I was hyperventilating. I don't physically have lungs and I was hyperventilating. A monster far stronger than the Griffin that has been squatting in my entrance eating my monsters almost laid its eyes on me. It had already laid its eyes on me once and killed me in an instant. I had to wait a few moments before I could review the fruits of my battle with Conquerete.
[New E-Rank Schema Locked: Soldier Spider-The evolved form of a regular spider, has a harder shell and stronger webbing, but is weak to fire.]
[New E-Rank Schema Locked: River Slime-A basic slime species that has consumed the contents of a river, has a symbiotic relationship with fish type monsters who help to defend it in exchange for mobility.]
Also surprisingly good Hydraulic fluid. Well if I ever need a big honking Hydraulic piston I know which one to go with. I looked into the nest. The Griffin still hadn't left yet, every time she woke back up there would always be a fresh pile of seafood waiting for her to eat again. Archie still hadn't completed his upgrade and the number of fossils he could reanimate were starting to run low, even the ones from the wall, on the one hand if I stop providing her with free food she might just take it out of my core directly instead. Go bring the tree she brought in, take it into the room with the other one and reanimate it. While Archie and the Hand completed my objectives I turned my attention back to the Chat group.
[Lithilas: Which one of you were the one to disable the arm during the last raid?]
[Graves: Wasn't me]
[Jewel: Me neither]
[Dungeon Keeper: I was transported into the arm during the last raid]
[Dungeon Keeper: Sadly all the monsters I sent were too weak, so we couldn't get up past the shoulder, so instead we investigated the elbow and found a lucky break]
[Lithilas: How did you disable the arm?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Heated it up until the pipe burst and a river slime came out, then we crushed the core of the River Slime]
[Lithilas: Graves give him your poltergeist Schema. Ruby the Schema for your first floor boss]
[Graves: ?]
[Jewel: ?]
[Lithilas has put 2 new Items up for sale]
[Red Dragon Bone Throne-A throne made out of the skull of a Red Dragon. Price: Poltergeist Schema]
[Phoenix Feather Headdress-The Headdress made using the feathers of a Phoenix. Price: Clone Mirror Schema]
A pair of Dings were let out as the other two cores accepted the transaction, and a moment later.
[Lithilas has given you a new Schema]
[E-rank Schema Locked: Cursed Mirror-A Haunted Mirror possessed by a jealous formless spirit, can assume the form of Rank E and below creatures]
As I was wrapping my head around what had just happened I received another new notification from Lithilas.
[Lithilas has sent you a private message: Let me know when you've managed to Reach your second floor. Before you even consider giving your floor a name talk to me first]
I panicked, I had been found out, or rather I was never hidden to begin with. I tried to contact Lithilas again but he had already left the Chat group.
[Dungeon Keeper: Do either of you know what that was about?]
[Graves: During the last fight Conquerete lost the use of his arm and suddenly couldn't fend off or land attacks as well as he could before, so he had to retreat]
[Jewel: While we were fighting inside the people from the city were fighting from the outside]
[Dungeon Keeper: I saved the city?]
[Graves: You made it so that it was more inconvenient for the bastard to try and break the city than it was to come back another day to try again. He's far from beaten and Lithilas is far from safe]
Graves sounded somewhat offended by my presumption, but he was right. I need real forces under my belt if the bastard comes back again, or worst manages to smash Lithilas and come down here to pick a fight with the three of them.
[Dungeon Keeper: I need to go and dislodge a monster that's keeping me from renovating my first floor. I know it's not a top priority but...]
[Graves: No no I understand. Lithilas is always telling us to go back and start redoing our previous floors before we start building more. Talk to you again another day]
[Jewel: If you're having trouble with a monster you might be able to contract it instead of killing it]
[Dungeon Keeper: Contract?]
[Jewel: If the other party is willing then you can sign a contract with them binding them to the dungeon. You can see through their eyes whenever they go out of the Dungeon and they can bring you materials from the outside. Plus they won't block up your floors when they stay in them anymore]
I turned my attention to the first room, the Griffin was switching between preening herself and sleeping, showing her lack of intention to go anywhere or do anything.
[Dungeon Keeper: Thanks for the suggestion Jewel. I'll try it out]
Archie was in the middle of the process of reanimating the Griffin's last meal when I walked up to him to stop him. We need all the mana we can get.
[Mana 157/163]
[Mana 163/163]
I looked at the Squatter square in the eyes, focused on her with my mana.
[Would you like to offer contract to Griffin: Unnamed? Yes/No]
[Yes]
The Griffin turned at attention to the contract, and turned to face the direction of my core room, and snorted. So my level one, F-ranked arse isn't worthy of her highness is that it? Even though you are staying in my room, eating my food, in a bed I made to nurture my own eggs? Is that it?
[No]
The Griffin turned her nose up at me and left, jumping with enough force that the nest had dipped and soared through the fog of the outside world. My controls restored to me I immediately went to work, I directly manifested the core Graves had made for me directly inside of the empty cavity of Archie's skull, causing two jewels to appear inside of his eye sockets one brown and the other crystal clear. A mixture of foreign powers settled inside of the skull and already I could feel the changes taking place. From Archie power spread all throughout the dungeon. Find me Fossils Archie, big ones! Nodding Archie led me through the core room, I cleared the way until Archie indicated for me to stop, he took over and reanimated another red wood tree fossil, bigger than the last one. However the real prize was the amber jewels inside, containing tiny insects.
[F-Ranked Schema Unlocked: Giant Wasp-A species of giant omnivorous insects that both gather nectar from plants and eat other smaller animals after paralysing them with venom.]
The Amber jewels shattered as the insects inside buzzed to life. I don't have any flowers for you guys, yet, but I have high hopes for you guys after all so I'll try and find them. Archie if you can find some flowers for them reanimate them for the bees. I watched the tree creak as newly formed branches and roots stabbed into the ceiling and floor, leaves spreading out from it. Let's go find the next one now. Archie led the way as I carved another path through the limestone, more reanimated fossils dropping every now and again. I was spending mana like crazy but I could afford it with the sheer number of creatures that were being reanimated. The dead and dying were being preyed upon by the other monsters and after they were done... processing them there will be a fresh layer of manure to spread onto the roots of my trees, and my flowers when I find some. I was creating a thriving eco-system one room at a time. Speaking of which we ran into an apex predator, a croc easily as big as the griffin, or rather the remains of one.
Hold off on this one for the time being, at least until we can create an environment that's suitable for him. I continued to Follow Archie all the way that I could but we stopped after finding another egg, two monster eggs? Don't mind if I do. Under Archie's TLC the egg lost it's dull rock like appearance and instead took on a ochre gleam with bright jade like greens mixed in. Despite the victory Archie looked unsettled like something was wrong. What is it? By my estimates there should be plenty of fossils left in this mountain. I entered Archie's point of view, a new trick courtesy of the dungeon raid, I saw a map of the entire mountain, of the giant void inside that we were standing right on top of. So someone has already come in here and stole all of our fossils? Is that what's going on? I felt Archie's trembling concern, the feeling that he screwed up and that he might be punished for it. I let out a sigh as I separated from him. Should I expand into the void that was left behind? No the system mentioned a hard limit, I better not push my luck.
Expand around the void but don't break through. Nodding Fervently Archie finished our dungeon build with three rooms in a hook shape. I switched the last room with my core room, there, the moment that we decide to break through to the next floor we'll be ready to take the shaft down. Now than onto business. I started by transporting the two trees we already had into the room with the massive red wood. Ah, so the one the Griffin had brought in was an Orange tree eh? I love the smell of oranges, and the blossoms will produce wonderful pollen for the wasps. The busy little bees were already building their hive inside of the voids left behind when their fossilised amber was torn out. But first for something long overdue, I took my eggs and put them inside of the nest that I had made for it in the first place, tucked neatly into the corner. I had no other plans for my mana today, so instead I focused on the nest and saw options appearing before my eyes, upgrades that would help nurture the eggs. Don't mind if I do. As I debated the pro's and cons of adding more eggs something came flying into the dungeon directly through me. It was big, it was furry and it was in the shape of a ball. Archie if you would. My skull set to work the ball was untangled and soon took the form of an overgrown dog.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
[New E-Ranked Schema Unlocked: Dire Wolf-A large dog closely related to bears, they roam the country side in packs in order to hunt and chase down prey]
The dog looked like he was getting ready to settle his dominance, but then he whimpered and slowly backed away. The familiar form of the Griffin walked into my dungeon like she owns the place, her smug attitude had the essence of "there I worked, now give me food" sadly though her actual business was something far less pleasant, she made her way over to the room with my trees in it, did her business giving me fertiliser for my trees and returned to the nest where she started looking at the seafood skeletons expectantly. Archie, get her meal done, afterwards lets go into the tree room, we have more work to do. As a start, the pile of fertiliser that was carelessly left in a pile needed to be spread out over the roots. The little doggy was left to cower in a corner underneath my squatter's D rank aura. I'd plant more trees once I get more fertiliser to work with, but for now this place will do. In the mean time I started poking around the interface and I saw a new box ticked in achievements.
[Achievement Unlocked: Water Master-Awarded for Manufacturing 100 Water type monsters Reward: 1 Water Type Monster Egg]
I'll hold off on that bag of cats for a while, I don't even have a water level and I'm already unlocking seafood. Communicating with her would be a lot easier if she was contracted with me, maybe, it would be better if I could send her out to pick up more materials for me. On the other hand, she's killed one hundred of my monsters so that's gotta count for something. I don't know how to increase my floor capacity though, part of the instinctive knowledge that I'm supposed to have but don't I suppose because I was born with a soul.
[Mana 53/300]
Five Hallways, five rooms, I've reached the peak in mana capacity that the first floor can give me. Should I go back to the chat room and see if I can figure out how to make more floors yet? Archie was buzzing at me to get my attention. Eh? People have entered the mountain? I possess Archie again to get to the bottom of what was happening here. A group of men had entered the gap where the fossils of several large monsters had been taken away. One guy was hammering in a winch into the opening of the cave while led to the outside, from what Archie can tell it's roughly where my second floor would be, if I had a second floor that is. I watched as a rope was threaded through the winch and used to pull up a platform, carrying a pile of large cinderblock-esque stones, which was then pulled into the cave by two more men and promptly wheeled off on the fantasy equivalent to a pallet jack. While that was being taken away more supplies were brought up, cement, rebar poles and tools for construction. The men worked for a few hours building walls to block off sections of the mine, basically anything that went down to the floor that was below them, eventually finishing by bricking up the entrance that they came through as they left. Oookaaay. That was a thing that happened. I have no idea why it happened but it happened. Whatever, back to the chat room.
[Dungeon Keeper: Is Lithilas back online yet?]
[Dungeon Keeper: I need to ask him some questions]
Like 'Hey Litilhas, the weather nice where you're at? Also are you aware that I'm a level one scrub without so much as a second floor?'
[Jewel: He's been busy rebuilding the city after the damage done by Conquerete]
[Jewel: Now that he's got some breathing room he has walls to fix, wounded to tend to, supplies to manage yaddyada]
[Dungeon Keeper: I suppose he doesn't have the time to help me with my problems then]
[Jewel: Problems?]
Daaammmnit!
[Dungeon Keeper: He was giving me advice about my first floor]
[Jewel: Having shrivelled floors is nothing to be ashamed about. We gain more benefits from digging deeper like new Schema's and denser mana, our instincts encourage us to do it after all]
[Jewel: But expanding to the sides allows us to increase our defences, and the amount of resources we have to work with. Even better there's a chance that a god will bless the floor as well!]
[Dungeon Keeper: When I "Complete" a floor whatever that means]
[Jewel: It means what it implies, a floor has reached the best that it can be with only a touch up of improvement left to go thanks to the divine blessing that will christen it. You can make some changes or improvements afterwards, but if you go beyond what is suitable for the god who blessed it then you'll lose it]
Of the five rooms of the first floor only two of them have content, I don't even have a boss yet, and this squatter keeps locking me out of my own controls, not to mention the fact that I haven't even gotten any traps or puzzles set up yet.
[Dungeon Keeper: What kinds of gods do you got, and what kinds of blessings have they given you?]
[Jewel: The Gods of Beauty of course!]
[Dungeon Keeper: Which ones?]
[Jewel: All of them! Aphrodite, Apollo, Cliodohna, Freya, Hathor and Kisshoten]
[Dungeon Keeper: ?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Why are there so many gods of Beauty?]
[Jewel: Everyone wants to be beautiful but they're all different kinds of beauty. They're respectively the Sea, Sun, Death, War, Sky and Fortune]
Note to self, stay far away from Jewel's dungeon, it sounds like a mad house.
[Jewel: Well even though they all cover different elements "Beauty" also translates over to "Fertility" as well.] [Jewel: The first six floors of my Dungeon is like a brothel, or a breeding ground. So many mishmashed hybrids have appeared that I got an offer from the Demoness Echidna to sponsor one of my floors]
[Dungeon Keeper: Did you accept?]
[Jewel: Oh hell no she's hideous!]
[Dungeon Keeper: But a goddess of death isn't?]
[Jewel: Clearly you haven't seen her work]
Clearly, but I honestly can't say I care either.
[Dungeon Keeper: You're okay with turning your dungeon into a brothel?]
[Jewel: Why not? I got those floors the way I want them. Right now all the extra people coming in are just free mana]
I looked over to the Squatter.
[Mana 150/300]
She wasn't wrong.
[Dungeon Keeper: Maybe, but is there some other kind of deity that you have blessing your floors?]
[Jewel: Naturally, Pluto the god of 'underground things']
[Dungeon Keeper: 'Underground things?']
[Jewel: Precious Gemstones and metals, Earth, Death and Dwarfs. I don't think he created Dwarfs but they love him like he did]
[Dungeon Keeper: So you just like shiny objects?]
[Jewel: Well when you put it that way...]
[Dungeon Keeper: And doesn't 'Underground Things' cover Dungeons? Is he the god of Dungeons or something?]
[Jewel: Not every dungeon is buried under miles of rock. Babel is a tower, and it's floating in the air on its own island. My Dungeon is mostly a tower too, except for the basement but I had to put that in for Pluto]
[Jewel: Some Dungeons are like you and Graves, popping up inside of a hunk of rock beneath the surface of the Earth, others are like me they appear inside of a pre-existing structure above ground. Some times it's an abandoned building, other times it's still in full swing use. I heard that one time a dungeon appeared in the middle of a magic academy, while they were still using it. Bit a shock for the staff from what I hear]
[Dungeon Keeper: Who's that? Are they on the network?]
[Jewel: Not on ours no]
[Lithilas is requesting to enter a private chat with you]
[Dungeon Keeper: Oh that's the old man! Gotta go!]
[You've accepted Private Chat invitation from "Lithilas"]
[Lithilas: That was a impressive bit of ingenuity in disabling Conquerete]
[Dungeon Keeper: Do you know that I'm...]
[Lithilas: Ah, that awkward phase where you don't know if you can trust me with personal information but you don't know how to ask your questions without me realising it? Very well. You are a new born level one dungeon who has absorbed a soul, probably from a human being or some other sapient, as your first material thereby inheriting that person's consciousness and elements of their personality though you don't yet have their memory, now you are floundering about trying to figure out what you should do but are too scared to ask anyone. Did I miss anything?]
[Dungeon Keeper: How'd you know?]
[Lithilas: Firstly your username. If you had manifested normally, absorbing materials gradually from your environment you would have your ingrained identity set as your Username, something like "Lime Stone" or "Something Fossil" but instead you came up as "New Dungeon Core." Second was your location. I already had that location stripped of valuable materials quite some time ago. You didn't have time to grow twenty floors normally. I had some people drop by earlier and confirm it, and while they were there I had them seal up your would be third floor. You Welcome]
[Dungeon Keeper: I'll thank you when you explain how this benefits me]
[Lithilas: You have a capacity, a fixed amount of space that you can occupy at a time. By Levelling up you increase that Capacity, but if you try to exceed that capacity then you'll rip apart your own core in the process]
[Dungeon Keeper: Thank you very much Senior Lithilas]
I should also thank Archie for stopping me from trying to open the way into the empty space below me too.
[Dungeon Keeper: So how do you level up? I'm feeling self conscious with my level one arse next to Graves and Jewel with their 20+ floors]
[Lithilas: Check under your name in your interface]
I did so and was surprised by what I saw.
[3/100]
[Dungeon Keeper: 3/100 what does that mean?]
[Lithilas: The numbers are different from what I remember]
[Dungeon Keeper: What are you talking about?]
The more he didn't answer my questions the more concerned that I got.
[Lithilas: That meter represents your core level, your current level of growth and how far away you are before you reach the next level. If you were a normal dungeon it would probably read as 3/5]
[Dungeon Keeper: Three out of five! How the hell did I go from 5 to 100!?]
[Lithilas: Dungeons can build fast, efficient or complex, but never all three at once. Your human soul has a greater capacity for complexity than a new born dungeon core, as does matured cores like Jewel's, Graves's or my own]
[Dungeon Core: How do I level it up though?]
[Lithilas: Kill things, what else?]
[Dungeon Keeper: So... the raid on Conquerete? My monsters killed three E-rank monsters. Is an E-rank worth 1 point a piece?]
[Lithilas: They're worth two a piece, the issue here is that you had to split the points that you would've earned with your monsters, to be more accurate your monsters had to split with you]
[Dungeon Keeper: My monsters earn points too? Should I be getting them to kill each other?]
[Lithilas: Self mutilation does not lead to growth, it will promote them but not you]
So that probably meant that feeding a endless supply of sea food to my griffin wasn't doing me any favours either.
[Dungeon Keeper: Then where do I get the points I need?]
[Lithilas: You're going to send your strongest monsters over here on a dungeon raid]
My strongest monsters eh? That probably meant my centipedes who killed the spiders and the slime. That wasn't a huge difference in power admittedly, I should probably just send the E-Rank wolf. The Same E-Rank wolf who was sitting in a corner cowering in fear of the Griffin, who was also surrounded by my centipedes who were also cowering in fear of the wolf.
[Dungeon Keeper: Not to point out the fallacies of your logic but I've got a C-Ranked monster that has decided my dungeon is a good place to nest and get free food. My monsters are cowering in fear of her I kind of sincerely doubt that there's some reaction other than soil our pants in fear terror that they'd have in response to whatever you've got tucked away in your dungeon]
[Lithilas: Do you think I haven't already thought of that?]
[Lithilas: There's an area prepared for my humans to grind in for experience that I've set up. Now you're going to use it. Don't kill any of my humans while you're in there]
[Dungeon Keeper: What about my monsters? I've got an E-Ranked wolf here and I kind of doubt my ability to make another one if he dies]
[Lithilas: Then bring lots of monsters that you can replace]
[Dungeon Keeper: Do I at least get to know what kinds of monsters I'm fighting against?]
[Lithilas: Do you have the ability to see into the future? No? Then learning to deal with unexpected and unpleasant surprises will be good for you]
Was there a god for that? The old man apparently was working on over a hundred floors so that seemed like a good bet that he had at least one floor dedicated to that.
[Dungeon Keeper: Do you mind if I pick you for schemas?]
[Lithilas: You can have the ones that you earn]
That wasn't ominous at all.
[Raid Dungeon Lithilas. Yes/No]
[Yes]
[Please Select your monsters for the raid]
[1 Dire Wolf, 1 Will-o-wisp, 15 Giant Centipedes]
[Please Designate Command monster in your absence: Archie the Animated Skull]
[Transportation in 3. 2. 1.]