Chapter 10
Forged Bonds
The grin disappeared momentarily from Bullin’s face before his hand dove into a pouch on his belt, producing a small stone effigy from within
“This is for you, friend…“ His voice trailed off as he stared down at the crimson visage in his hand.
Following his directions, I triggered Mana Sense to peer deeper at the object obscured by his meaty mitt.
The small carved stone face emanates an aura of malice, soaking the air around it in crimson shadow. Its contorted features evoke a sense of dread, with every wrinkle and crevice etched in painstaking detail. As the light catches the crimson gems inset into its eyes, they shimmer with an otherworldly glow, nearly hypnotizing to gaze into. The gnashing mouth, filled with jagged teeth, seems to emit a faint, haunting whisper, echoing through the air. The scent of ancient decay lingers around the stone, evoking a sense of antiquity and mystery.
Bullin casually strides over to my Core and holds the mysterious object directly over me without a word. Ichorous tendrils of magic seep from the object and his mitt in equal measure, dripping onto my core in a sickly stream. As each thread of powerful sorcery soaks into my core, I can taste the foul senses for an instant before they disappear. As the seconds tick by, the flow steadily increases until it becomes a steady string of Death Mana soaking into my dungeon’s power source. But it seemed Bullin wasn’t done, as he unleashes a tidal wave of stored power without a word. In a brilliant flash of mana, the object was gone from his hand, and seemingly fused with my core.
Item Gained
Name
Greater Talisman of Yugul
A splinter of pure, distilled fear. This carved formulation of pure Death Mana glows with malignant power ripe for consumption.
“When I first came to this world, it was barren, hot, a vast fiery void. I taught it fear.”
Rarity
Legendary
Grade
Master
Affinity
—
Effect
Grants Life Magic Wards Tier 1
Grants Culling Tendency Perk
Grants Fear Aura Perk
The moment I turn my attention away from the new status window, the effects of the relic became immediately apparent. Those veins of runes throughout my dungeon now glow with even more powerful magic. The runes had far more detail to them even, and I could understand how they all fit together—although that wasn’t the only change I noticed—as I cast my awareness beyond my meager dungeon, even the swamp appeared more defined. When I return my sight to my core, a flash of magic rushes out to greet me.
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In an instant, each of the sour tastes and emotions from all my previous experiences with Death Mana is brought kicking and screaming to the fore. With them came a flood of images and noise. Flashes of incomprehensible color rapidly coalesced into something more, something sinister.
“You kriffing darkhound,“ came the gravely Rahakan-accented voice of something I had always tried to forget. A man who stood like a shadow in my memory. Gren, the name of a man I wished I could forget. A man consistently cloaked in anger and evil. The stench of Dynastic wine lingered around this demon’s head at all times. And anytime he did not spend drinking, he spent flinging insults like they were his own breath.
The words cut like a knife, tearing open barely healed wounds. With each memory that resurfaced, it was as if a thread had been tugged, unraveling the delicate tapestry of my past. The wounds, once scabbed over, were now exposed and vulnerable, their pain resurfacing with an intensity I had not anticipated. The festering ignorance I had blissfully ignored was now laid bare before me, a painful reminder of my own shortcomings.
The restricted nature of my form made all the pain so much worse. Every syllable carried a venomous power, branding me with yet more mental scars, tearing at every aspect of my being with its poisonous influence.
Magic rolled and frothed within my core, threatening to break it at the seams. A pure firestorm of pain and sheer self-hatred I couldn’t douse by will alone. My failure to escape such a cruel fate dug its fangs into my mind as well, weakening my resolve, and pulling me further into darkness.
With a final lash of fiery will, I pushed against the tide of encroaching despair. The war was not lost, but I had to keep fighting. The process of discovery was not a simple matter of stitching emotional wounds closed, but a continuous battle against the demons of the past.
And it is a fight I’m determined to win. Coiling my anger like a serpent, I struck out at the tide of depressive visions, willing them away with brute force. As each memory exploded into messy shreds of flesh, they left lingering threads of pain behind. Like stitches over rotten wounds, they sealed themselves into my mind.
As if surfacing from dark waters, I broke out of the grip of my memories. And things have changed again. Now, instead of the scents of wet earth and brackish water, the feel of my dungeon has shifted. Metallic hints of flesh and blood hang onto the air like flesh on bones. They were always there in the past, but now it had intensified and overtaken any other magical influence. The lingering stench feels stronger now, clinging to the stones, dirt, and even my own minions.
Then a loud bang yanked me from my raging internal conflict. Bullin slapped mana-drenched hands together, excitement pouring off his toothy smile. “Alright, let’s get started.” As the wave of cooling magic washed over me, I realized that Bullin had been the one to push me from the turmoil.
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And then the real fun began, and for once, I felt like genuine progress was being made. As this new visitor sat against the wall next to my core explaining endless details, I looked upon my domain with a new, critical eye. It was here that I learned what I had been missing. Thankfully, it helped me take my mind off the lingering influences of strife and death nipping at my mind.
The dwarf would point out vulnerabilities within my dungeon that could be easily exploited by delvers like him, and even help me fix them. After just a few days, my progress had made leaps and bounds toward heights of power I never dreamed of.
Bullin would continually appraise each aspect of my dungeon over the coming days, and I could barely contain myself each time. The excitement gleamed in his beady black eyes like a gem, adding to my own. Every time he appraised one of my minions, he would offer advice: tweak one element, focus a cluster of mana here, that kind of thing.
And each time, he would test me on what he taught. He revealed a variety of secrets, beginning with better refining of mana to prepare a higher tier of Focuses. From there, we created better Spawners using these new Focuses. And that was just the beginning. His mastery of topics was monumental compared to my ignorance, and I hung on every word.
After just one week under his tutelage, I had made so many changes that I barely recognized my original dungeon. Mana was floating around my dungeon like a thick fog, replacing the occasional wisps of power that used to float around. This was all thanks to several new refining techniques built into the dungeon itself. Each pulse of magic taken in from outside the dungeon was spirited away through channels dug into the walls—each lined with refined clusters of different gemstones—which stored the mana for later use. The walls still glittered with the pulsing flowers of my lethal plant minions, but a sinister new hue traced lines of barely visible light throughout the space. Like veins running just underneath the skin of my dungeon, the magic flow is thick and luscious, adding yet more sweet and metallic scents to the air.
The sweet fragrance of blossoming magic and barely contained power would be intoxicating to minions and invaders alike. The atmosphere was charged with anticipation, and a sense of power lingered in every corner.
And outside of that, other things have improved as well. My traps evolved into false doorways and dead ends, in which I secreted different useful items and even more traps. Even the walls themselves were reinforced, both with stone and magic. No way any sneaky undead or other threats were tunneling their way in!
My dungeon is now four distinct chambers. My entrance is mostly the same, though it leads to a larger haphazard chamber that serves as my welcoming room. Within, the walls are replete with plant life of both fungal and fern varieties. Small tunnels and a larger pathway connect this chamber to the other parts of the crypt. Smaller tunnels are great for letting my minions zip around the dungeon without being seen. I can even ambush adventurers and attackers with this handy layout.
Two of my chambers are spawner rooms that contain the bulk of my minions. My Mana Worms and Mutant Ferns share the bigger of the two, with alcoves cut into the stonework to allow them places to hide. I also moved my Clam minions into the smaller of the two compartments, giving them a room filled with watery pools, also glittering with dozens of small gemstones embedded in the slate floors. An idyllic oasis amid a dark and dank crypt.
My fourth chamber contains my stockpile of Focuses, hidden behind a false wall. My Core sits atop a stone pedestal high off the ground, proudly lording over the entire space. This final space glows with a star-like amount of magical light. Purple and blue hues mix into an overpowering kaleidoscope of color, bathing all those inside in their glow.
The entire dungeon glows with latent magic from my refining networks too, pushing magic into runes and gems that thrum with joyful power.
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Bullin had been a tremendous help in unexpected ways, using his hammer and tools to great effect, carving runes of various kinds into the stone makeup of my domain. With great curiosity, I had asked him about what the runes did, and that conversation marked the first time he had been cagey with me.
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“Ya gonna learn that soon enough,“ he huffed out, annoyed at the question.
I shot back, pushing my annoyed tone into the magical link between our minds. “Bullin, why not just explain it now? Why would you keep secrets?“
“Because Sharth’ax would dust me if he found out about this…“ he said, the apprehension and fear plain in his normally playful tone.
“Is that your boss? You previously mentioned the Tombs, but you didn’t say much else.“
His shoulders slumped, his chisel and hammer coming off the wall he was working on.
“It’s complicated,“ Bullin said after a long pause, “The same way you made those cute lil’ snakes, Sharth’ax made me and my comrades.“ The apprehension in his voice was plain even to me, this was a conversation he hated having.
“The Tombs of Varan’ta are a dungeon like ya’ are, but much bigger. Sharth’ax claimed them. And then I came along.“ His matter-of-fact tone was distant as if he was reading a list of events from which he was totally disconnected.
I wanted to press for more, but even I could sense the dwarf’s unwillingness to delve into his past.
And if Bullin would not tell me more, that was a problem, one that made more white-hot rage bubble inside me. As Bullin explained more and more, my anger kept building. I let it run unrestrained through my dungeon, latching white-hot emotion into every aspect of my domain. No way in the hells was I going to let this go.
Though this undead was a denizen of the Tombs of Sharth’ax, he was genuinely interested in helping me grow. The snide remarks and cryptic messaging of all my other interactions with this other dungeon were gone, replaced by a genuine education in the way my existence was supposed to be. But now, he’d shifted into the same secretive dripping out of information I’d grown to hate, and I would not stand for it. When he finally left, I would have some surprises for him.
Every day my new tutor would critique something else about my approach or dungeon design, and I couldn’t even be mad at myself. Instead, I could only muster hatred for the dungeon that was supposed to be guiding me, and had seemingly left me to flounder. Here I was, finally learning how to create inspired minions, traps and more, from someone who seemed genuinely excited to teach.
And try as I might to push it down, the resentment bubbled away, nipping at my resolve. With each passing hour, the heat of my resolve burned. It felt like a raging inferno, searing through the depths of my being. The walls of my core strained under its pressure, like a wild beast relentlessly clawing at the bars of its cage. Sights blurred, sounds muffled, and the air thickened with tension. Each effort to improve my dungeon became an internal battle, leaving behind a bitter taste of uncertainty. Whether it was down to that new artifact he’d offered to me, I couldn’t tell. And each time I asked, he dodged the question.
The contradiction of his teaching style while skipping over certain details continued to grate at my patience, but I could do little about it, until he finally said his goodbyes.
The dwarf had spent nearly two weeks in my dungeon, and finally, I would be left alone with my thoughts. As he departed, he promised to return, and the excited tone made it clear he was coming back for more action. I hurriedly began tweaking my defenses to see what surprises I could devise.
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Bullin Goldtooth took slow steps as he skittered back through the swamps toward the dungeon that was his quarry. And despite the danger, he couldn’t help but smile.
Every hour passed here implanted a renewed beacon of hope deep within his undead heart, like an ember refusing to wink out amid the encroaching darkness. The plan for how he and June could use the dungeon had crystalized in his mind, and it was time to put it into action.
The one wrinkle in his potential plans was the incessant nagging of this dungeon. Its endless thirst for both magic and knowledge had tested the dwarf’s patience many times.
And even he, not being a spellcaster, could sense the shift in the dungeons temperament over the last few days. Ever since the dungeon inquired about Sharth’ax and the more personal elements of his undead life, it had grown more erratic with each passing moment.
Its minions had turned sour and avoidant, preferring to hiss at the dwarf as he tried to inspect them. The flora within the dungeon had shifted in hue as well, with its flowers turning to a rather dire black color. Venom dripped constantly down its walls, looking like coagulated blood spewing from the soil, as if The Blighted Terror itself was bursting from the very ground beneath this dungeon.
This was something Bullin had not seen before, but had been warned about. Perhaps the proximity to the Tombs of Varan’ta and the dark gods worshipped within had tainted this dungeon somehow. He discarded the thought for now, focusing on the task at hand. Now it was time to test the resolve of this nascent trial. And with a few careful leaps, he’d made it inside the main entry chamber.
Bullin ran his fingers over the glass-like runes etched into the walls, feeling the twinge of heat echoing from their magic. The swirl of magic suffusing the dungeon was a wondrous thing for Bullin to behold. With each step, he could feel the intensifying effect of the magic within this reforged dungeon. When he’d first come here just a short while ago, it had been little more than a hole in the mud. Now it was something to be proud of.
Still, it wasn’t perfect. The dungeon had failed to detect him as he’d returned. Of course, he had equipped himself with some powerful dimensional magic items geared towards stealth, any lower-Tier dungeon would have struggled with that.
As he ventured further into the dungeon, the air was heavier than he recalled, carrying the scent of ancient stone and stale dust. He’d only been gone a day, but even the mood within the dungeon was decidedly more malicious. Flickering purple and blue light danced along the rough-hewn walls, casting eerie shadows. Bullin could sense latent magic pooling in various areas along his path. It would seem the dungeon had made some drastic changes.
His senses heightened. He felt the frigid grip of the stone floor beneath his feet, the rough texture grazing his fingertips as he traced the walls for guidance. The occasional drip of water and the faint rustling of unseen creatures scurrying in the darkness broke the silence.
He could almost taste the anticipation in the air, a tingling sensation that told him danger lurked around every corner. Yet he remained undeterred, relying on his magical items to grant him the element of surprise. The faint hum of his enchanted Murderer’s Cloak and the subtle shimmer of his Darkwhisper boots were the only signs of his presence.
Despite the imperfections of the dungeon’s detection system, he knew he couldn’t let his guard down. These ominous stones held several traps, waiting to ensnare those who dared to trespass. With each cautious step, the dwarf delved deeper into the labyrinthine depths, his mind racing with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
Bullin pooled mana in his eyes, enhancing the natural darkvision his dwarf blood gave him. The dungeon lit up like stars in the night sky with runes and mana configurations as Bullin ran his eyes over the walls and floor. Runic configurations he’d personally designed stood out most, good, the dungeon had not had time to junk things up yet.
Mana of multiple kinds choked the air inside the dungeon, each adding their own sickly sweet scent to the space.
Tendrils slithered across the walls and floor alike. Bullin knew full well that minions and traps alike lay in wait for him to make a single mistake, so he moved slowly and scouted ahead as much as he could.
By the time he had crossed the first main chamber, more than an hour had passed, but at least the dungeon was none the wiser of his presence. The downside of such a slow approach was that Bullin had to expend a considerable amount of his mana reserves keeping the stealth magic in place.
And he couldn’t do this forever, he had to engage the minions to actually test the defenses in place. Just ahead of the tunnel leading to the next chamber, Bullin made his move.
The sliver head of his massive hammer flared to life on his belt, before flying off as if held in an invisible hand. A hefty metallic clang resounded off the dungeon walls as it slammed headfirst into the stone floor behind Bullin, attracting the attention of the first tidal wave of bulging, blackened plants. A split second later, a flare of magic within the runes on the hammer exploded, sending a shockwave of onyx energy outward, consuming everything in its path. Blackened tendrils withered in an instant before falling away to ash as their life force was snuffed out by powerful death magics.
The tiny tendril of mana connecting the hammer to Bullin’s rapidly dancing fingers flared and bulged as he fed more power into the enchantment. A second explosion of raven-black energy from his hammer detonated as the runes flared again, ripping their way through another wave of plant tendrils, leaving yet more ashes behind.
Though he had the element of surprise for a beat, the dungeon seemed to sense him as a wave of tendrils lunged for him now. It seemed the core had figured out how to trace his weapon back to its source. With another flare of magic, Bullin pooled every bit of mana he could spare onto his haunches, launching off the wall and into the tunnel with magically enhanced speed.
In an instant, he’d made it into the tunnel, heading right for the Core chamber. With a flick of his wrist, the hammer launched off the floor behind him, now lodging itself into the wall of the tunnel beyond. A resounding bang signaled its landing at the first bend in the tunnel, the exact spot Bullin knew there was one of the dungeon’s miniature channels. With another flare of magic, he simultaneously collapsed the rock formations behind him and those that allowed minions to move from the spawner rooms.
A smile cracked like a fissure across his face for a moment, before being erased by reality. He hadn’t been quite clever enough, as several Mana Worms dropped down from the ceiling in the tunnel, landing all around him. Mana-enriched venom sizzled on the rocks around him as their maws hung open. And instead of the tiny snakes he’d been used to, these monstrosities were larger than any serpent he’d seen in the swamps. As they moved, their alabaster skin was pockmarked with cobalt bands of energy that caught the light, adding to their menacing presence.
Black eyes flared with impossible light as his power wrapped his body in a hard magical armor. The faint black glow of obsidian glass enraptured his form in a glove of death mana, adding one more layer to the fortress of a dwarf.
In a flurry of hisses and grunts, the battle began. Blasts of hammer on flesh sent spatters of black blood and venom crashing against the stone as Bullin batted away some of the Worms. Mana flashed in the darkness as the purple runic formations on his weapon flared with each rapid-fire strike. his bulging muscles nearly popped from his bones as he moved, dodging one attack while letting another land.
Dripping fangs impacted against his leather armor, though they couldn’t pierce it. Bullin couldn’t help but smile at the worms’ attempts to aim for his weak points. In truth, he only half-attempted to avoid their lunges. He needed to see what kind of threat they posed. Each strike that landed flared out against the magic wrapping around his form—more than once, a crack echoed as a fang snapped—only to be followed by painful hisses and a raspy chuckle.
But for every worm turned to paste, another seemed to join the fray from the shadows. The dungeon was learning efficient use of its mana, or at least, he hoped that was the case.
And the threat of these new Mana Worms wasn’t only part of his mounting opposition. Even though its impact was minimal to someone so much stronger, the pressure of the dungeon’s newly gained perks hung onto his skin like a chill. Perfect. The dungeon was using every advantage it had to take him down. Though he knew it was all in vain.
The slow-moving Clams that the dungeon had created were no match for someone so much faster than them. It was one more thing he would have to address with the dungeon after this. Though his muscles ached and his eyelids drooped, Bullin fought on. Within just a few minutes, the dwarf stood victorious over a slaughter. The last of the minions had fallen, and nothing was standing between him and the dungeon's nascent core.
A single flash of mana in his eyes allowed him to appraise the dungeon once more, showing its stupendous growth in such a short time via the same gilded status window.
Dungeon Name
Crypt of the Swamp Lord
Tier
Tier 2 (Tested Trial)
Magical Abilities Offense Abilities Defense Abilities Special Actions
Improved Mana Sense
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Trap Networks
Life Magic Wards Tier 1
Refining Network (Earth/Water)
Magic Affinities Mana Tiers
—
Death Mana Tier 2
Water Mana Tier 1
Earth Mana Tier 1
Minion Spawners Resource Spawners
Mana Worm Mound (Tier 2)
Swamp Fern Terrarium (Tier 2)
Mutant Clam Pool
Watershroom Colony
Emerald Node
Sapphire Node
Passive Perks
Active Perks
Mentor's Influence
Culling Tendency
Fear Aura
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As the experienced delver strode into the final chamber, he could almost smell the hatred and resentment floating about the chamber. The flows of mana had been greatly reduced, as the dungeon had sucked them dry to manufacture more minions during the melee. But now, a new scent had crept into the chamber. Bullin knew this feeling well: fear. A dungeon on the brink of annihilation with nothing left, moments away from being drained.
His meaty silver-stained hand disappeared into a pouch on his belt once more, producing a large blue gem from within. A gloved hand hovered over the dungeon core once more, and mana began to drain from the jewel, directly into the growing gemstone, in a tight beam. Bullin's beady eyes watched intently as the dungeon greedily drank in the dark magics.
A bellowing laugh was all that could be heard in the dungeon.