Chapter 21: Inside the Wyvern Dungeon

“I will speak with the creature. Come over here.” Karen exited the tent, with Jonathan and their father following close behind.

DM had quickly backed off to his original position so they wouldn’t know he had been eavesdropping.

“Creature, is your army from the Union close to arriving?”

DM shook his appendage horizontally, signaling ‘no’. This time, he was telling the truth, anyway.

“I can only imagine where they are,” her father added.

“Then we have time,” she noted, disregarding her father’s quip. “Since we aren’t at risk of monsters showing up right now, we can simply seize this dungeon now. It’s not worth waiting anymore.”

“I have no objections,” her father remarked. “But what will you do after that?”

“First we will see if this solves our wyvern problem, and then second we can have the creature summon a new monster to make contact with the ones north of Adzah.”

“Sister, how will the new monster find his army? Won’t it have the same problem?”

“Oh, Jonathan, just think a little. We know it has controlled monsters from afar multiple times. It must have a skill to monitor them. I simply need to grant it access to that skill and nothing else.”

“I suppose…”

“Creature,” she addressed DM again. “Do you have a skill that allows you to monitor your monsters from afar?”

DM shook his appendage vertically.

“Good. You may use that ability to monitor any monsters you control, and you may telepathically command any monster of yours in the Empire or currently journeying to your location. Once we’ve finished with this dungeon, I’ll be having you spawn a speedy monster to go make contact with your army to the north.”

DM didn’t respond, but deep down he was quite excited. Proliferation of infect was exactly what he wanted right now. Once he busted out of the collar, he could spawn tentacles and infect people too.

“All right, Karen, I hope this works.”

“Of course it will, Father.”

“You say that, but you’ve already screwed up once. At least once.”

“Hmph.”

“I must return north. Once you’ve finished your testing here and gained control of the armies to the north, gather just south of Baram like we talked about.”

“I will, Father.”

“Make yourself useful, and keep an eye on her.”

Jonathan nodded in response while Karen glared.

“No rest for the weary.” Their father gathered up his small group. They mounted their horses and rode north.

Once her father was out of sight, Karen stepped closer to DM. “You’ve made me show my father something unsightly.” She kicked him once. It wasn’t a strong enough kick to actually injure an adult, let alone a large monster, but it was still rude.

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Sasha’s party approached several soldiers guarding the entrance to the western dungeon in the Empire. Normally, they’d simply pay the small fee to gain access.

“This dungeon is temporarily unavailable. You’ll need to come back at a later date.”

“What!?” Sasha bellowed with feigned indignation, as Ardreth had told her to. “Why?”

The soldier eyed Sasha’s party, his gaze settling on the falcon for a moment. “We’re getting the dungeon ready for exploration.”

“What does that even mean?”

The soldier hesitated, creating an awkward silence. Eventually he settled on words to say. “This dungeon will be like other dungeons in the area, soon. It will be designed to be safe for newer adventurers.”

“Like the dungeons in the Lower Gordu Forest and Upper Gordu Forest?”

“Yes,” the soldier confirmed to Sasha. “Sorry, but you’ll need to come back later.”

Sasha led her party away from the soldiers. Once they were out of earshot, she asked Ardreth to weigh in.

“The soldier’s words suggest either that they are cooperating with the dungeon master from the Lower Gordu Forest or they are copying him.”

“Why would they do that?” asked Sasha.

“Hopefully, they were simply a bit jealous and wanted to reap the same rewards as the Twin Cities have recently and that I’ve heard the Guild in the southern part of the Union is starting to see as well.”

“But does this have anything to do with the wyverns coming from that other dungeon?” This time, Luna asked the question.

“It could, but…” Ardreth stopped to think silently for a moment. He came to some realization. “Sasha, let’s get to the nearest town right away.”

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“Why?”

“We need to know the latest news and rumors. I’ll explain after that.”

Currently, the nearest settlements were either the Twin Cities to the west or Gulukkhath to the east. There were also farming villages all around, but they were likely quite insulated from the news of the month.

Not wanting to leave the Empire, the party headed east toward Gulukkhath.

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This foray into a dungeon was quite different from the last. Instead of the group being led by a party of adventurers, a group of soldiers showed the way through the labyrinth. Also, this time DM wasn’t able to use his skills. While DM was stronger than low-level monsters, even without skills, it was risky to travel to the lower floors of a dungeon while handicapped.

To Karen’s credit, she recognized that DM was at a disadvantage and allowed him to bring a large number of kobolds as warriors. DM was already free to command the kobolds as he saw fit. Between the kobolds’ numbers and DM’s stats, they wouldn’t have any trouble dealing with normal monsters.

If they somehow ran into a wyvern, that would be a different story. DM wasn’t sure how likely that was. Nobody had even mentioned to DM the fact that this dungeon was apparently a source of wyverns. Considering Karen and Jonathan were tagging along again, the odds seemed low that they’d end up in a deadly encounter like that. Still, if they actually saw a wyvern, DM would probably eliminate Karen to free himself from her order, then fight at full strength.

Whenever the party encountered monsters, the soldiers would back off and let DM or his kobolds do the fighting. It was kind of embarrassing, but DM could understand why they wouldn’t want to risk their lives fighting monsters if they didn’t need to. In particular, soldiers weren't specialized in fighting monsters. Perhaps that’s why Karen’s family were so interested in what DM had to offer.

They turned the next corner, noticing a moment later that a zombie mage had just stepped out from an alcove on the right side. It raised its staff toward the party and began casting its trademark fireball spell.

Before it could, DM picked up two kobolds with appendages and flung them at the distant zombie mage. One grabbed the staff as it flew by, interrupting the spell. The other one punched the zombie in the face with its paw, knocking the zombie mage on his backside. Yet more kobolds passed the soldiers and closed the distance on foot, pummeling the enemy to death.

“To think I almost feel sorry for a zombie…” Karen mused.

They continued on, encountering monsters in groups of one or two. DM skillfully took advantage of his numbers advantage, not allowing any of his kobolds to fall. He didn’t have any way to heal them for the time being, so he also did his best to minimize the damage they took.

Things were proceeding uneventfully. Although DM was absolutely no fan of this collar, regardless of how ineffective it was, he couldn’t help but appreciate the fact that he was getting brought from dungeon to dungeon and granted the opportunity to seize control. When he wrested his independence back from Karen, he’d be that much more powerful. Hell, he might even gain the ability to summon wyverns. They didn’t seem to be intelligent like dragons but they were more powerful than normal monsters and seemed to be highly resistant to most status effects and influences.

They descended another floor. Karen had not told him how deep this dungeon was, and he wasn’t in a position to ask. DM simply followed the soldiers as they guided the group deeper. The first monster they encountered this time was a shark. Strangely, there was no water in the area. The shark was just lying on the ground wiggling around. Apparently, in a dungeon, a shark-type monster could survive out of water. That didn’t make it any kind of a legitimate threat, though.

The soldiers seemed to be used to this sort of thing. For once, they walked over to the monster and attacked it themselves, quickly defeating the defenseless creature. Were they greedy for experience, or simply trying to reduce DM’s burden? DM wasn’t sure, but it was probably the former.

As they neared the end of the current floor, they encountered a raptor. It actually came up from behind the party, startling them. Using its sprint ability, it lunged at their rearguard, which happened to be Karen and Jonathan with just a couple of soldiers as escorts. The raptor was closing rapidly on Karen.

Jonathan got his sword out faster than the two nearby guards. He raised his sword and struck at the raptor a moment before it could reach its target. At the same moment, an appendage descended from above, smashing the raptor’s head just as Jonathan’s sword penetrated the monster’s hide. It wasn’t clear who dealt more damage, but the raptor’s charge was stopped instantly. After a couple of follow-up attacks by the nearby soldiers, the raptor was dead.

“Th–Thank you…” It wasn’t obvious who Karen was even thanking. “Let’s continue.”

They descended to the next floor and soon entered the boss chamber. DM was surprised to see a large contingent of soldiers in here. The dungeon master was present as well: an ogre mage. DM noticed a conspicuous collar around its neck.

“As you can see,” Karen suddenly started explaining, “we’ve tried using a specialized collar on the dungeon master. Unlike you, it’s unintelligent and can’t really follow our orders, no matter how much we experiment with the collar. The best we’ve managed is to pacify it, but that’s not useful to us by itself.”

DM hoped she’d elaborate further, and she did.

“No matter what orders we try giving, the monsters of this dungeon just don’t behave. What we’re most interested in is the wyverns, but they just escape and then attack villages and travelers.”

Now DM understood why Karen and her allies were so intent on bringing DM here and having him seize control of the dungeon. In a way, the fact that he was restricted from speaking right now was an advantage because it made Karen more talkative.

“Take control of the dungeon. After that, we’ll have you spawn a wyvern and try controlling it. No trickery.”

As DM slithered over to the console, he thought about his options. Karen seemed to be growing increasingly complacent. She’d probably supervise him less carefully as he spawned more monsters. He could easily slip in a few morphlings and quickly have them disguise themselves as other monsters, he reckoned. Then, he’d have nearby monsters who could change into his own form at any time and use his abilities, such as absorb equipment. With that development, he’d be able to bust out of Karen’s collar without even having to attack her.

He assessed the dungeon.

>Foreign dungeon master recognized. Would you like to claim ownership of this dungeon? Y/N?

You bet your ass.

>Confirmed. Please wait.

DM waited. He kept a close eye on Karen. She probably wouldn’t ambush him again, but he absolutely wouldn’t let her sneak up on him this time. It would be too embarrassing.

>Ownership transferred. Would you like to change your primary dungeon?

No.

He could always change it later if there was a benefit, he reckoned.

>Confirmed. Please select a unique identifier for this dungeon.

DM thought of this dungeon as the wyvern dungeon, but Karen hadn’t referred to it as such. She’d probably get suspicious if he tried to name it in that manner, and he wasn’t quite ready to reveal his secrets yet. He decided to just name it after the nearest city.

‘Nabilgat Dungeon’.

Zarukthuzun was about the same distance away, DM recalled, but it had a long and difficult name so that wouldn’t work in his opinion.

>Confirmed. Publishing updates to the dungeon network. Please wait.

Karen and the others were keeping away, which allowed DM to relax just the tiniest bit.

After a few more moments, DM gained total access to the controls for this dungeon. Leaving the ogre mage dungeon master in place for the time being, he selected the option for spawning monsters. Scrolling down, he found what he was looking for—the choice to spawn a wyvern.