While Jack was away looking to dig up information on the other continent I was digging up information in my own dungeon, because man had Treyni's evolution left a lot to look through.
"It is our pleasure to make your acquaintance master."
[C Rank Monster Youko-A Fox monster that has evolved into a Demi-human, with a natural affinity for fire magic and manipulating souls they often find work as shrine maidens]
Lunazure was a hybrid of my wolf Luna and my first Will-o-wisp turned Mitami Blue, I suppose it was either that or 'Bluna'. Currently she was kneeling before me, or my points of awareness I guess, in the Shrine Maiden's uniform that I had prepared for her, her two blue coloured tails wagging behind her. I wasn't nearly as concerned about her though as I was about the ones behind her. The ones that use to be Gnolls.
[D Rank Monster Werewolf-A formidable Demi human with the power to draw strength from the phases of the moon, as the moon nears closer and closer to full the werewolf becomes progressively more and more savage and unruly]
They looked like werewolves too, unlike Lunazure who looked like a human with fox ears and tails tacked on these were clear cut werewolves. I didn't see any mention of a curse or disease type thing that turns other people into werewolves in the description so I'll take my boons where I can get them. I also don't want to think about how I thought that was a thing, not with being three bosses down anyway. Moving on I next turned my attention to the former insects that were buzzing around the floor.
[E Rank Monster Dragon Fly Fairy-A dragon fly that has evolved into the form of a fairy, retaining their original insect like traits including excellent hunting instincts and a stinger tail]
Is it wrong that the Dragon Fly fairy doesn't look that much different than the regular dragon fly?
[F Rank Monster Bee Fairy-A Fairy that evolved from bee's and retains their traits as hive minded gatherers and builders, their wax contains a crystalline compound that hardens into an extremely hard material resistant to slashing and piercing attacks once cured, which they use in both buildings and limited amounts of armour, sadly though if they use their stingers they will die]
That pretty much is the definition of F rank 'If they fight then they will die.' The Bees still very much looked bee like just with said features tacked onto a miniature human torso and much longer legs. They had already claimed their spot in the dungeon building a hive above our heads from the ceiling, polinating various fruit bearing trees as they blossomed, I left them to it. I think the fish already made the trek down to the third floor so that means that these cover the monsters that I had up here or... ah I knew I was missing one.
[D Rank Monster Bark Spider-A orb Weaver Spider with a rare affinity for the nature elements, capable of spinning webs up to 90 meters wide, strong as steel but stretches and compresses like rubber]
The giant spider, approximately the size of a beagle, with a rough bark like exo-skeleton was crisscrossing the room with it's rubber like webbing, apparently one of Treyni's internal branches had got in it's way so the bugger tied one of it's strings around it and pulled the knot until the branch snapped clean off. The Other spiders were keeping their distance from one another as they prepared their own webs. Is this the last of them or are there more?
"There is the matter of my treants left." Treyni stated, sitting on a branch as she directed my attention elsewhere. Right. Where are they and how many are left?
"Thirty. I do warn that what you may see will surprise you though." Treyni raised up her hands and clapped.
From above and below the sound of wood creaking echoed out as various figures emerged from above and below snaking out of the shadows. Well this is interesting.
[D Rank Monster Totem Pole-A wooden statue that has gradually absorbed magical energy and has come to life as a consequence, wielding nature magic they are called 'wooden Gargoyles' by the less informed, they are equipped with excellent support type spells their strength in direct proportion to the number of figures carved into their bodies]
Figures of carved wood was sitting on top of each other, birds, fish, snakes and every other manner of creature I had the schema's for. They weren't like Leviathan's Figureheads made in the image of gods, the divine power that Leviathan had in his Figureheads was absorbed by my dungeon and that was turned into the floor breach that led me to Helheim, so they were a lot weaker. There was one more matter but they were already leaving the dungeon, Dwarfs. Charles people who had been caught inside of the dungeon when Thing, Treyni and Levi were all evolving, now they had been released with the now ill fitting clothes on their backs back into the city. I needed to look into that, I understood that Dwarfs are somehow better than normal humans but I don't know how, so far the only thing I was really certain about was that their rate of fertility was lower than normal people, and I could see that they were shorter than normal people too. If I could bring the totems along on another raid that would be fantastic but I don't think the system will let me get away with doing that a second time, not after what I did with Leviathan. Alright so I have Dragon Fly fairies, bee fairies, A fox lady, some werewolves, some giant spiders and a tree spirit on this floor, arguably the most powerful tree spirit to ever live. I wasn't sure how much this stuff was going to help me with dealing with either the other cores in the raid team or the ones in the dungeons we're going to invade but it's good to know what our options are. For now...
Security. Part of me knew that if someone tried to end me once, they would again, and how had they almost succeeded? We let them through the front door.
A Door I would be locking now. I prepared gates for each of my entrances. Gates that had skulls attached to them, under their control. The gates knew the faces of all of Jack's men, and they would know the faces of anyone else who came here and caused trouble and they would keep the door locked unless the men could spit out the answers to their questions, that last part was only there because the damned system wouldn't let me permanently lock my doors. Still there were people who could just smash the doors down.
Each skull had been taught magic by Archie, Create Bone Weapon. They hadn't reached the point that they could just weaponize an enemy's skeleton, but the floor, walls and gates that were all made out of limestone? Yeah they can easily turn those into stabbing spears.
Let's try and manage the city, my Fire Flame Fiend body is still out of commission, so let's go with the Maride instead.
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The Druids were having a field day with the city. A large number of the buildings had suddenly turned into trees, so there was a lot of structural damage that needed to be repaired, luckily druids have magics that can be used to reshape plants and the like, so while there was a limit to reshaping trees into buildings, but with the introduction of tree houses the situation was being managed pretty well. On top of much of the trees used in the buildings were from fruit bearing trees which also meant that their food shortages had received some relief. Then a familiar figure emerged from the water. I would have to be careful with how I managed this conversation, in the worst case scenario I would have to evacuate the city.
"Should I presume from the fact that your Dryad hasn't killed us all yet that we're still on good terms with one another?" I asked as I looked at the Maride that had emerged from the water.
"How did that Jack guy get into my dungeon Charles?" The figure made out of water asked as the currents started to rise up behind him, severely unamused.
"He had us outnumbered in both Quantity and Quality, and the legal paper work to back him up as well. There was literally nothing that we could oppose him with. You may however recall that we were the ones that pulled you back into this plane." As a reminder to the watery creature I indicated the place where the makeshift dungeon avatar had burned its way out of the building we summoned it to and entered the dungeon proper, through yet another hole it had burned through the dungeon. "On the other hand if we put up pointless resistance when he first started waving around warrants he would've beaten us into submission, breaking all of our bones in the process, and we wouldn't have been able to summon you back to this plane, not before he got someone that could chain you up first. Not to mention that the worst he could've done was..."
"Kill Apas's cubs." I was genuinely surprised by the Keeper's statement, a cold sweat going down the back of my neck.
"Congratulations are in order then. I didn't know that she was expecting or I would've sent her a gift." And would've rethought our approach.
"Yeah. That's her fault, and we'll be talking about this later on." The Maride stated as he looked up at the dungeon, and the hole this incident had created. "Yeah. I gotta patch that." The Keeper could only let out a sigh.
"We saw Jack leave the City a while ago." And only Jack, that was more concerning than anything else.
"I contracted Jack. I'm hoping that his expertise in demolishing dungeons helps me deal with Cocytus's lot." Which would explain why Jack had rushed out of the dungeon, but not why he had done so alone.
"He doesn't seem like the type." I asked as I probed with my suspicions.
"I took all of his people hostage." Well it was nice knowing the Keeper. "Speaking of which yours are done cooking too, so there's that." Keeper indicated the entrance where the dwarfs from inside of the dungeon were pouring out and into the streets. I sighed. "It's good to know that they're safe at least." The fact that this was degenerating into a legal nightmare though was another thing. "Are we going to benefit from this?" The Keeper asked me as if it was an obvious question.
"Dwarfs are among the more common of the possible evolutions for humans. They're naturally talented craftsmen and durable warriors." The truth of the matter was that as common as they are a skilled dwarf craftsman is more valuable than a skilled warrior goliath like Jack. A warrior? Lasts a generation even if the evolution did increase his life span, if you're lucky you might be able to squeeze a heir out of him. A skilled dwarf craftsman though? Their blades, well maintained, can be passed down through the generations, as does their shields, their spears, bows, armour, even Dwarf arrows and crossbow bolts can be considered valuable family heirlooms. And now there was a hoard of them here, next to a dungeon producing supplies, with its own forge built into its fourth floor.
"What's the food situation in the town? We have stocks of preserved sea food and some fruit bearing trees." I wisely followed up on the subject being changed, partly to diffuse the situation, partly because I needed to know. "More Fruit and honey, I got some spiders you can try to eat if you're desperate." Keeper followed up as he let out a sigh.
"Preserved Seafood, we don't have a farm of our own built yet. We're expecting a major trading company in the near future. For now, you let me worry about my people, I'll let you worry about yours." The watery figure nodded his as he went back into the dungeon.
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Now for this mess. I returned to the fourth the floor of my dungeon, where I created a room off to the side for Apas to stay in.
"So am I to be kept captive here?" Apas looked disgruntled with the situation. You are to stay where you or your eggs can't be taken prisoner again.
I created an oversized cat bed and a cradle for the eggs that would be laid soon.
I could feel Pluto's interest prickling the back of my mind. It's temporary, I'll move the room when I get another floor. Pluto's lingering interest faded and I breathed a sigh.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Why didn't you tell me you were expecting. Apas's face scrunched up as if she bit a lemon.
"I had another, before we met. When I was out hunting he had been left alone with our nest, the eggs were neglected. Of the four that I had laid only one of them survived to hatching, a female." I delved into the griffin Schema. Griffin gender is determined by temperature, warm conditions spawned males, colder ones females. If the eggs were born male then they would've been a threat to the male's monopoly on breeding partners, I guess?
"You're not wrong." So your last mate hurt you and you lost your eggs? Do I really seem that unreliable to you?
"Yes." Apas stated bluntly. "A group of armed thugs entered our home wanting to kill you and you let them in." Apas made her anger known. "You put yourself and us in danger! If those thugs had any worse intentions than 'eliminating a threat...'"
...yeah. This is on me. For now I'm tightening security. The doors have actual locks on them now, and I'm going to get the werewolves to play work place security for now on.
"That chick I mentioned before? She died because I couldn't look after her by myself. I don't know how it is with other sphinxes but I lack the confidence to look after my kids by myself. If you aren't going to raise my confidence in you by a astonishing degree then I'm going to leave you." On that note Apas left for her new temporary room.
With Apas taken care of I turned my awareness to the first floor of the tower, where the other cores were gathered together. We will now proceed with the meeting to discuss the raid to take 'Wolf's Den.' Chair Lady Hel?
"I promised the cores a bounty to be allowed to return to the mortal plane if they found the entrance to the rest of the Wolf's dungeon, and it was found." Hel indicated the Kapri Souls. Some of the other monsters gave a half hearted clap of congratulations to the bony birds that's good any way.
So how does this work anyway?
"The core will have to expend its accumulated power to breach back into reality, she will likely be spat out in the place that she was in prior to her death." That can be helpful, I mean either way I and Hel won't be the only ones providing mana here. Go for it 4! The birds protested my addressing them by that name with several tweets.
"Patience, In time you will regain the pieces of yourself that you lost, once you're back in the mortal plane your body will begin to regrow itself." Hel explained as she gestured around the room. "Now to continue with the meeting." Hel Indicated the elephant in the room, so to speak. "Another one of you has progressed into a functional monster."
[C Rank Monster Vampire-Mershark: A Mershark who has been given the power of Vampirism, giving them a high affinity for the necrotic arts]
A swarm of bats flew out of the floor above, before attaching to the roof and transforming into the form of a extremely pale Mershark and looking around before transforming back into bats and moving onto the back of the Genmu before transforming again and taking a seat. A Vampire Mershark, I still remember when you were still a Bark struggling to breathe. How did you manage to evolve that thing anyway?
"When your chimera sensed that she had been poisoned she had this body take a bite out of her not only killing her but all of the other monsters on the floor as well. I am quite certain that I've maxed out giant killer and got some of Oceanus's blessing to boot." Hel clapped her hands and the mana swirled as several blocks of ice were frozen into existence giving a model of a dungeon without any of its walls. "Thanks to the Kapri Souls and the Vampire the wolf's den has been thoroughly scouted. Right now what we need is a path leading to this location." Hell indicated a place where the dungeon seemed to cut off, a path leading back into the real world. "What we need to do is some how force the dungeon to recede back through this entrance and into the mortal plane." Can we use another bag of holding combo? Suck up the entire dungeon + the surroundings and just toss them back through the portal?
"It's just a rock right?" The Troll in the room stated as he applied the logic that his kind was known for.
"Just toss it back through and be done with it." Would that even work? "You moved around our cores." The Genmu stated bluntly. Well technically I just got you to do that for me, but I can't just move my core back into reality all I want, we'll have to force the system to accept their return back to their 'lower' floors by destroying the floor utterly, preferably with their cores on the other-side.
"Why are we even talking about saving enemy combatants anyway?" The thing sitting in the corner of the meeting place that looked like a cloak but was made out of some kind of fleshy substance clasped with teeth and something with eyes beneath picked that moment to speak up, a Gnarl I think is what it was called, what ever it freaked me out.
"I'm a Nyarl." The cloak thing stated sounding offended.
Because I've got another god breathing down my neck to do so, and I got the rest of you by the balls. That's why. Now I got a couple of weeks before my heavy hitters respawn and I've got a bunch more cores to work on, so I'm gonna start handing out gifts.
A couple of Animated hands dropped onto the bodies of the undead present, which would be the Kapri Souls, the Wendigo Troll and the Vampire.
"What do we with these?" Undead have the power to hook up to each other, you three hook into these and you get the benefit of Giant Slayer's XP bonuses. "Which you and your hands will get half of, and nullifying XP gains for anything below our own rank." The Troll threw the hand aside.
"I already got giant Slayer maxed out." As did the vampire.
You guys are getting smarter, thinking about your options instead of rushing head long into things.
"So you tried to trick us?" The troll asked glaring at the open space my awareness occupied.
I gave you an option, you sunk legitimate thought into it, and then you opted to do something else.
The Kapri's on the other hand sat down on and adjusted the animated hands that I had given to them and I could feeling them linking into place. There wasn't a lot that were weaker than these Kapri's anyway. Moving on.
There's not going to be a lot that we can do about the dungeons that are holding the wolf's den hostage, we've already taken a few shots at that Pirate bastard outside but he keeps getting back up.
"And he will continue to get back up, this realm continuously revives the dead after all." Apparently it's one of the effects of Lucifer's realm, if you stay dead when you die then he can't keep torturing you.
So is there a way to permanently neutralise them?
"Eat their cores, absorb their souls and break them down." Hel replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Which means that we have to take bits of that bastard into ourselves? I believe I know what that will do but I will ask the literal goddess for her opinion.
"Have you emptied a bottle of wine into the ocean?" Hel replied as if I had asked something stupid.
Ah, no, I don't have a lot of wine and even if I did I wouldn't toss it into the ocean willy nilly. Hel rolled her eyes.
"What do you think would happen if you did? Would it stay in place without its container? Would the entire ocean turn into wine? Of course not. When two forces mix together, whoever comes out on top is whichever one has more."
Leviathan has more than anyone else here.
"He had more than anyone else here." Hel Corrected. "Need I remind you, he was killed leaving him with only what he has taken since coming here, have you been able to build anymore floors by any chance?"
No, only what I've been able to get by joining up with these guys.
Hel held out her hands as if the answer had been obvious.
Okay so there's one of his to my five, or our fifty five if we're including these guys in the mix as well, or a hundred fifty five if we include Graves. Yah know what? I like those odds. Lets do this! Alright let's test this out then!
Hel didn't look happy with the arrangement. Cannibalism was a form of betrayal, but she had suggested it so she didn't have the right complain either.
[Dungeon Keeper: Graves, where's Leviathan?]
[Ouroboros: Planning on throwing another ice berg at him?]
[Dungeon Keeper: No. This time I'm gonna eat him!]
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I surveyed atop the perch of the tower, my ice dragon body was becoming more dragon-like by the day, if I don't want to be absorbed into it's growing form I needed to work faster. And Yet the Keeper made an outrageous request asking that I help him to swallow Leviathan's core. Just what is he planning exactly? No matter all he needs is a spotter.
[Ouroboros: The Bastard's circling around the tower again, on the north side heading east]
[Dungeon Keeper: Which way is North again?]
I climbed down to the side of the tower and scratched it with my claws.
[Dungeon Keeper: You know what a clock is?]
[Ouroboros: A timer? What about it?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Never mind I'll just carpet the area]
[Ouroboros: Carpet? What does carpeting have to do with anything?]
Suddenly the storm shifted. All of the snow died down as all the kinetic energy in the air was gathered in one place, the roof of the tower exploded as something was hurled through the air. One of the odd things about bags of holding as it turns out, unless enchanted specifically to do so they don't actually reduce the weight of the items that they're carrying. It's not a matter of being able to do the enchantment, but if you took a weightless void where everything just drifted about willy-nilly then you'd just be creating a high efficiency helium balloon, one that would take you into the stratosphere or worst. So most of the time some weight still comes through. Now what if you were a dungeon with the capacity to fill the bag of holding to the brim with solid stone, and had a skilled mage with access to obscure magical knowledge to increase weight instead of decreasing it? Now on top of that what if you had access to a ridiculous amount of magical power and a affinity for Kinetic energy manipulation to say for instead hurl a mass of rock the weight of a mountain into the sky and let it crash down like the hand of god wiping all from creation? For those who have no imagination the rock that we had just thrown into the sky had left behind a crater the size of a small city when it came down.
[Dungeon Keeper: Graves if you would be so kind as to retrieve Leviathan's core so that we can finally eat the bastard and get this mess over with?]
[Ouroboros: How exactly am I supposed to find it?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Look for the ship trying to fix itself]
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Hel looked down out of the hole punched through the tower. If this is to be a normal occurrence perhaps I should consider adding a cannon or the likes?
"You are a monster." Hel stated bluntly, this was the kind of raw destructive power that crushes armies, the fact that he basically did it on a whim? And that there was what like only five or six real ways of countering it that she can think off the top of her head?
I make resources lady, near as I can tell I'm good at it, but I'm great at raising monsters and at abusing magic for mass destruction, I suggest that you think about that some more before you trap me in another dimension next time. Now excuse me, I have to look into what I'm great at some more.
We'll start by combing through the floors and picking out some more undead monsters to speed level. The result of my cursory investigation gave me a zombie crocodile, a ghost snake and a skeleton mantis. Fantastic, plop some animated hands onto them, and pick out a suitably heavy monster... Armadillo looking thing? Works for me. I had the undead push the armadillo things over the edge of the platform.
"Why are you always targeting-" Solarius was cut off by the sound of being crushed by the falling monsters as the effects of Giant Slayer kicked in and the monsters I prepared entered a cocoon of evolution. Then I went looking for another group of them to do it again.
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It had not been a good week, I had to explain to my superiors how I went from trying to smash a dungeon to ending up it's subordinate, and on top of that trying to explain that I had to get his roughly two hundred people back. If everyone wasn't killed when the ball of fire came back and torched the place then I might've been able to bind the dungeon and at least limit the damage it could do. Well that's what he gets for underestimating the dungeon that killed Leviathan. Well time to get the humiliation out of the way, It was near closing time so my window of opportunity was here.
"Excuse me." I stated as I approach Natasha, our guild's receptionist looking at forms while she had a moment.
"Hello Giant Slayer. Doubtlessly here with good news of yet another Giant Slayed?" The brunette stated not looking up from her paper work.
"I'm here to report that I've been forced into a contract with the Dungeon I went out to destroy." I stated making my humiliation known and the receptionist sighed. "I'll go talk to the guild master then." Thus Natasha left, and then came back a few moments later. It was important that the Dungeon knows as few faces of the guild as possible. "The status of the Dungeon?"
"Two of it's bosses should be in the process of respawning, the third floor Chimera Slime and the Fourth Floor artefact spirit, as well as the monster it's taken to use as its avatar the mutated Ifrit. Both will be back by the time we can get another demolition team over there."
"I don't see any of your subordinates with you."
"Taken hostage by the dungeon using a delver respawning blessing."
"And I assume it sent you here? As a messenger?"
"Researcher. Everything that we know about the dungeons on the Dark Continent."
"Why?"
"It thinks that it's going to be taking them on in Cocytus."
"Anything else of note?"
"The Second floor boss has finished evolving into a Yggdrasil Dryad and the community that has been built around the Dungeon appears to be siding with it for now. Several species of aquatic Demi-humans and several demi-humans originating from the Concubine's Bejewelled Mirror. Also one of the Dungeon's contracts is pregnant, a Sphinx, we believe with the Ifrit's spawn." Natasha was rapidly writing all the details down before she replied with the most relevant question.
"Loot?" I placed a small bag on the counter, containing the ring I took from the Fourth floor Boss. Natasha activated the isolation barrier built into the desk. It would be checked to confirm that the dungeon hasn't built any nasty surprises into the ring. "Has the dungeon turned hostile?"
"To the town? No. For now it seems to be focusing on dealing with the threat on the other side of the breach. To us? It has given me a task and I believe it expects me to complete it."
"Do you know why the dungeon demolition failed?"
"The core has reinforced it's pedestal and has several other cores from the other side of the breach supporting it." Which meant that the only realistic way of dealing with the dungeon at this point is to destroy the first floor, and even that is only a temporary solution until the damned pile of bones respawns. "By my estimates, the only realistic solution to dealing with the breach is to fulfil the Dungeon's mission and release it from the god who has it under it's thumb."
"Noted." Natasha indicated two men to escort me away for isolation.