Chapter 33: Assemble an Army
The timing was awful, but DM received an alert. Someone was entering the Upper Gordu Dungeon.
“…Please wait a moment,” he told the two impatient elves looking up at him from below.
“Wait for what?”
Before DM could respond, he received more feedback regarding the nature of the intrusion in his other dungeon. Of course, adventuring parties diving into the dungeon for experience and loot was perfectly normal, so there wasn’t necessarily any cause for alarm. Despite that, DM felt something akin to a chill.
Alenia turned to her accomplice. “Did you know a tentacle monster could shiver?”
“…This is…”
“Oh, what is it already?”
DM was out of reach of his console, so his ability to gather information was somewhat limited. Still, the infected monster he kept hidden near the Upper Gordu Dungeon entrance hall was spying on the new arrivals for him.
And there were many new arrivals. Soldiers were pouring into the dungeon. So far, at least twenty, with more on the way. Why didn’t Barney find out about this and warn him?
DM turned his attention to Barney. Oh, Barney was signaling he wanted to talk. How long had it been since DM checked on him? He’d been so distracted trying to protect his chastity he forgot to keep an eye on everything else.
“…Something is happening outside the dungeon. Give me a few minutes.”
“Stop stalling,” Alenia’s friend demanded, but Alenia surprisingly came to DM’s aid.
“We’ve waited this long. We can give him a few more minutes, right?”
DM figured Alenia would play good cop until she got what she wanted, but for now he needed to worry about the Union. He charmed Barney and received a report.
Barney had recently figured out what all the fuss was about. The Nar Union noticed that the dungeon in the Upper Gordu was suddenly being marked as connected to the dungeon in the Lower Gordu. Of course, nobody in the Union was responsible for this change, so they blamed the Holy State for stealing from them.
Using this situation as a pretext, they decided to “seize” the dungeon in the Lower Gordu Forest after taking physical control of the Upper Gordu Dungeon. What Barney couldn’t tell was how far the Union intended to push things. Were they trying to annex the Lower Gordu Forest, dungeon and all? The entire northeastern corner of the Holy State including the Twin Cities?
Most likely, they weren’t trying to relocate the Upper Gordu Dungeon. Doing so would just remove a valuable resource from their territory. Well, maybe they’d do that if the worst came to worst. Short of that, DM saw no reason to antagonize the soldiers from the Union.
Still, he needed to decide pretty quickly what to do about the situation. Both situations, actually. Disregarding the problem of the elves for a moment, DM came up with an idea for what to do in the Upper Gordu. If the soldiers took control of the boss chamber, it would be tough for DM to spawn monsters. Why not spawn them now and use the transport ability to bring them all to the Lower Gordu Dungeon? He’d leave a couple behind to continue monitoring the dungeon, but the rest could report to his current location as a small army.
DM didn’t want to reveal this plan to the elves. Setting aside their unreasonable demands of him, they likely weren’t planning to destroy or even hurt him. Hopefully, he’d convinced them he wasn’t a threat that needed to be dealt with. If they saw him bring an army of monsters from one dungeon to another, they might suddenly change their minds. He needed to get them out of the way, and fast. He wasn’t sure how long it would take for the Union soldiers to reach the boss chamber and conquer it.
So, how would he deal with these two elves? He didn’t want to directly submit to their one-sided demands, but maybe he could meet them halfway. As worried as he’d been about losing control since becoming a monster, he honestly felt he’d be more at risk of succumbing to their particular advances as a human. Despite some ideological differences, it’s not as if he found them unappealing.
“…How about this?”
Alenia looked behind her to see a second morphling walk into the chamber. It bypassed the two elves and proceeded to the front where it changed form. It looked just like DM, a T3 tentacle monster.
“So instead of a tentacle monster… a morphling tentacle monster?”
“…Are you ready for what comes next?”
He decided to treat it like a game. DM needed to move quickly, and fortunately the elves agreed to cooperate.
The sooner the elves left, the better.
>Pleasure Touch has increased to T2 through usage.
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“Here.” Alenia tossed some metal accessory on the floor. “It should be worth a fair bit to your dungeon.”
“…A tip?”
“Call it whatever you want. Oh.” Alenia, who was about to depart the boss chamber, turned back to ask another question. “Are you really able to change the dungeon around as much as you want?”
“…No.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“There are limits?”
“…Several, but I don’t know the full scope myself. The dungeon does not exactly include an instruction manual.”
“An instruction manual, is it? Well, what have you learned so far?”
“…I’m extremely limited in what I can change whenever explorers are around. Most of the things you saw moving or changing I designed before you ever made it down to that floor.”
“Ah, I was wondering about that.”
“…After you go back up I’ll be able to redesign these lower floors again, but not without restrictions. I think it uses some type of energy that regenerates naturally over time. So far, it hasn’t been too much of a limitation, though.”
“Has the Guild asked you about this?”
“…Surprisingly no. They seem more focused on using my dungeon to train newbies than learning about how the dungeon works.”
“Hah, interesting. Next time we meet, let’s discuss this further. In fact, feel free to come visit my home.”
“…I’ll think about it.”
“Why do you keep an eye on Daphne, anyway?”
“…Eh. She’s cute… in a I want to protect her sort of way.”
Alenia cracked up with a burst of laughter. “I see! Until next time!”
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“How did it go?” asked Daphne.
“We finished our discussion. Come, time to return to the surface.
Just as Alenia finished speaking, a wall section slid sideways revealing a door. After an audible chime, the door opened oddly, with two vertical panels separating from another to reveal a rectangular chamber.
“Music?” Daphne was first to say anything, but they all heard it. Soft music echoed out from the chamber. “I guess DM is telling us to go this way?”
“…Next stop, lobby!” an approaching morphling called out.
“Grr, can you take somebody else’s form for a change!” Daphne yelled angrily.
“…Nah.” The morphling entered the chamber and waved them in. Reluctantly, they all entered. The sliding door panels closed, seemingly locking them in the tight space.
“A trap!?” As everyone looked around for signs of a possible attack, they suddenly felt weak in the knees for a moment. “What was that?”
“Daphne, we’re moving upward,” Alenia explained.
“Oh! DM’s bringing us back to the entrance!”
“So it would seem.”
“This music is weird.”
“Compared to the rest of this dungeon? Please, Daphne.”
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As the group approached the final stairway out of the dungeon, the morphling addressed them again.
“…When you return to the Twin Cities, please ask the Guild to send someone here to discuss another matter.”
“Very well,” Alenia agreed. “In exchange, next time we talk, I’ll have you tell me about your prior life.”
“…We shall see.” The morphling turned and walked deeper into the dungeon.
Once outside, Alenia addressed Daphne while they returned to the city on foot. “If you ever have the chance, find out whatever you can about his prior life as a human.”
Daphne hesitated. “But I shouldn’t be out here adventuring by myself, right?”
“True, but you’re not by yourself, Daphne.” Alenia gestured to Daphne’s three friends. “You’re the leader of a respectable party, and thanks to our training, you’re all quite capable now, are you not?”
As Daphne slowly came to accept those words, Alenia whispered to herself under her breath.
“And he’s watching you, too.”
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DM noticed that the Union soldiers were taking their time. They hadn’t neared the lower portions of the Upper Gordu Dungeon yet. Once he confirmed Daphne’s group was gone, DM began summoning an army in the Upper Gordu Dungeon. Not knowing how this army would eventually be used, he decided to aim for simplicity. He didn’t have experience ordering around dozens and dozens of monsters all at once before.
In the lead, a group of lizardmen equipped with their usual spears would serve as the vanguard. They would be supported from behind by a group each of goblin archers, goblin priests, and zombie mages. DM could have included monsters with special abilities and capabilities, but he decided to stick to the more intelligent-looking creatures only, dumb as they actually were at low tiers.
As he formed the army and brought them over, a few at a time, from the Upper Gordu Dungeon boss chamber to the Lower Gordu boss chamber, he redesigned the floor above him to include a wide-open space for his new army to move around in.
There was no rush, but at some point he wanted to assemble a second army using the monsters from this dungeon. At least, he wanted to know how many of each type to summon once they were needed. If he combined the two armies and marched them out of the dungeon, he could fight off smaller enemy forces without too much difficulty, he figured. He’d need to keep secret the fact that the smaller army was actually from the Upper Gordu Dungeon. The last thing he wanted was for the Union to panic and move the dungeon, removing it from DM’s control. To this end, DM ensured he only chose monsters for his smaller army that were available to spawn in both dungeons. Their monster rosters were slightly different, after all.
He’d almost forgotten, but the accessory Alenia left behind started sizzling as soon as her group exited the dungeon. DM hadn’t bothered inspecting it since it would just turn into experience unless he picked it up and had someone run it out of the dungeon. Of course, there was little reason to do that.
DM guessed that the item would yield a fair amount of experience, based on what Alenia had said. He and the dungeon were both already fairly close to leveling up, so perhaps this would be the trigger. He was still interested to see what new monster choices would open up. After all, he was growing impatient himself with making Bandit wait for a monster summon. He really didn’t like treating the girls differently, especially for so long. Doubly true when dealing with a kid who was basically a trained assassin now, right?
As the accessory went poof, DM received a new notification.
>Dungeon has reached LVL 10.
>Dungeon Master has reached LVL 11.
>Dungeon Floor 10 now available.
>Additional creatures now available.
Ah, good. DM’s stats should have finally increased, but he started by pulling up the list of additional creatures.
First was a golem. Its life recovery ability was similar to the chickbear’s hibernate, except it didn’t need to sleep or even stop fighting in order to self-heal. It was oversized compared even to minotaurs, so it probably wasn’t a very practical choice for Bandit or anyone else.
The next creatures available were vampires. They could use health touch, similar to DM, decreasing their target’s health through physical contact and increasing theirs to match. Also, they had a specialized charm person ability that was a low-tier charm which only worked on humanoids. That distinction was pretty unimportant since animals and monsters didn’t exactly go dungeon-diving.
Third was a hydra. Although not as impressive as a dragon, it was still large and in charge, DM felt. It could launch various breath attacks, each one causing a different status or having a different effect. It was an unwieldy monster, but powerful if there was enough space to use it properly.
So far, none of the creatures seemed like a terribly good fit for Bandit, although DM would certainly look forward to making use of them inside and maybe even outside of the dungeon.
Fourth was a… succubus. DM hurried to summon one, and it actually looked quite stereotypical. Normally, DM would be disappointed by the appearance of his monsters, but this one was different. It looked roughly like a sexy 20-year-old girl with some subtle demoness features. Perhaps it was a good thing DM was no longer human.
The final new monster was yet stranger to DM: an incubus. It was basically just the male version of succubi, both in appearance and abilities. The succubi were anti-male specialists and the incubi were anti-female. The setup didn’t seem particularly progressive to DM but it wasn’t his fault or really his problem.
DM hadn’t heard of succubi or incubi being dungeon monsters before, despite all his eavesdropping to date. Perhaps these were rare pickups.