One of the three evolution cocoons popped. Unfortunately, it was the one furthest away from the front door. Charles and Apas looked as the mass of coral shifted around like a living creature, lifting itself up like a creature poking it's head out of the water, only to slam back down again.
"The hell are we looking at?" The Harpy questioned as they watched the bed of coral turn around, and look at them with big black eyes. Propping itself up with a massive crab pincer the crab opened its mouth, and something came out of it quickly beaching itself on the shore. Another Genie, a Maride this time a water genie as opposed to the fiery Ifrit. Well that makes its own kind of sense after all, that fiery fellow wouldn't last very long under water.
"A water body is definitely different than a fire one." The figure complained on the shore. So then in other words.
"Keeper? That you in there?" The water figure morphed as it sat up as opposed to moving like a normal person. "What happened?" I asked as I let the spark of fire die on my finger tips.
"A god swooped in and finished evolving my third floor." The being of water explained before Apas pounced on him, causing him to splash everywhere.
"Hmm. This body isn't quite held together as well as your fire one." Apas complained while she licked the water out of her paw.
"Couldn't exactly summon the Ifrit underwater now could I?" The Keeper replied as his body reformed itself.
"I heard on the chat group how everything was going, I came out myself mostly to see if everyone was okay out here."
"I moved the non-combatants into the relative safety of your dungeon, you might've been busy at the time so you might've not noticed." The Keeper looked like he missed that, he might've been wrestling with Leviathan's monsters at the time. As he thought though, the mountain, and the first and second floors with it, was completely wrapped in a cocoon of evolution.
"So Archie and Treyni are inside of that thing? What about Leviathan?" The Keeper asked and so he was directed to the ships in the bay, fewer of them by the hour.
"The Trinity are eating them. Apas went over there while you were asleep, giving them a warning to behave themselves. With Luck they'll take the warning." I stated looking as one of the ships were sunk again.
"Luck? I think I used all of that up while I was unconscious." Keeper mused and let out a sigh.
He found a loop hole in the system, exploited it to kill a dungeon several times stronger than him, was backed up by Leviathan's very own Captain Ahab and the three prisoners that Leviathan was dragging along with it. The Keeper was pretty certain his luck has run dry and I agreed with him. I looked over to the additional fortress like chunks that were being built around the original base that my men had assembled together.
"You guys expecting someone?" Keeper asked looking at the group with concern.
"He hog tied a nature spirit and pillaged its forest for wood to build up that fortress." A face the Keeper didn't recognise appeared, a Harpy woman. "Come fall it will break free and come to tear this dungeon and it's city apart. On the subject of which, we need to talk." The Harpy bowed before the Keeper's prone and watery form and made her request known. "Previously, you have saved the people of my Mistress's dungeon, for that I thank you, and now we have come here asking you to offer your protection once more."
The Orphans Keeper saved from the Manticore, most of them already lost their families and Jewel doesn't trust those families left anymore, so she's giving them to me to look after instead. It's not like we aren't getting benefits from this either, most of those kids are already old enough to work, and just by having them sit down in the dungeon lots of power starts to flow in. Many of them are naturally talented in areas of complex and valuable magics. For instance there are with the affinity for nature to help regrew the trees Charles cut down in order to appease the nature spirit, or we can have them stand at a distance and fire magic attacks at enemy monsters. In order to fortify this fortress enough to deal with an invasion I had to cut down several trees for raw material, and use up their stock pile of cement. What was the big deal though? He's been expecting a monster stampede for weeks now? Apparently having 3, or rather 2 now plus sized monsters in the middle of a higher level evolution was even more impressive monster bait than Apas was. So they had to increase their fortifications. A bell started to ring again indicating a attack on the fortress, Apas flew over the fortress to the other side, and was greeted by the sight of a huge badger looking creature the size of a bear, and she quickly proceeded to use wind magic to pop it's head off.
"So is it just a coincidence that it appeared when I was coming out of the water just now or..."
"Several monsters have been appearing in the woods lately, drawn in by the nature Spirit mentioned before, and the mountain of mana cocoons over there. We can expect an attack in the fall, after it shifts to it's next seasonal form." I went back into my office, directly under the still evolving floors of the dungeon. "They aren't the biggest concern right now, that particular honour goes to the people coming to try and seize control over the dungeons, you included." I explained bluntly.
"Well, I guess me and that ship eating monsters over there must be pretty tempting to people who can make them obedient." The Watery form of the Keeper had settled onto the stone bench on the far side of my office.
"It's not just the dungeons, it's the location." I replied bluntly. "On the other side of the sea is another continent, a continent that no one has been able to get to or from because there's been a ship eating monster in the way."
"And your fortress is the only spot on this side of the ocean ready to field ships? Can't they just go around the other way?" Keeper asked concerned.
"We're not ship capable, but we almost are. What we lack is a steady supply of timber to make docks and ships with. Not with damaged dungeon cores to work with. And before you ask that takes time to repair, not something you rush through. As for the other side, there's not a dungeon blocking the path as far as we know, but we don't have the best relationship with the people on that side of the other continent." To put it mildly.
"Even if you have an indestructible pedestal?" Keeper asked sounding mighty smug.
"Even if your pedestal is indestructible you aren't." I replied bluntly as I continued with my original point. "Of those who will come for us there are three we must be concerned about, and this is the first." A crest of fire with a set of horns. "The Pentaghasts, my birth family."
"So you think they'll come for us and try to use you to secure influence over our burgeoning dungeon city?" Keeper asked his business partner suspiciously.
"I know that they will try." I knew that she would try, the necrotic parasitic tick that she was. "The thing is I'm the unfilial son who burned bridges between my family and myself to chase down a monster." Keeper turned to look to the harbour where another ship was being pulled down beneath the water by Trinity. "That was some monster."
"Agreed. From another point of view I am the one who destroyed Leviathan." I stated as I put up the second name that they would have to deal with. "There are those who would say I deserve to be in charge, but doubt that I can manage the territory effectively."
"You look like you're doing a good job to me." Keeper stated looking around the place. Housing was built, food was starting to come out of the ocean, and defensive barricades and defensive turrets were built or being built. "You look like you have a handle on it to me."
"Yes. But the Merchant's union might feel inclined to disagree." The second of the hung crests was a pile of coins with a jewel off to the side, a little on the nose for a Merchant Union, but it made the point quite clear. "This town represents the first port with the potential to reach the opposing shore to the other continent that has appeared in years." Because Leviathan didn't just go after dungeons, he also took ships as well. "The last is over here. The college of mages." A wizard's hat and a mages staff. "A dungeon's job is to regulate the flow of mana in a area, but if there's too many dungeons then we run the risk of creating a catastrophe, a mana dead zone, so some people might decide that one or more of the dungeons have to go. Well, there are methods of moving the dungeons out of the way, the easiest is to turn one into a mobile dungeon."
"We can do that right?" Keeper asked raising his hand in the air.
"Yes, but it's a task that's a lot easier with a dungeon with only a few floors, most of which are already turning into monsters." Meaning that Keeper's most likely the one that'll have to move.
"Do I get a say in this? Cause I'm not trading you in if I can help it." It was a nice thought in it's own way, someone valuing you enough that they would prefer you over someone else, it's been a while since I've felt wanted, not since Amelia died.
"Your say in this depends entirely on your ability to buy your vote with supplies and how hard or easy you're willing to make it to get them. My advice? Start hard, at least whenever it's anyone but us coming to bring them."
"Is there anything else? I'm thinking I need to get those three up to the point where they're going to be useful." Keeper explained while he indicated the twisted mass of materials that was starting to stick out of the surface of the bay. Lots of rooms, not enough materials. Time to change that.
----------------------------------------
With the Maride's ability to manipulate water I dragged the rest of Leviathan's ships together and smashed them together against each other resulting a in a huge pile of scrap wood, then I started dropping them into the three entrances being used by the three dungeons. Dungeons seemed able to instinctively convey their feelings to one another, when those emotions get especially strong, such as crying in pain, it becomes easier. So Keeper fed them until they cried out, waited for them to calm down, and then stuffed them full again. He could slowly see the Dungeon growing below as well. Until finally...
STOP DOING THAT! NO MORE! PLEASE!
"Ah good you can speak coherently now. I think. Let's see what the chat room has to say." I quickly went back into the dungeon and released my hold on the Maride as I moved my point of awareness back into the core room.
It actually took a minute to figure out which core, or rather cores, belonged to the Trinity, you begin by remembering that Leviathan has been eating all the cores along the coastline, leaving only my core and Trinity as the only nearby dungeons, and trinities were all twisted together, producing pink, turquoise and grey lights. After each swallowing 23 of Leviathan's boats it seems that they were able to advance their growth into full blown sapient dungeons.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
[Dungeon Keeper: Howdy Neighbours]
No response. Clearly I'm going about this the wrong way.
[Dungeon Keeper: I'm the master of the Sphinx, and if you three don't start talking right now, I'm going to send her down there]
[Northern Ice Flow: We hear you!]
[Coral Barrier Reef: We do not respond well to bullying]
[Sea Side Fortress: Ask Leviathan]
[Dungeon Keeper: I would, but I ate about a third of his dungeon and ground the other two into a digestible form for you three to munch on so as you can imagine we're not on speaking terms]
Silence, which I assume meant the three of them were discussing how to deal with me from now on but I had no time for it.
[Dungeon Keeper: You're now North, Coral and Fort]
[Northern Ice Flow name has been changed to North]
[Coral Barrier Reef name has been changed to Coral]
[Sea Side Fortress name has been changed to Fort]
[Dungeon Keeper: Now that that is settled I have a job for you three]
[Dungeon Keeper: There's a fort being built near you three and you're going to provide it all the materials that it needs in order to grow, starting with these] [Dungeon Keeper has sent Dungeons North, Coral and Fort Cement, Red Wood Timber, Spider's silk, Lacquer, Schema's for F Rank Monsters Trigger Fish, Cuddle Fish, Salmon, Tuna, Cod...]
The list went on for quite a while after that, People had been dumping their left overs into my dungeon for quite a while now so I had quite a few Schema's to work with.
[North: We can't do all of this!]
[Dungeon Keeper: Meaning that your cores are still damaged?]
[Coral: Even combined we don't have enough mana to start mass producing all of this!]
[Dungeon Keeper: Pisha! Mana is easy to get, lemme show you]
Even though I said that, I made sure to visit my newest monster first. I expected her to work hard, so I gave her a name to support her. Until my normal core functions are restored she was the only monster I had available. Your name is Levi, a reminder of your previous master, and a promise that things will be different.
"I accept this name with gratitude master." And the entire ocean of the third floor glowed.
Once I exited the dungeon in my Maride's body I went to Charles and explained to him the contents of my evil plan. Firstly was determining the powers of all of the refugees that Jewel came over. Genasi, hybrids of humanoids and genies such as the fire breathing Ifrits, the water shaping Maride, Windy Djinn and Earth manipulating Dao, as it turns out Charles was a fire Genasi. Most numerous were the offspring of the egg laying females of Jewel's dungeon, Lamia's, Arachne, Sirens and Harpies who as it turns out are all female races, Go figure, so basically there were large populations of these fellows here. Fewer in numbers were the off spring of mammals who give live births like normal people such as Feline types, centaurids, minotaurs, demons, so on and so forth.
Rubbing my hands together and smirking me and Charles divided these fellows into three broad categories, producers, labourers and sources. Producers were those who possessed unique abilities that made them uniquely suited to getting large amounts of work done, the Earth Genasi were a good example of this, their power to manipulate earth and stone meant that they could create walls to help produce a choke point, hollow out the space underneath that choke point, and connect to the dungeon by knocking down a wall once all the work was done, another example of a producer was monsters who could produce lots of unique material like the arachne and their spider's silk. Labourers were those who were physically strong enough to work or uniquely suited to delicate tasks, a Process that largely consisted of taking the materials being produced in the nearby dungeons and creating complex machinery such as metal gears and belts made of spider's silk or consumable items such as potions and explosives.
The majority of the items being manufactured aren't designed to be lethal, but rather for capturing and incapacitation such as nets, sleep potions, and other such traps. Why? We'll get back to that later. The third are sources, power sources, those whose species are either ill-suited to manual labour, large scale magic casting, or are simply too young to work, these individuals were being cycled in and out of the Trinity in order to fill them full of mana that they would then use to make the resources needed to feed the local community or build up it's buildings and defences. Weeks worth of work progressed as the leaves yellowed turning shades of orange and red in the process.
Mana wafted off the woods as the sound of beasts progressed. I sensed a familiar feeling in the air, familiar to anyone whose seen Treyni switch from her dryad form all the way to her Leshen form. They were ready. The smallest of the enemy forces were the first to drop, the wolves, the overgrown badgers, the F and E Ranks charging blindly at the first barricade. They never got the chance to reach the first gate, instead dropping into the trap doors that had been long since prepared in advance. I didn't even bother to dose them, the silk net they were trapped was already as strong as steel, I merely had them sealed in a crate and loaded onto the conveyor belt to the third floor, Levi transported them to the secondary entrance on the other side and put them on another belt that led directly to the trio, who had since modified their entrances into one big trap door, that led to a spike pit of all three dungeons materials and dropped them off inside.
The monsters were skewered on the spikes, as a extra precaution swords and other weapons wielded by the monsters of the dungeon were used to stab them dead and they were quickly broken down, in time for another group of monsters to be dropped into the spike pit to die. I don't mind giving the trio the spoils, for one thing my dungeon had too much stuff that it needed sorting out, I wasn't going to add more floors to the problem. Someone was watching the wolves failure, used them to scout the front door, and so the second wave had came. Vultures, or more accurately Revultures.
[F Rank Monsters Revulture-A species of vulture that has developed a powerful acid to break down more difficult materials such as bones and fur, and can spit this acid up as a deadly and effective projectile attack]
Much like the Wolves before them, they were much too weak to pose a real threat, instead being sent as a advance force to scout for threats. Apas took offence to their presence in her territory, hit them all with a blast of air hard enough to knock them out, funnelled them into a spider silk bag that was then lowered down below to be put on the conveyor belt. Charles stepped onto the top of the gate, the fire to sound magic he taught me primed and in his throat.
"Is this the best you can do?" The ground rumbled, the wood split open as two scaley boulders slammed into the front gates.
[D Rank Monster Rolling Drake-A species of Earth Drake who has chosen to specialise in speed and defensive power, as a result they're able to roll into a ball of their defensive armour and spin themselves around at high speeds using gravity manipulation magic before launching themselves at a target with overwhelming force]
A length of spider silk attached itself to the little balls of death and pulled them back into the woods, at which point they slammed themselves against the gates again. It'll take them a while, the gates were made out of the same concrete and spider Silk composite as most of Charles walls were, the soft material easily capable of absorbing the impact while the hard material protected the walls from such things as fire and the elements. The Leshen was capable of coordinating and communicating with the monsters being used to assault the fortress, the Revultures had just enough time to report the contents of the courtyard, none some higher ground from the platforms and lower ground that most of the monsters would be walking through as they made their way to the main base proper. It appeared that the Leshen was starting to run out of patience.
"Foolish humans who place their faith in blocks of stone yet cut my woods."
Spears of roots slammed into the walls of the fortress, not penetrating but rather attaching themselves to the walls and forming ladders large and sturdy enough that even the biggest among the enemy forces could climb over them. In the meantime the two Rolling Drakes had been allowed to slam freely into the gates, forming cracks that allowed the roots to seize them and stab inside of them, then tear both gates open. Now that the siege breakers had been allowed to work the meat of the enemy forces could come in. Lion's, Tiger's and Bear's oh my! The two that were responsible for winding up and sending forward the Drakes from earlier a pair of massive spider monsters dressed in silken cloth armour.
[C Rank Monster Juro Gumo-A Giant Spider monster who has eschewed the ambush predator lifestyle of her smaller kin in favour of armour to protect herself in battle]
Well four out of five isn't bad. Charles stuck his fist out and let out a plume of flame in an approximation of a thumbs up. The men at the back who saw this quickly pulled down on their levers and went for relative safety.
"Woooo oh ooow!"
From various pipes across the Courtyard a haunting singing voice was let out, the call of the siren. Below their feet a trio of siren sisters were serenading the monsters above, most of the monsters listening to them having gone lax, which made sense since most of them were lured in by Apas to begin with. For some reason when I heard about the Sirens I was expecting mermaids or birds but what I got instead was mana ray girls their lower bodies ending in a stinger while a flying squirrel-esque skin stretched out between their arms and the torso, guess it takes all kinds. Most, but the spiders weren't affected, just confused about why their allies suddenly stopped moving, well roughing them up a little bit first won't break Trinities heart any I suspect. Charles stuck out his fist again and released another gout of flame, this one pointing down. The men from earlier pushed down the levers the other way.
"HYYYAAAHHH!"
As soon as they saw the signal sign turn from green to red the Sirens calm melodic voices were replaced by harsh shrieking. The Monsters eyes went wide as they turned on the spiders in a frenzy of slashing claws and slamming fists attempting to rip the one time allies apart bit by bit, and said allies retaliated striking with mantis like claws and venomous bites. They were C Ranks, the strongest monsters here, but they were two against eight, with creatures like the rolling drakes with strong armour that could protect their hides against the slashing claws and venomous bite and enlarged animals with sharp claws that can cut through the thick silk. Enough to severely wound the spiders, but now land the killing blow, in addition to that, the trap doors on the raised platforms opened up and raised up mounted turrets. The small catapults that were revealed fired bombs into the air and clocked the two spiders up side their heads with stun grenades.
"Woooo oh ooow!"
The melodic voices of the siren sisters returned and the frenzied monsters returned to calm. A door way was opened, leading down into the underground pit, the monsters walked inside drawn by the Siren's voices, dragging along with them the two Guro Jumo that had previously led the attack, the lot of them filtered into cages and were filed to Levi, who transported them to trinity to be butchered.
"SCREEEEEE!"
Suddenly several large flying lizard creatures flew over bringing fire down with them.
[D Rank Monster Fire Wyvern-A lesser relative of the Dragon family, the Wyvern retains the capacity for flight but not the size or bulk of full blooded dragon creatures]
Huh? So the drakes inherit the bulk and the Wyvern's inherit the ability to fly and breath fire? No wait the description from before said that the Rolling Drakes were Earth Drakes so maybe they spit rocks instead? Am I making light of the Wyverns? Yes. The Moment they flew over the courtyard and started breathing fire Charles made their flames explode and broke their jaws knocking them out in the process.
"I'm waiting!"
The entire forest seemed to growl, as if walking out of the shadows, from the very trees themselves, a familiar figure walked out, one with the skull and antlers of a moose, a huge wooden muscular body and a massive staff made of gnarled wood and a shard of amber lodged in it's tip, the amber contained some small creature inside of it obscured by shadow. The Leshen had appeared. With a swing of it's staff the Leshen unleashed a wave of stabbing roots directly at Charles. Charles spread his arms and released a dozen stabbing spears of fire into the air and had them come crashing down on top of the Leshen's stabbing roots and branches. Splinters and flaming wood chunks flew off of the clashing attacks as ashes drifted in the air. The Leshen stepped back as it prepared more retaliation, however things were getting warmer, yeah that's right buddy, Good old Charles signature move is coming! Hot air was being drawn down from the air making the air above colder while the ground kept heating up, though the leaves and moss on the Leshen's body was drying up he hadn't done something like spontaneously catch fire, now what was happening was far worse than that. The Cyclone, the one that was used to break nearly two dozen of Leviathan's ships, I missed it out on it last time but from what I heard it was epic!
"Go back to the woods where its safe little spirit!" At Charles command the wind formed on him, putting him in the eye of the storm. The Leshen on the other hand found itself slowly rising into the air, despite his best efforts to remain grounded having the roots lash onto him to pull him back down, it wasn't working, instead he was torn free of the earth and flung high into the air clear of his forest. With that the people of the fort cheered as Apas used her wind magic to dissipate the tornado safely. The enemy it seems has been repelled.
"Long Live the Dungeon!" The People of the Fortress Cheered. "Long live the Keeper!"