While she lands on her back with an oof, something climbs over the top of the door frame, the tendril showing itself to be its tongue as it winds back into its split face.
“You know the orders Essalaire, we can’t just go spells blazing. Especially you.”
The reptilian simply crosses her arms and grumbles as the creature settles itself above the door like a gargoyle, the rest of their companions following them out into the open air. Next to speak is what anyone who didn’t know her would expect to be a normal-although quite fit-grandma, comfortable grandma clothes and grey hair in a messy bun. The human elder walks up to the huffy reptilian, crouching to give the younger woman a pat on the cheek.
“Oh come now dear, don’t fret. If there’s anything dangerous in there you’ll be first to fight it.”
The woman in question rolls her eyes at the babying, but the twitch in her tail hints to her real emotions. The last two people in their group make their way out, the large bear-like ursan letting out a belly laugh at the scene. The strange creature on top of the door drops down onto his shoulders, the more ominous traits fading from their form as they cross their arms and rest them on top of the small giant’s head. Right behind them is a somewhat normal looking man, the only oddity being the large gravestone slung over his back. The ursan speaks up, looking around the area with a keen eye.
“Yes, we’ll have plenty of time to mess about in the Dungeon once we’ve gotten the area cleared and readied for all the higher ups. It’s exciting really, this is probably the first real time we’ll be trying to inhabit a part of the Marsh!”
The grandma speaks up, already pulling out various reagents and tools, casting long term magics over the area around the dungeon barrier.
“That will be a while yet though, they’ll want to make sure to be extra fortified for the Storm Surge, especieally with how close it is.”
Ignoring the boring leader-talk, Essalaire looks around for something interesting, noticing that Adrian, the one with the gravestone, is standing right before the border of the dungeon, staring inside of the cavern. She walks up beside him, tilting her head to try and figure out what’s going on.
“Something wrong bud?”
“...”
He narrows his eyes for another long moment, before turning away to help with securing the perimiter with the others.
“It’s nothing.”
Watching him walk away, Essalaire only feels more confused, looking back at the dungeon for a moment before shrugging. If there is something wrong, she could just blast whatever’s wrong. That usually solves her problems!