Dvalinn's Dunes themed after a ruin in a desert, specifically the hot, sandy type. Dungeons often appear in places of great bloodshed, as tormented souls can consolidate and crystallize into dungeon cores, which is why the Dunes appeared along the main merchant road that connects Eigend and Angriff.
The exact point that the Dunes appeared is what remains of a trade outpost controlled by Eigend. The outpost marked almost the exact middle of the merchant road on the only water source in miles, making its conversion to a military outpost when tensions grew between the countries a high priority. Not even a single person could traverse the deserts around the merchant road without large amounts of water, and supplying an army would be impossible without the oasis.
The armies of Eigend stayed in the outpost for about three weeks before the tension waned, but this was just a ruse. Angriff had hired a small band of mercenaries to stir a sand dragon up at midnight and lead it to the outpost, which still held the majority of the military force of Eigend.
When the sand dragon saw the outpost, it supposedly gained speed from the anger of puny humans building horrific structures on the pristine dunes. As you would expect, an unprepared army fighting an enraged sand dragon does not end with a dead dragon.
Even with large protective walls around the perimeter directly created in fear of this situation, the fort was destroyed almost immediately. The sand dragon simply jumped forty feet into the air and landed on the ramparts, destroying anything that moved and only lightly maiming everything else.
Soon after this incident, Angriff invaded Eigend and gained both a large sum of money and a new puppet prince on the throne. As the army of Eigend followed the merchant road back to their country, they stumbled upon Dvalinn’s Dunes growing inside of the ruined outpost. The army’s morale was already high, but the find of a young dungeon put it to an all time peak. They knew that if they could get to the core before it could protect itself, they could take it and sell it to some noble. A large group rushed into the dungeon, only to be ripped apart.
The dungeon was of course young at that point, but the sand dragon had somehow already been contracted as its boss. Only three people made it out, but they told a story of a large open room covered in sand with sand stone walls tossed haphazardly around and small crystals attached to the roof acting like the moon and stars.
That room was the entire dungeon, holding ambush predators at strategic spots, burrowing insects that could sense your steps if you went too fast, and blind sharks that glide over the sands, listening for sounds to alert them of the positions of enemies.
In the center slept the sand dragon, with its wings curled at its sides, nostrils flaring inconsistently, and clear eyelids closed while the main ones stayed open. The core was being nestled like an egg beneath the dragon, where it was impossible to grab without waking the towering beast.
The morale was still high enough that one of them thought it a good idea to fight the single monster who managed to destroy a large settlement, filled with an unknown amount of highly trained soldiers without sustaining any visible wounds. As soon as the idiot got close, the dragon burst to life, and with a sweep of its tail, took his head off. The high morale was suddenly replaced with fear, but low can go very quickly to none if you realize the dragon has ranked up from massacring Eigend’s army, growing blades sharper than any scalpel on its tail, head, wings and such.
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The dragon, despite not being able to fly, used its wings to whip up a sand storm, blocking all sight, leaving only the five survivors who ran at the first sign of trouble with any sort of sight. Of the five, only three survived as the smaller monsters on the floor hamstringing the others.
This is the only time someone has reached the bottom floor of the Dunes, within the years that it has been operating. The dungeon just keeps growing, with each floor putting the previous one to shame, whether it be with asthedics, monsters, or just the heat from the fake sun on most layers multiplied by the long treks through unforgiving sands.
Currently, the lowest floor achieved was twenty one, with the party who made it there found on floor nine, fainted from dehydration. The first floor of the dungeon is set at night, with small ruined buildings dotting the landscape. Quite a few painters come to this floor every year for inspiration as the monsters are generally weak enough that a few bodyguards can protect them. The second through fourth floor run with the ruin theming and slowly ramp up the size and frequency of the rubble.
The fifth floor caps the ruin theme with an entire abandoned town. This floor has a boss of a desert wyrm, a long and large creature that can swim through the sand and attack suddenly, making the roads basically death traps. The houses are no better, filled with red skeletons with high levels. All of the skeletons are knights, mages, and archers. They have enough sense to place the mages and archers on top of buildings, with knights keeping anyone from reaching them. The “Sun” above their heads does nothing to any of the enemies on this floor, even while able to burn skin with ease.
The sixth through tenth floor are littered with small cacti and weeds. If you take a wrong step and land on a cactus, the needles can pierce hardened leather like paper and skin like air. The monsters are all hidden among these plants, usually based not on killing you, but tripping you into traps. The tenth floor boss is a large cactus with the ability to coordinate the smaller monsters on the floor to strangle and dismember any adventurer who got that far.
The eleventh through fifteenth floor is a salt flat. The salt unfortunately dissolves if it is mined. The monsters are birds, dive bombing towards joints and vitals with long, razor sharp beaks. The only trap on these floors is a small oasis, with a large lake in the middle. The water tastes fine, but is actually imbued with high salt, quickly killing the unfortunate people who don’t know of the trap. The boss is a large roadrunner, lighting yellow fires as it runs.
Sixteen through twenty are all nighttime colored, with hyenas always circling nearby. The few people who have made it two this floor all report feeling tired even after resting, making it believed that there is a sleep spell placed on those floors. The boss is a hyena, making use of the darkness to attack from anywhere but where you suspect.
It is assumed that twenty one through twenty five are all themed around color, with sands ranging vastly in color, but still holding a currently unknown enemy that killed the leader of the one team who made it there so quickly that it wasn’t seen. Outside of the dungeon, the adventurer’s guild bought Dvalinn’s Dunes three months after it was found from Angriff. The current rank needed to enter the dungeon is A, but there has been talks to raise it to S.