Leviathan's absence had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. Below the waves there was the underwater kingdom of Lemuria, hosted by various sea type demi-humans. The Oceans had become a dangerous and Chaotic place in the past few years. Leviathan kept eating dungeons when ever they appeared in or near the water, even with Leviathan itself circling the ocean the mana in the water had become too stagnant, and was rapidly filling with monstrous life forms. It was the reason why Leviathan was able to make so many ferocious sea monsters his vassals. Then how was this one city able to hold on for so long? The answer was that they had their own dungeon as well: The Ring of Fire!
Why hadn't Leviathan tore out and broke this dungeon yet as he had so many others before? Because this one was inside of a super-volcano, whenever Leviathan attempted to attack it the Ring of Fire would trigger an eruption, and Leviathan would have to deal with fire coming down from the sky, earth quakes, not to mention lots of angry sea kin races. It was telling that Leviathan would avoid the place most of the time, instead picking off other dungeons to increase it's power and only come back and attack the Ring of Fire once a year. And yet strangely the day of Leviathan's annual attack was rapidly approaching and yet the dungeon itself had yet to be seen, Fall was already here, when winter came it would already be too late, when the surface water freezes over Leviathan wouldn't be able to move to dodge the volley's of fire.
It could mean that it's decided that it needs longer to complete it's preparations, it could also mean that it's found a way of sneaking up on them. In the end they didn't know what was happening, and that was the most dangerous element about this. Inside the palace of Lemuria a royal court had been called. Sitting on a throne made of coral a large figure sat. The Ruler of Lemuria was considerably muscular, normally whale type demi-humans had a considerable girth to them, insulated to survive the deep sea, however heat from the volcano made Lemuria considerable warmer so a lower body fat content was needed. She had mostly black skin, with white patches along her torso's front and around her eyes, in other words she looked a great deal like a killer whale, but tattoo's depicting various colourful flames were carved into the flesh of her arms. Still fabrics were hard to come by in the ocean, she had been limited to choice in closing to the ever familiar brown rope like dead man's rope sea weed woven into fabric for clothes, and a crown made out of coral adorned her head inset with sapphire jewels. Normally the sea kin down't even wear cloths, but this was a formal meeting after all so exceptions had been made.
"Sir Crust, what do you make of this?" Sir crust scuttled about on six legs, his body covered in armour made of rainbow shell.
"My queen, this situation is without precedence." The crab knight explained while his claws clicked about. "Surely this is a trick or a trap correct? Give the word and my men will be dispatched at once!"
"You men can't stealth worth a damn." A mermaid-like woman was sitting on a nearby chair approximation, her skin grey and rough and her teeth sharp and crooked, she wore a hat made of some leather like material and a shirt of black and white stripes. "A small group of privateers moving unseen through the waters will let us sneak up on the bastard. Give us explosives and we'll give the bastard a real reason to stay away!"
"Captain Merrow! You have no comprehension of force recon!" Sir Crust snapped by way of reply. "Where Leviathan goes mana is cleansed of the stagnation." A fourth individual had remained silent up until now, a familiar combination of squid lower body and humanoid upper body with tentacles for arms, she was wrapped in a cloak of sea weed and her features largely shadowy. "Give me a moment, and I can trace the nearest source of the disturbance."
"Tidecaller, while we appreciate your abilities your health has become increasingly poor in recent years, is it not wise for you to conserve your strength until Leviathan comes?" Sir Crust was much calmer and spoke to the woman with respect.
"Strength unused is wasted, enemy unknown is more dangerous than any other." The Tidecaller stated while looking to the Queen of the Sea for approval.
"Do it."
"I will need a moment your majesty." A large round glass jar made of smooth material was soon brought in.
"I will go get the Bishop." The Captain stated bluntly as she swam off.
The Tidecaller waved her staff over the crystal and watched as a map swirled to life, the nearest and largest pulse of mana in the sea came from the shore half the world away on, where four lights of developed dungeons were shining brightly, but none brightly enough to belong to the hated enemy. And then the image collapsed, the Tide caller fell over onto the floor of the palace even as sir Crust moved to support her, the captain came back a few moments later with an angel fish mermaid whom immediately began tending the ailing tide caller.
"My Queen what does this mean?" Sir Crust asked in shock.
"It means what it implies." The Queen of the Sea stated bluntly. "Leviathan has been chased off, if not slayed." Leviathan leaves ruin in its wake, this place wasn't ruined let alone stripped of dungeons. Four dungeons appeared in one place. "Remind me, our last intelligence report said that Leviathan had stolen three dungeons for its food correct? One from the Humans, one from us and one from the northern tribe correct?" The queen of the sea picked up a crystal slab and looked through it on details from the stolen dungeons. "If the missing dungeons have truly survived for so long then it explains where these three have come from, with the fourth either being Leviathan, or the one who stopped it." The Queen of the sea stated as she held her chin in her hand. "But why has it stopped?"
'It's run out of food in the sea so now it's hunting on land' it already has three dungeons right there, it certainly doesn't need to somehow crawl it's way onto land to continue to feed itself and even if it did run out of dungeons there's plenty of proverbial fish in the sea to satisfy itself on.
"The fact of the matter remains that we are only working off of bare bones information here. Deploy the army for force recon, we shall go to the area in which the Dungeons have appeared and confirm for ourselves what is really happening." The Queen ordered and the various high ranking figures bowed to her, even the Tide caller who was still looking unwell.
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[Dungeon Keeper: Say hi guys]
[North: Hello]
[Coral: Hello]
[Fort: Hello]
[Dungeon Keeper: Jewel, Graves, Old Man, these are my cute Juniors]
[Jewel: These are the Dungeons that overgrown fish-stick was dragging around with him?]
As we interacted I began to fish out more details of the trio's personalities, Apas went down to check on their cores every so often and had a gander at what their pedestals were shaping up to be which gave us a idea as to what their first materials were.
[North: Unfortunately that was us. Can we go back to managing our dungeons now?]
The one trying to give Jewel the cold shoulder was apparently originally born inside of an ice berg way up North.
[Coral: Are you guys going to bully us like what the Keeper has been doing?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Hey!]
Coral here was born inside of a coral reef, she isn't very good with acting only reacting. As I was thinking that I saw that the trouble maker was acting up again.
[Dungeon Keeper: Fort, stop trying to raid Graves, he'd literally eat you]
[Fort: Come on I don't even see a Graves here!]
[Ouroboros: He's talking about me, you little brat!]
Fort was born inside of a fortress, but unlike the other two that only had building materials to absorb this guy got a bunch of weapons as his first material, a sword by the looks of things, which also meant that he was needlessly aggressive first and foremost. North was defensive and didn't like interacting with others, Coral dealt with counter attacks, and Fort was the aggressor. Three parts of a whole idiot. I'm not going to call them that though, even if I am thinking it, they just awoke to self awareness little before the Leshen tried to trample my base city.
[Lithilas: Go raid my dungeon if you're so eager to get out more you literal child]
[Fort: Really Sweet! Coral, North you two raid the other two while we're at it!]
[North: Piss off]
[Northern Ice Flow has Left the Chat]
[Coral: No thank you]
[Coral Barrier Reef has Left the Chat]
[Fort: Wusses]
[Sea Side Fortress is Raiding Lithilas]
[Jewel: So how are you doing anyway? Is your core healed yet?]
[Dungeon Keeper: I got a message telling me that 'Basic functions on the first three floors have been restored' but I still can't do anything with one and two because 'Evolution is in Progress' so instead I'm trying to turn floor 3 into a proper dungeon now]
[Dungeon Keeper: Speaking of which how's it going with you Graves?]
[Ouroboros: Still keeping Conquerete restrained, still gaining floors like crazy, I'm really hoping that it'll stop once I hit a hundred]
That was an interesting little tid-bit. Floors were something like milestones for dungeons, 20 was supposed to be my first mile stone, when I grow enough that I'm capable of thinking for myself, then what about one hundred?
[Dungeon Keeper: What happens after you hit a hundred?]
[Ouroboros: The only dungeon that we know that managed to do it was Lithilas]
[Ouroboros: You know how Dungeons are in this sort of weird inbetween state that makes it so that gods can get a foot hold into this world through their blessings?]
Is that why they do that?
[Dungeon Keeper: Sort of]
[Ouroboros: After 100 floors the difficulty in building floors shoots way up, but if you're able to pool together enough divine power from your hundreds of floors you can sort of just... break into their world instead]
Well now that is promising. Wait.
[Dungeon Keeper: Leviathan had a hundred boats before I gobbled thirty of them and me and Charles ground the other seventy up for food for Trinity, is it possible that there's another piece of him in another world or something?]
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
[Jewel: I hope not, you probably shouldn't let Trinity in on that little tid bit, they'd have all sorts of nightmares if they thought that monster could somehow come back]
[Dungeon Keeper: In any case I need to turn my third floor into actual floors now, later]
The longer I wait the more likely that little pain in my butt Fort is to try and break in. He already tried to raid my dungeon only to get transported directly into the cocoon of evolution and get gobbled by whatever my first floor is turning into. For now though I moved my points of awareness into my third floor. Charles was regularly having the kids hang out in my pseudo fourth floor and on the first floor of the Trinity, the latter more so because he could get more resources out of them which was fine, since the city was being built up and all that but a problem was arising. Mana, and these little squirts were drawing more of it then what I was, so I could very easily end up becoming mana starved if I don't do something. So for now I focused on making up my third floor. There was one of the roots from the second floor sticking into the third, I presume that was the stair case I had Charles build in order to connect to the third floor to begin with, also covered in the light of evolution as well. For now I worked on the presumption that was how people from the second floor would enter the third, so for now I opted to make a place to welcome them. Levi, this is your body, you don't mind if I rearrange some things right?
"I too think this space is a little bare and lonely, if you are able to I would appreciate it if you could expand this space some." Then excuse me for not being polite. To begin with, I had exactly what idea I wanted for the third floor. A castle, a aquarium castle just like my... use... to...
*###* A small hand tapped on the aquarium, the little decorative castle in the background acting as an odd back drop for the tetrado... tetra... I was just going to call them Tetras for now. "t'noD eseat eht hsif # % % $^." The hand of my ****** ^#$## grasp mine and I turned to face a jumbled mass of eyes, teeth and tentacles *###*
I blinked stupidly for a few solid seconds as I processed the horror show I just witnessed.
What the hell did I eat? I shook my head and got to work, the more work I did the less I had to think that my first material was related to some misshapen horror. I mass produced blocks of coral and threaded them with some of the dead man's rope that Levi had swallowed, I ended up doing the defensive walls first, four towers of coral with thick walls, each of them topped with machicolations, even if there was no actual need for the murder holes or the blocks to act as cover after looking at Charles and his people taking building the walls around my dungeon so seriously to do less would be a disservice. Having done that I continued to reference Charles and his own fortress as I created bunks, a mess hall, a meeting room, armoury of Coral tipped spears, I tried to create spear guns using the dead man's rope, but as it turns out it's not stretchy enough, I'd have to come up with something else, and a brig for prisoners. Dungeon within a dungeon mwahahahahaha!
Now than, what I'm missing is people to fill in this lovely castle. I looked through the mass of schema's that I took from leviathan, most of them were Higher ranked sea monsters but currently I was still only able to unlock low ranking monsters, not all of them would be useful so that left me with these.
[D Ranked Monster Schema Siren-A legendary monster whose preferred method of hunting is to use their hypnotic singing voice to lure male sea monsters into beaching themselves onto the shore and then eating the remains once they expire, also the same method that they use to acquire compatible mates with themselves as they are a all female race]
I think Charles mentioned that when he introduced me to the siren brats from before, well he's been looking for people to look after them for a while now.
[D Ranked Monster Schema Rough Skin Mer-A sub-race of the Mer who evolved from sharks, they are ferocious warriors with a disposition towards lightning magic to attack potential prey with]
I like the idea of lightning magic, maybe I can get Charles to teach them some tricks?
[D Ranked Monster Schema Knight Crab-Humanoid Hermit Crab type Demi-humans of a noble bearing, tends to wear armour made from the shells of larger creatures which they usually hunt themselves as a rite of passage]
[D Ranked Monster Schema Scylla-A Squid type Demi-human capable of simultaneously casting magic with their multiple arms which of which has their own redundant miniature brains that grants them huge multi-casting abilities]
A magic type, I've been running short on magic types lately.
[F Ranked Monster Schema Flail Snail-A magical snail monster with a shell infused with a massive quantity of magical energy, deflects two thirds of magic attacks that strike it's shell and neutralises the remaining third, is quite passive and non aggressive but if struck will release a massive call drawing in every monster in a 100 foot radius]
I looked at the description and thought about it for moment 'It's dangerous if you're stupid or greedy enough to attack it' sounds about right.
[F Ranked Monster Schema Spatial Jellyfish-A Species of Jelly fish that evolved after being caught inside of a spatial distortion, completely passive and has almost been hunted to extinction in the manufacturing of Bags of Holding]
There was one left, not one I took from Leviathan, but rather he came with the floor.
[E Rank Monster Schema Sea Wolf-A distant relative of the Werewolf, a Sea wolf's monster form takes the form of a large seal whose head has been replaced with that of a wolf]
One should've been created with the floor but I didn't see him here. More importantly seals and wolves, no werewolf, they're only semi aquatic, they'd drown down here if I kept them here, well I don't see the one sea wolf from before, so I wouldn't worry about him. Somehow my Rank of monsters I was able to create increased while I was healing my core. If I had to think of a reason... my fourth floor maybe? All those moving parts, traps and other defences I set up to pop onto the surface and be fed with limitless ammunition? Does that count as increasing my capacity for complexity? Or is it the three floors that have turned into monsters? Nothing's more complex than a living organism after all. I thought about it some more, so I created that Karakuri complex and produced three monster floors and my complexity has only increased by this much... I'll wait to see what happens after the other two are finished evolving, for now I created the five Monsters that I already settled on. From there an older version of the siren sisters appeared, which meant a nude female torso with manta ray features attached, a half woman half shark person, a humanoid crab centaur body type, a squid with a human woman's torso sticking out of it complete with five digit fingers resembling suckers with small claws attached, a snail with a rainbow shell strapped to it's back and a clear upside down sack like creature with several tendrils resembling fibre optic cables hanging below it. Wait a second, Levi!
"Yes Master?" Levi appeared in the courtyard where I was making these creatures to begin with. "I see that the denizens of the floor are being prepared."
Never mind that! Go float behind and above the five of them I want to confirm something. Levi positioned herself as I told her to and I was able to get confirmation of my suspicions, Levi's lower body matched up with the sirens, her armour borrowed it's shape and design from the crab knight but it's colour and material lined up with the snail, her fingers were the same as the scylla woman's and her hair reminded me all too much of the jelly fish. I didn't see anything that jumped out to me as being the Mermaid shark woman's features but what I was thinking was the upper body of a Siren without the manta ray membrane could just as easily be a mermaid's upper body. As I was thinking about this the Jelly fish became all distorted and suddenly imploded on itself. Okay, that was a little weird.
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Charles was holding his hand to his face, carrying the general feeling of 'I cannot believe you did something this stupid.'
"If I am understanding this correctly: You took a creature that compresses down space inside of itself and put it inside of another creature that compresses space inside of itself. That is what you did?" Charles glared at my Maride body angrily.
"Yes." I stated in simple terms, preferring for him to explain why this is a bad thing instead of just telling me it is.
"You came this close to creating a black hole that would rapidly consume not only you but also everything within a hundred miles into a miniature black hole before it spontaneously collapses on itself." Charles explained while he held his finger and his thumb together. "It was a pretty effective tactic back in the day for producing weapons of mass destruction, before the ban of the Mont Convention, and before the Spatial Jelly fish went extinct from over hunting." How the hell does this world still exist!? "Good, that's the face I wanted you to have, don't do it again!"
"There's still the Sack that your people were using to carry material over from my dungeon right?" I asked, suddenly very much concerned over what I've been working with all this time. "Instead of 'Bigger on the inside' that sack instead 'connects to another space to temporarily store items.' They use to connect to another dimension but most days storage bags just connect to personal vaults kept and maintained by the banks. After all no one wants to pull out a void gazer when they're just trying to get their afternoon meal."
I blinked stupidly for a while before eventually going back into my core room. I created another Spatial jellyfish, this time to perform an experiment. I recalled that I can create material that has entered my dungeon before, then what about air? Does that count? Grabbing the spatial Jellyfish with both of my hands I proceeded to blow into it filling it up with as much air as I possibly could along with as many fish as possible. Soon an evolutionary cocoon surrounded the Jellyfish.
[1 F Rank Evolution Available]
[F Rank Monster Atmospheric Jellyfish-A Jellyfish that has evolved the power to fly and manipulate wind in order to escape from predators, sadly though they just ended up being eaten by the birds instead of the fish]
Why are these Jellyfish so pathetic? Whatever I just went to find Charles instead. Charles tapped his fingers in the fourth floor as he examined the contents of the Jellyfish creature I brought him. At one point he grabbed hold of the creature and tried to stuff a brick inside of it only for it to not work.
"I don't know what you created, whatever it is it's lost it's powers over space." Charles explained bluntly as he crossed his arms.
"Figured this fellow could be used as a way to let your men into the third floor." I stuck the jellyfish onto Charles face in a approximation of a diving mask. "Now you've got a unlimited supply of breathable air while you're underwater."
"Yes that has the potential to work." Charles stated intrigued. "If the water pressure over there isn't too high..."
"Sirens are able to function just fine in both environments right?" I asked Charles recalling both the Siren Sisters and the Siren I created on the third floor.
"It's worth conducting an experiment then." Charles eschewed his usual metal armour, though he looked no less intimidating in a simple cloth shirt and trousers, from there he stuck his hand into the bubble of Levi's slime body, of course i told her we were having guests over and not to eat him or the people he was bringing along. After giving Charles a moment to get use to the environment Levi soon brought him to the underwater castle through her spatial manipulation powers.
"You built a castle here?" Charles asked looking at the structure suspiciously.
"Don't ask, it gave me a headache." I replied shaking my watery hands off.
"It's kind of... empty in terms of content isn't it?" Charles asked as he looked around.
"Well I only just got the power to create things back yah know." I indicated the core room back the way Charles had come, even if I hadn't let him inside of it. Damaged as I might be I had no intention of ever letting him or anyone else into my core room. "Need I remind you I'm still mostly cracked? I probably unlocked a tonne of rooms when I bit off a chunk of Leviathan before."
"Milord if I may be so bold as to suggest?" Levi asked holding her hand in the air, er water. You may. "Perhaps another should be granted the power to tend the floor, while you may not be busy now when the other two hatch and your core finishes it's repairs you will be flushed with no shortage of work that needs to be done."
"Are you suggesting yourself?" I asked turning watery eyes to Levi.
"I am the boss master, if you believe there is no over lap in duties then the position of manager can been given to another." Levi stated bowing simply.
"It'll be nice having access to sea food again." Charles stated bluntly. "Aside from that I should be returning to the base now."
And so Charles left, sent away by Levi. In the mean time, I went to work. I filled the floor with various fish, created houses of coral, created farms of sea weeds and the like, the atmospheric jelly fish, and finally groups of Sirens, Crab Knights, and Mersharks. Levi, I leave managing them to you. "It will be an honour master!"
[Mana 150/150]
I see, since I'm still locked out of the first two floors my mana level is quite limited, and since this power is Levi's body and not mine that means that she still has access to a considerable amount of mana. Well this is basically her body after all, but it also means that my mana is considerably higher than what my bar indicates when I include her as well. Okay then, now to name this puppy!
Atlantis
I was pulled out of the little underwater city I made. I had lots of water type Schema's, an achievement related to water type monsters, and I had built in the ocean. In theory I should have patrons lining up around the block right now but they had made themselves scarce, well that's understandable, I already wrecked their floors from Leviathan, though I did have one guy that caught my interest.
"So you have come to ask me another favour then?" I got some idea of what the difference between a greater or lesser god was. Castor/Pollux and Echidna, the weirdness of their extra features besides the point, they were both what I considered to be 'Normal Sized.' Oceanus was massive, a single tendril of his lower body wrapped around me and raised me up to his face with a crown of horns on top. "I was wondering when you were going to show your face child, I was growing concerned that you had no shame."
Gulp. Pardon my rudeness great Oceanus, but I merely had to take the time to ensure that I produced a suitable floor for you.
"A good answer."
[Blessing: Ocean Master Title for Levi, grant Levi dominion over the ocean next to the Dungeon Keeper Dungeon]
Well, that's what I get from the god of water, however I gulped when I saw his task for me.
[Mission: Deliver the Trinity to Lemuria]