Chapter 16
It was less than a week since Omnus had come to be. During that time, Jack came to a conclusion about the sentinel. THAT SON OF A BITCH WAS A MENACE WHEN LEFT ALONE FOR TOO LONG!!!
Within a day, A FUCKING DAY, of coming into existence Omnus claimed a building for himself to start his experiments and research. Within an hour of doing so, the damn building blew up with him flying out with smoke trailing behind him. Like some kind of silvery gold bastardized version of a comet only to crash into ANOTHER building make a sizable dent in the wall. Then there was the time he started to experiment with monster corpses. Jack was still unsure how or when he got those. He would just disappear one day then came back with five of them. Even recruiting Aegisthal to help bring them back before the juggernaut returned to his work of breaking into the vault.
In order to make safeguards, Jack had to get involved by making a large dome of iron in a secluded area that was fifteen feet tall, fourteen feet in radius, and half a foot thick. It wasn’t a perfect solution but it would keep any potential explosion well contained. At least for now… Jack hoped.
Despite being a menace, Omnus actually did a good job. He was meticulous with his notes, very detailed in his study and tirelessly contributed information to the book shelves in Jack’s workshop. He already had a book written about the anatomy of a troll he dissected as well as how each part worked and developed a healing spell based on his findings. Not to mention the gremlins loved the nutty scholar.
For all his madness and quirks, Omnus proved himself to be a fine teacher.
Gremlins young and old would often come to him with questions and he would not only answer them, but teach them how to find an answer on their own. a few times Jack caught Omnus teaching mathematics to some of the gremlins while mis metallic wrappings seemed to work with minds of their own to write notes for one of his experiments.
That information proved to be invaluable since it also allowed him to better understand how troll anatomy worked. Once he absorbed the book and resummoned it of course. Once he reabsorbed the roll though he found he had the option to summon it bronze boned zombie versions of it. but once he studied the properties of that kind of zombie, he found there wasn’t much benefit to it. Maybe for heavy lifting of things though ultimately, he didn’t see much use in them. especially since the zombie version didn’t have that healing factor.
Instead, he chose to focus on his next dungeon layer. His dungeon might not be at layer two yet but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t make preparations.
Jack was actually part way though setting up the boss areas of the layer. Working on the finer details the same joy that he had with the first layer. The second layer was made to look like a residential district. Going into detail to make some parks along with fountains and even a few large and small markets. It was mildly disheartening when he had to make them all into ruins. He made scorch marks, cracked and shattered stone what used to be a really nice area. He could only sigh with mild disappointment at what had to be done.
The next layer will I’ll keep in a nicer state. Jack promised himself while still working on some final touches.
Just as he was about done with the boss areas being made to look like guard postings, a notification appeared in his vision. And boy was he grateful to figure out how to turn off the number listing options. That was really annoying.
Attention!
The Dungeon has now reached level 2!
Dungeon Core Sheet
Dungeon Master: Jack Smithson
Race: Lich (Formally Human)
Dungeon Mobs Available:
Level 1 Mobs:
Zombie Rats
Skeleton Rats
Tin Crabs
Level 2 Mobs:
Skeletons (elves, dwarves)
Zombies (elves)
Gorebound Hounds
Tin Constructs
Coper Spider
Level 5 mobs
Osteal Ferrum Golem
Aurigold Mummy
Dungeon Abilities:
Mob Summoning
Mob Absorption
Reanimate Dead
Dungeon Shaping
Dungeon Repair
Item Absorption
Item Creation
Current Loot Drop Options:
Coin:
Tin Coins
Copper Coins
Silver Coins
Gold coins
Items:
Purified Bone pieces
Refined Materials (Base Metals, Wood)
Magic Items (Common - Rare Quality)
Mana Stone (Artificial Potency)
Custom (Books Thus Far)
Special Ability:
Avatar of The Master – Note. This is a legendary ability. Dungeons with this ability can make a physical manifestation of its consciousness, also known as the Dungeon Master. The form of this avatar is a Lich who is able to enter and leave the dungeon’s territory at will while also able to change their form as the dungeon grows.
The avatar will have the same abilities as its non-mob counterparts.
Rooms/Chambers:
Level 2
Alchemical Shops
Healing Spring
Tressure Vault
Traveler’s Inn
Life Essence Collection Chamber
Attention!
New Dungeon Upgrade Options Available!
Dungeon Upgrade Option Menu
Current Available Upgrades
AREA OF CONTROL EXPANSION UPGRADES
LEVEL 2 OPTIONS
Advanced Area Expansion [Repeatable] (Cost: 15 Points)
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Description: Expands the dungeon’s territory by an additional 500 feet in all directions.
Effect: Increases the overall size and complexity of the dungeon, allowing for more rooms, traps, and mob placements.
Multilayered Dimensions (Cost: 300 Points)
Description: Adds a hidden, alternate space within the dungeon that can house unique challenges, mobs, or treasures.
Effect: Adds multiple pocket dimensions interconnected by portals. Dimensions can vary in environment (e.g., underwater, volcanic) to enhance challenges..
Underground Lair Levels (Cost: 100 Points)
Adds a multi-level design, enabling vertical exploration and ambush opportunities.
MOB UPGRADES
LEVEL 1
Constructed Guardians and Undead Construct Hybrids (Cost: 30 Points)
Description: Unlock powerful constructs, including hybrids that combine undead and mechanical elements.
Effect: Introduces mobs like Iron Golems, Clockwork Sentinels, and hybrid creations such as Skeletal Watchers, blending necromantic and mechanical components.
Restless Spirits (Cost: 10 Points)
Description: Introduce ghostly apparitions that are bound to specific objects or areas within the dungeon.
Effect: These spirits cause minor disturbances and psychological tension, unsettling adventurers without overwhelming power.
Reanimated Guardians (Cost: 20 Points)
Description: Unlock a new type of mob that combines the resilience of the undead with the strength of constructs.
Effect: Introduces mobs like Reanimated Sentinels or Bone-Bound Guardians, heavily armored and equipped with weapons, making them tough opponents.
Level 2
Trickster Spirits (Cost: 45 Points)
Description: Summon mischievous and deceptive spirits that confuse and disorient adventurers, turning traps or dangers against them.
Effect: These spirits may use illusions, teleportation, or mind-affecting abilities to confuse adventurers. Some might turn invisible, cause hallucinations, or create decoy copies of themselves, making it hard to determine which are real.
AVATAR UPGRADES
LEVEL 1 OPTIONS
Arcane Knowledge (Cost: 120 Points)
Description: Enhance the avatar’s magical abilities by deepening its knowledge of arcane arts.
Effect: The avatar gains access to basic spells, such as magical barriers, minor illusions, or elemental bolts, adding tactical options.
Teleportation (Cost: 80 Points)
Description: Allow the avatar to teleport to any part of the dungeon.
Effect: The avatar can teleport to any location within the dungeon once every 3 hours, providing mobility and strategic flexibility.
Level 2 Options
Regenerative Necrotic Veins (Cost: 300 Points)
Description: Integrate necrotic veins throughout the avatar’s body, enabling regeneration and magical enhancements.
Effect: The avatar passively regenerates health during combat by drawing on ambient necrotic energy. The veins also allow the avatar to channel stronger necrotic spells, such as life-draining pulses or curses that weaken foes.
Swift Reflexes (Cost: 120 Points)
Description: Enhance the avatar's reaction speed and agility, allowing them to outmaneuver and counter opponents with precision.
Effect: The avatar’s movements become faster and more fluid, enabling them to dodge attacks more effectively and react to threats with heightened reflexes. This upgrade grants a bonus to evasion and allows the avatar to counter melee attacks with swift, precise strikes.
Ethereal Wings (Cost: 180 Points)
Description: Grant the avatar spectral wings that enable flight and enhance mobility.
Effect: The avatar can hover or fly for short periods, gaining a significant advantage in combat and exploration. The wings also emit a pulse of fear when fully unfurled, intimidating weaker foes.
Lichfire Core (Cost: 250 Points)
Description: Implant a core of pure lichfire within the avatar, granting powerful offensive and defensive abilities.
Effect: The avatar gains the ability to emit a burst of lichfire in a radius, burning enemies with necrotic flames. The lichfire also enhances the avatar’s physical attacks, adding fire damage to every strike. Additionally, the core passively increases the avatar’s resistance to fire-based damage.
DUNGEON ABILITIES
LEVEL 1 OPTIONS
Adaptive Defenses (Cost: 40 Points)
Description: The dungeon becomes more responsive to intruders who pose a direct threat to its core.
Effect: When adventurers attempt to destroy the dungeon’s core or critical structures, the dungeon actively deploys mobs or alters the environment to defend itself.
Illusionary Walls (Cost: 25 Points)
Description: Introduce false walls and passages that can deceive adventurers.
Effect: The dungeon can create illusionary walls or barriers that appear solid but are not, misleading adventurers and hiding traps, mobs, or secret areas.
Level 2 Options
Mana Overload Nodes (Cost: 120 Points)
Description: Install powerful magical nodes throughout the dungeon that can discharge bursts of raw energy.
Effect: Nodes periodically release bursts of elemental or arcane energy, dealing damage to intruders and creating hazardous zones.
Advanced Adaptive Defenses (Cost: 100 Points)
[Unavailable until Adaptive Defenses is purchased]
Description: Upgrade the dungeon's ability to learn from intruder strategies, adapting defenses to counter repeated threats.
Effect: The dungeon analyzes adventurer behavior, deploying tailored mobs, traps, or environmental changes to neutralize specific tactics.
Illusionary Overlays (Cost: 50 Points)
Description: Improve the dungeon’s illusion capabilities, creating more complex and deceptive effects.
Effect: Enables illusions of moving traps, fake mobs, and phantom treasures, further confusing and deceiving adventurers.
Core Stabilizer (Cost: 200 Points)
Description: Protect the dungeon’s core with an unbreakable shield that forces adventurers to complete specific challenges to disable it.
Effect: Adds a magical barrier to the core, requiring adventurers to solve puzzles or clear designated rooms before accessing it.
LOOT UPGRADES
LEVEL 1 OPTIONS
Alchemical Ingredients (Cost: 10 Points)
Description: Introduce rare and valuable ingredients used for crafting potions, poisons, and other alchemical products.
Effect: Adventurers can find various alchemical materials within the dungeon, making it a target for those seeking to craft powerful consumables.
Basic Enchanted Items (Cost: 40 Points)
Description: Add simple enchanted items to the loot pool, such as weapons with minor elemental effects or trinkets that offer small bonuses.
Effect: These items provide small, useful effects without being game-breaking, attracting low to mid-level adventurers.
Cursed Coins (Cost: 2 Points)
Description: Introduce cursed currency to the dungeon's loot, which appears valuable but carries negative effects.
Effect: Cursed coins can be found alongside normal loot but bring bad luck or minor curses to those who take them.
Mystical Components (Cost: 80 Points)
Description: Add components used for crafting or upgrading magical items.
Effect: These components are sought after by adventurers looking to enhance their gear, providing a steady flow of skilled adventurers into the dungeon.
Trapped Chests (Cost: 15 Points)
Description: Some treasure chests within the dungeon are rigged with traps, adding danger to the rewards.
Effect: Trapped chests provide valuable loot but trigger traps when opened, adding an extra layer of challenge and risk for treasure-seeking adventurers.
Level 2 options
Elemental Infused Weapons (Cost: 80 Points)
Description: Add a selection of weapons with elemental infusions, giving adventurers more options for dealing with different types of enemies.
Effect: Introduces weapons such as swords that deal fire, ice, or lightning damage, or bows that fire arrows with a minor elemental effect. These weapons can help adventurers exploit weaknesses but are not overwhelmingly powerful.
Cursed Artifacts (Cost: 60 Points)
Description: Introduce items with strong powers but at a price, forcing adventurers to make choices between great benefits and harmful drawbacks.
Effect: These artifacts may offer powerful bonuses, such as increased damage or enhanced mobility, but come with curses, like reduced health, slower movement, or uncontrollable effects that may trigger during combat or when entering specific dungeon areas.
Trap-Laden Treasure (Cost: 40 Points)
Description: Add a risk-reward element to the dungeon’s treasure, where chests contain valuable loot but are rigged with traps.
Effect: Treasure chests can be found containing useful gear or magical items, but they are booby-trapped with simple traps like poison darts, pitfalls, or explosive charges. This encourages careful exploration and decision-making by adventurers.
Upgrade Points Available:
1,075
When Jack looked over the notifications not once or twice but three times… well, it was a good thing he was as skeleton otherwise he’d make a small puddle of drool. He wanted to buy a lot of them as soon as he saw them until he remembered that though he had a lot of upgrade points, it was hard to get more.
Putting his point poverty aside, Jack refocused himself as he excitedly set to work setting up his mobs throughout the second layer. First he summoned the tin constructs to see what they were and was delighted to see they were basic automatons. Simple humanoid constructs that stood three and a half feet tall, with two fingers and a thumb on each hand with two eyes on a simplistic face. After testing to see that they were fairly strong he decided to make them a fairly uncommon unless someone went looking for them. He made sure that their outer shell looked beaten up but left their joints untouched. They were faster than the crabs though that wasn’t saying much. The comparison would have been like comparing a snail to an old lazy turtle.
Once they were summoned, and idea struck Jack like lightening.
Taking it a step further, Jack summoned unanimated skeletons into the piles of rubble and set the tin constructs to try and dig them out. When the adventurers saw Jack seriously doubted that there would be a dry eye at the sight.
With that done, Jack spawned animated skeletons with wither a missing limb, with arrows sticking out of them in placed, and a few with a cracked or broken skull. All to look like they have been attacked. Making sure to use elven, and dwarven skeletons alike. Placing the skeletons around the layer with some that were buried like their prop version cousins while others just laid in wait on the streets or buildings.
When he spawned a Gorehound though…
“Fucking… ew.” Jack muttered as he started at the half-rotted wolf… or dog.
“Teacher… what is that?” Frizzy asked from behind him while holding her nose. “That has to be one of the worst smells I have ever smelled.”
“Hey Frizzy.” Jack said, briefly looking aware from the nasty little monster. “I just leveled up my dungeon and was seeing what some of the new mobs are like. So far, I really don’t like this one.”
“imagine how the adventurers are going to feel seeing that thing.” Frizzy replied while trying not to gag. “Please, Herp! Get rid of it.” She begged.
Reabsorbing the mob, Jack quickly replaced it with the coper spider instead.
What appeared was a rather meticulous construct of coper. It was a spider with quartz eyes, sharp needle fangs, and a glass vile on its abdomen filled with a clear fluid. It stood at a foot tall and when he ordered it to move, he quickly discovered that it was fast. The rapid tinking of its pointed feet propelled it in quick bursts of speed while it pounded on the hammer across the room. curling its legs around the target to grab hold before trying to bite it with those needle fangs.
“That one is astounding!” Frizzy declared as she ran to the construct that still attacked the hammer to inspect it. “The way it moves! How it can jump and us it legs like that!” she shrieked in delight.
“Teacher! Can I have one too study please? There is so much I can learn about this construct!” She continued on, fawning over the mechanical spider like a child shown a very shiny new toy.
“Yeah, I’m fine with that.” Jack shrugged. “it will be good practice for you. But there are more things with the dungeon. I can make safe zones that take the form of inns and a healing springs. Can also make an alchemy shop if I want. But I am more curious about what a life essence collection chamber is.”
Frizzy for her part seemed to have stop paying attention once she got permission to study the spider. A clue he was made very aware of as she was currently running away with the freaking thing in her arms.
“… did I just accidentally give her a pet?”
Before he could ponder the idea any further, Jack went back setting the spawns for the mobs and giving them a look drop. Most of the layer had skeletons in it but he made a few of the gorehounds to act as harassers while the spiders with do rush attacks. Then is sets some inns at the half way mark and a couple alchemy shops. He also hid a few vaults with some store of tin and copper inside. As for the life essences collection chamber, he spawned that near his tower so Omnus can study it. he didn’t want to use it for real until he had a full understanding of what it was and how it worked. Though he made sure it was well away from his dungeon residents and ordered Aegisthal to keep the residents away from it. even if it frustrated him to no end to further delay his vault being opened. That just left one final problem. what was he going to use for the boss?
Just as he was about to break down possible candidates and think about what kind of lore he could make for the boss to be, something appeared at the edge of his awareness.
“For fucks sake!” Jack cursed. “What the devil is it now!? Do the pains in my shiny ass never end?!”