Volume 2 Blurb
It wasn’t easy, but DM succeeded in opening up negotiations with the Guild. Now that the threat posed by the previous Lord of the Twin Cities has passed, he can focus his attention on growing the dungeon and expanding his power. Through his friends’ eyes, he will learn more about the Holy State of Whites and the bordering Zarakhelese Empire and Nar Union. He hasn’t forgotten, but the people responsible for killing the Lord’s family are still out there. Not to mention, the Church seems to be involving itself in DM’s affairs…
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Chapter 1: A Dungeon to Service the Guild
DM had several priorities, aside from keeping himself and his friends safe. First, he wanted to solidify friendly relations with the Guild. As part of this arrangement, he would help the Guild level its beginners, and possibly, its intermediate adventurers. In exchange, the Guild would stop sending people to kill him and would share excess gear with him to level the dungeon. He might even be able to pick up some additional abilities that way, although he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be public about that possibility.
His second priority was to travel to the dungeon in the Upper Gordu Forest and try using the dungeon console. He still felt pretty confident that there would be a benefit for him or his dungeon. Once the Guild had proven they could manage entry to his dungeon effectively, he’d depart. Perhaps the girls would come visit him, under the guise of training, and they could hold the fort down while he was away.
Third, he wanted to learn more about the surrounding nations. He’d continue watching through Sasha's and Daphne's eyes in order to spy on those distant locations. Daphne would show him the capital of his home nation, and afterward, the home of the elves. He was curious to see what elves other than Ardreth and Daphne were like, but he was also a bit wary of that warning from Thaw, something about needing to beware of female elves…
Related, DM wanted to know who else had attacked the Lord’s manor besides himself. He was certain he had only killed the Lord, as previously agreed upon by the Guild Master. One or more others had attacked at about the same time. Was that visitor from the Church involved? Was he really from the Church? Was he related to the mysterious person wearing a hooded cloak DM had spotted near the manor early during the mission? These were questions that needed to be answered or DM wouldn’t be able to relax at all.
Beyond that, he generally wanted to learn more about the world. Why were there dungeons? Why were there monsters, tiers, levels, and magical abilities? Earth obviously had none of that, least of all an automated system to manage everything. Just how did he end up as a monster and specifically a dungeon master? The girls had mentioned something about transmigration, similar to a feature in some videogames where a character or monster can transfer their soul to another body. He had grown somewhat accustomed to being a tentacle monster, but he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t prefer to be something else. Almost anything else.
Right now, the dungeon was LVL 8. That meant he could spawn a total of 24 LVL 8 creatures, 192 LVL 1 creatures, or any combination thereof. From what he had seen so far, sending 27 LVL 7 wasps at a town, or even a city, would be devastating. While the wasps would easily lose one versus one against trained knights and experienced adventurers, most citizens, guards, and more junior adventurers were at or below LVL 7. The girls were not typical. Due to the danger of leveling, most people must have spent years getting to the top of the single-digits, at least after the first couple of level-ups.
Of course, DM had no intention of attacking innocent groups of people. He’d proven he’d defend himself against individuals who forced his hand, but he wouldn’t hurt those who meant well overall, such as adventurers who just didn’t realize what they were doing. DM hoped those occurrences wouldn’t happen anymore now that he was cooperating with the Guild.
Could DM and his dungeon eventually become a faction unto itself? Essentially, he would command an ever-growing army of replaceable monsters that could be used to defend the nation, respond to natural disasters, or possibly even provide free or cheap labor. DM didn’t want himself or his monsters to be exploited, but so far it seemed like his monsters were barely sapient. He suspected the monsters would become more intelligent as their tier increased, but it was too soon to say.
If his monsters really did grow in intelligence as he spawned them at a higher level, he’d have to rethink his approach. Up until now, he’d basically treated them as lab rats, not enjoying when they suffer, but not being afraid to deplete their life for the betterment of the dungeon. In the future, if some of his minions could actually have a conversation with him, he wouldn’t be able to get away with that mindset anymore. Although he was a monster himself, he still retained his memories as a human. He had hardened his heart to embrace this new life, but he needed human morals and ethics to keep himself sane. Fortunately, his monster form didn’t seem to be driving him to have monstrous thoughts, as was often the case in fantasy stories similar to his own situation. He did feel some of the tentacle monster urges associated with grabbing people, but he didn’t want to hurt anyone, so he didn’t find the whole thing alarming. What’s wrong with wanting to hug everyone?
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With Olivia, DM worked out a plan, albeit a preliminary one, to create an effective training environment for Guild members. The first floor would be the lobby. Olivia, or her representative, would staff the desk, briefing parties on what they were and were not allowed to do in the dungeon and establishing what their goals were. The floor would include additional space for parties to sit, prepare, or do whatever else they needed to before or after delving into the lower levels.
DM hadn’t played around with the controls for placing and stocking treasure chests, mostly because the gear he could have provided them was basic. Now that he was designing dungeon floors to challenge and reward the intruders, he’d need to place chests strategically. Also, with the dungeon all the way up to LVL 8 now, he figured he may as well play around with that feature and see if any gear is available to spawn that might give him a neat ability or several points towards his stats.
DM previously learned that the Guild typically trains brand-new adventurers within the Twin Cities until they reach LVL 2. Then, they’d send them out to the Lower Gordu Forest or other places appropriate for a party of LVL 2 adventurers. Seeing how the Guild attempted to utilize DM’s dungeon shortly after he arrived in this world, he figured the Guild would likely be most interested in sending in their LVL 2 members right away to get them to a higher level where they would then be equipped to journey to more distant locations. In addition, DM’s dungeon was currently suitable for leveling adventurers all the way up to, approximately, LVL 8. LVL 8 was already above the beginner ranks.
DM asked, and Olivia confirmed, that there were drawbacks to leveling up adventurers in the dungeon. Part of becoming an adventurer was gaining experience of several types. For example, the girls’ multi-day expedition to the Narrow Cliff Woodland required them to learn about overnight journeys and long treks. Simply leveling in DM’s dungeon wouldn’t teach new adventurers those skills. Also, the monsters found around the Twin Cities were not entirely the same as the monsters spawned within the dungeon. Olivia agreed she’d advise the Guild to manage when parties go to the dungeon to level and when they go to different destinations to accomplish other tasks instead. Also, if there were too many parties in the dungeon at once, it would cause congestion and delays anyway.
Eventually, DM wanted to set up a system where adventuring parties could skip over the easier floors and descend straight to the more challenging floors if they were too advanced for the starting areas. For now, he’d simply set up the dungeon like a standard one where even veteran parties need to penetrate the easy areas to get to the more difficult ones. Olivia didn’t see a problem with that. There were even advantages to this setup, but they could always agree to change it up later.
Floor 2 would include a smattering of LVL 1 and LVL 2 monsters. The floor would be easy to navigate, offering a simple introduction to dungeon diving. A small party of fresh recruits from the Twin Cities would be able to thrive in such an environment, or so DM thought. For their first trip into the dungeon, they’d probably want to stop rather than proceed down to Floor 3.
Floor 3 would include monsters of LVL 2 and LVL 3. DM would experiment with placing a single LVL 4 monster as the floor boss, but that could be changed later. He planned to use a similar progression for Floors 4 through 6. Floor 7 would be DM’s floor to experiment more with the water level tools and monsters. For parties that could kill a LVL 7 floor boss, they could proceed to Floor 7 and snack on the aquatic monsters. For now, Olivia would ensure all people in the dungeon knew that nobody was permitted to descend to Floor 8.
The last item to work out before they could invite adventurers into the Guild was how to handle cases where the newbie adventurers screwed up. What if a party of LVL 2 and LVL 3 adventurers engaged a floor boss, only to get overwhelmed? In a normal dungeon, they’d possibly be able to escape, so that was an option here. If escape was not possible, such as if they were cornered, then should the monster slaughter them all? Obviously, DM didn’t like that idea. He didn’t want to water down the training too much, but he didn’t want to kill the innocent either.
He proposed a solution to Olivia. Perhaps, if an adventuring party was at risk of experiencing a fatality or even total defeat, they could surrender using some predetermined code words. DM didn’t want to overestimate the intelligence of his low-level monsters, but he suspected they would understand if he told them not to attack adventurers who shouted a specific word or phrase. The adventurers would then take off their gear and leave it behind. Thaw had actually suggested a similar system in the past. In a normal dungeon, when you lose, you die. In this dungeon, when you lose, you lose your gear.
Of course, DM’s solution incentivized him to make the dungeon really challenging, especially in the lower levels. If adventuring parties were constantly defeated, he would get to absorb large amounts of equipment and level the dungeon. Olivia assured DM she trusted he wouldn’t abuse the system like that, but he decided to hang his hat on a different logic. If he really did try to exploit the Guild, they’d stop sending parties to him, and he wouldn’t derive any benefit, other than hopefully the continuing promise not to try to kill him.
“…By the way,” DM changed the subject.
“Yes?” Olivia asked, not minding the question.
“…Do you want to level?”
“Oh, me? No. Although I’m a Guild clerk, I don’t care much for fighting, considering how scary it can be. I enjoy helping the new adventurers grow instead. Although, if I was higher level, maybe they would respect me a bit more…”
“…There’s a way to level without needing to fight for real.” DM decided he wouldn’t reveal his ability to siphon off experience from monsters and provide experience to other targets. He could order a low-level minion to just stand there while someone whaled on it, though.