When Apas returned to the other dungeon this time she didn't use the Keeper's tactics, no there was a better way of doing this. Apas started with a shoulder charge ramming into the front gate hard enough to smash it open. The Nearest goblin was smacked with her wing hard enough to splatter his brains on the wall he was hiding behind.
"Lahire!"
The fire attack was smothered by Apas sucking all the air away, then the fire spouting Goblin had its head bitten off. A swipe with the front paw had taken the head of the next goblin off and with a single peck the last of the group was dead. Walking over to the front door she propped herself up and pushed the door down with her front paws and entered the boss's room once more.
"Don't you have anything better to do with your t-ah-ah!"
Even in the middle of his transformation the Goblin was suddenly struggling with it's sudden lack of oxygen, all of the air around it being completely removed. The bear emerged from the ground this time, not the black of the black bear, but rather brown. So the Boss adjusts itself for every new challenger, changing it's rank based on the quality of opponent and it's mount based on the tactics used against the goblins outside, so magic casters get a magic bear and fighters get a fighter bear, that's quite a feature. And so easy for her to exploit, all the air in the room rushing in order to crush the bear's head. Robbing the goblins of air to kill them was quite an ingenious tactic by the Keeper, it was very effective, but from a D Rank monster like her, unnecessary, not when the opponent is so weak. So instead, she decided to save it for the boss. The two monsters fell over, their bodies turned into light and taking the form of a tunic. Apas put her talons on it and watched the bear skin tunic turn into a stony armour. Not useful to her, perhaps the keeper will find a use for it. The Goblin adjusts itself to face whatever creature that it's about to face, becoming their equal in power with weaknesses tailored to how they fought its compatriots. Not much point in putting two of it's kind in a row. Thus Apas chose to return to her home, however briefly.
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I was a little surprised to see Apas return to the dungeon in one piece, without having to respawn, a neat 9 more points filling out my meter. And she had a Tunic with her, because apparently the boss dropped loot. Sweet. Apas immediately requested to be sent back to the dungeon and I granted her request. Archie, I don't think we have any monster than can wear this tunic, do you want it?
"I shall gladly accept this boon master." Archie quickly threw on the Tunic.
Now that we have some passive mana regeneration stacking you're going to start filling up the meters for the other monsters around here too. We already have a bunch of undead lying around, lowest requirement to rank up gets the points.
"Thy will be done master!"
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The Dungeon tried to kill him. It had acquired basic self preservation and so opted to drop a rock on him to kill him.
"Master Charles are you alright!?" The attendant who had come with the young knight asked his voice full of genuine concern.
"As well as can be expected." Master Charles was a burly man, bright red hair and green eyes, eyes that were looking up at a leafy green tree that had dislodged the rock that nearly crushed him.
"The dungeon has attempted to kill you Young Master." The attendant explained while worryingly trying to pull his charge back away from the limestone mountain.
"The Dungeon grew a tree." Charles countered bluntly. "They grow trees for mana, just like any other dungeon. Continue with the operation to build the staircase up. I don't want to be out in the open when the damned Pirate gets here do you?"
The people here would rather not be here when the 'damned pirate' got here period. But orders were orders, and thanks to the metal bands around their necks they had no other choice but to do as they had been told to do.
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The next monster to receive a rank up was Thing. The options for him were quite a bit different than Archies.
[E-Rank Bone Soldier-A skeleton reanimated from the body of a soldier]
[E-Rank Bone Thief-A skeleton reanimated from the body of a thief]
Kind of boring when you think about it. Is it because he lacks the extra's that I gave to Archie? In that case... I took out one of the amber chunks that Archie and I excavated, and formed a bit of silver around it, before putting the ring on Thing's ring finger. True to my predictions a new option appeared.
[E-Rank Bejewelled Hand-A reanimated hand belonging to a rich aristocrat, still with the ring he wore in life on his finger]
Perfect.
Mana wrapped thing's body and a few moments later emerged, a wedge stump of severed arm bones from where the rest of the arm had been cut off now sticking out the wrist area.
Alright Archie, Thing, what kinds of new powers do you two have?
"Master, I have learned new magic from the school of necromancy." Archie held out a hand. "Create Bone Weapon: Sword." Light of magic sparked between Archie's hand and entered the limestone floor, rising up slowly and transforming the material into a blade along the way. "Sadly the material isn't that good, so I'm afraid the weapon isn't that strong."
Then don't turn chunks of my dungeon into weapons.
"Understood master."
Thing what about you?
Thing tapped it's fingers and released a light from the ring.
Healing magic? We already have a healer though, so it's not very useful. Well that only assumes that our project with the eggs don't turn out the way that I think they will. We'll let Thing keep the ring in the meantime. Meanwhile Archie, you are to continue to oversee point farming, evolve the Will-o-wisps next.
"Master, the wisps cannot combine with other undead as myself and Thing can, thus we cannot take advantage of our unique circumstances."
Then continue evolving yourselves, I'd like for you to at least be as strong as Apas.
"Apas's strength is from more than just power, it is from refinement of technique. Blindly building power in this way maybe efficient, but it ultimately stunts our growth in the end."
Then for now, do the eggs instead. I'm not waiting fifteen years for a return on my investment.
"Thy will be done."
Both of the undead bowed to me. Apas returned a second time, this time she was wearing a set of claws that looked like they had come off directly off the legs of a bear. She didn't stick around though instead having me send her on another raid.
Archie continue to grind up the eggs, and keep an eye on the humans trying to get to the dungeon entrance. If there's a way that you think you can slow them down a little, do it.
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A drill was removed from the first support log, in it's place the carpentry slave intended to install a beam for the railing. Then the stars started to shake, making cracking noises as they started to release branches and the like, her confusion was cut off as one of her fellow slaves fell on her.
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Thing and Archie had taken separate area's in order to experiment with their respective powers, I was currently debating what kinds of puzzles to separate my doors. I don't think Apas would like getting cut off from the lake and all her food, so for now barriers to bar the way of the humans was a no. But what about traps? What is the most effective way to deal with the people outside? Lethal force? Well yes obviously but at the same time it's not that simple. These people could be the first residents of my very own dungeon city, or the guy whose tent I accidentally crushed with my tree could be some nobleman's son, so first and foremost, before I do anything else what I need to get most of all is get another floor of the dungeon, before I have a repeat of my problem with Apas. Speaking of whom she's reappeared again, this time dropping off boots for Archie before disappearing again leaving behind another nine points, that brings my total up to 37. In any case the priority here now while I'm waiting for Apas to get back is buying time for her to do the grinding that we need. Luckily I have an idea for the puzzle to buy time. Going to the draw bridge I made on modifications, that being a simple push and turn lock. Simply place your hand on a simple circular piece of stone, push it inside all the way, and then turn it ninety degrees upwards and Tada! You've unlocked my front door! Course I tried as hard as possible to make the circle not obvious to the people outside.
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Because Charles wasn't a idiot he put a person to watch the entrance to the Dungeon, which he chiefly accomplished by having a small boat made up and float out around to the other side of the mountain where the entrance was located. Every half an hour another boat went to the patrol boat, collected their reports of what was going on at the entrance, occasionally brought them food, maybe changed their shift, and then reported back. Even if you try to be subtle about it, people are still going to notice when you start circling magical energy around your front door. Even if they don't understand the specifics of what the dungeon is doing logical conclusions can still be drawn.
"So it's put a lock on it's front door eh?" Charles looked at the report and held his chin in thought.
"Could it be sealing the entrance boss?" Joseph was a middle aged man, skin dark from working long hours in the sun, he was also the man in charge of Charles work crew to build a pathway to the dungeon. He would also be in charge of building up the rest of the outpost when the staircase is done.
"Not unless it has another entrance elsewhere to rely on." Charles stated as he reviewed the documents.
"You sure boss?" Joseph asked prompting Charles to look at him flatly.
"Tell me Joseph do you think you can survive without a mouth or a nose?" Charles asked looking at the man in front of with compassionless eyes.
"Sir?" Joseph asked taking a step backwards.
"It's a simple question, I don't mean it to be threatening." Charles clarified giving a brief shrug of his shoulders.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"I'd suffocate if I couldn't breath through my nose or mouth, and I'd die of thirst if I couldn't drink anything." Joseph replied looking confused.
"The dungeon is much the same way. The gate we are working so hard to reach is its mouth, its monsters its teeth. We are working very hard for the purpose of seizing control of these too things so that we can place it under our control." With that explanation finished the next matter was progress. "What's the state of the staircase?"
"Every few minutes the stairs receive a infusion of mana and suddenly... reanimate for lack of a better term, it grows a bit and then stops. Right now we're trying to build it up from below." Joseph laid out a length of blueprints onto Charles desk.
Support columns rising from the sea all the way to the entrance, crisscrossing x-shaped beams for support, eventually reaching a simplified stair case leading to the dungeon, as if a after thought, shading roughly resembling foliage had been scribbled in around the bottom of the stairs.
"Right now we're trying to simplify the maintenance we have to do by getting all the support work on the stairs done, as much as we can without connecting to the dungeon anyway. Every time the wood reanimates we have to sand down the stairs again so that we can walk on them without slipping, we've even tried to hack the stairs off the mountain but every cut we make just heals over."
"Can we build around the existing staircase?" Charles asked looking concerned.
"We could, but we don't know if it'll suddenly grow out and smash what we've built and like you told us..."
"We're on a time table." Charles stated bluntly. "Are the stairs usable?"
"Oh certainly. We have a railing installed already after all, and the stairs are currently flat, they might have to be sanded down again in a few months but that's just about it." Charles leaned back in his chair as he looked up into the sky.
"We use the stairs as intended, if you have to connect to the dungeon to secure the rest of the staircase then do it." Joseph nodded as the meeting finished however more bad news was coming along as well.
Some of the trees had been sprayed with mana rich urine from a D Rank monster, and large feathers were being found every once in a while. In other words...
"There's a griffin in the area, and by the looks of things she's establishing her territory for mating season." Charles concluded and his aide visibly paled.
"There is a D Rank monster here? Charles we're-"
"Already planning on taking an A rank's head." Charles bluntly informed his aid. "And as such we will take measures that are appropriate for dealing with that. For starters we have a pretty solid idea where it's nest is located."
"Sir?" The aide looked at his master concerned, the aide paled even more when he saw his young master pointing directly at the mountain where they knew the dungeon to be located.
"'A Griffin retains it's instincts from it's hawk and leonine ancestors. Like a hawk it will intentionally seek out locations that are high up and structurally unsound to build it's nest so as to deter any potential predators to come up looking for it's eggs.' That hole faces the sea, where the rock is weak and broken after being worn down by the salt water." Thus under Charles orders construction of the bridge was temporarily halted. They read the reports, and they knew that this dungeon had the misfortune of being built on top of an old fossil mine that had already been stripped of everything worth wild. The King of Lithilas had ordered that the mines be bricked up after the appearance of the dungeon, to prevent it's self destruction, Charles had them knocked back down, the caves serving as a makeshift emergency bunker for Charles and his men. "The advantage of the Griffin's flight will be neutralised here." Charles stated bluntly. "In the mean time have the scouts position themselves in the woods with flares to alert us if anything starts to come this way."
The biggest threat here isn't the Griffin, but the result of the Griffin's actions, monsters who wish to reproduce with the griffin will flock here in mass, of them they will fall into four categories. The first is the Equine type, in other words horses, that said Griffins also hunt horses for food, so even though there have been instances where horse and griffin hybrids have appeared in the wild, such cases are considerably rare and only happen in cases of extreme desperation. The second is feline monsters, one half of the Griffin's hybrid ancestry which has high compatibility with the griffin, they should consider this scenario to be extremely high. The third is Bird type monsters, the other half of the Griffin's ancestry, what they lack in terms of physical strength they make up for in their ability to fly, which means they may gather from further away, which also means that they can expect to see more of them as well. The fourth and final might be the most dangerous of all, the others. Other Griffins attracted by one of their own, as well as beings like Genies or dragons that can mate with any other living creature, they might expect these things to flock here in mass. From one point of view they may have gotten lucky, if the griffin was male it would plow all of these female and hermaphrodite creatures trying to impregnate as many as possible in order to mass produce powerful offspring that they would inevitably have to deal with. Even worse if they start to reproduce with each other instead and produce even more dangerous and unpredictable hybrids, in layman's terms the staircase plan will have to be put on hold, at least until they can deal with this monster stampede.
"Young Master we should call for help." Charles aide stated insistently. Charles family would not be happy if they found out that he was planning on picking a fight with Leviathan, so how he worded his message to the capital would be pivotal.
"Scribe." The man in question stepped out from the shadows, pen and paper in hand. "'While on patrol in the Johnson forest, our group learned about a monster stampede that is about to assault a new born dungeon. We can confirm that a female C-Rank monster, a griffin, is living inside of the dungeon proper, and is attracting potential mates to compete for her. We have already taken an advanced team to secure the area around the dungeon in preparation to deal with the stampede, but in the mean time additional back up is requested.'" Charles nodded indicating to the scribe that the message was finished, the message was packaged for delivery, sealed with a coat of wax and stamped with the symbol of a flame with a lion's face on it before being packaged for delivery. "Joseph, we're going to have to start fortifying this location. We have a cave, it's far from a fort though, we're going to have to do some work to make it one." While Charles and company were talking someone else was watching, a pair of black eyeless holes were looking at the group while they worked.
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So they've breached the third floor that we aren't even close to claiming yet, and they're planning on fortifying the location too? Apas returned again, giving Archie both the bear gauntlets she took with her earlier and the spear the Ogre was wielding. However it seems that she unlocked an achievement for her efforts.
[Ogre Killer-Acquire all the drop items from the Boss of Lithilas 2nd floor 'Warchief Karzan.' Reward: Second floor Bypass. D-Rank Schema Ogre]
So to put it another way, we can't fight any more of Lithilas's second floor monsters, and why did we get the schema for the Ogre, the bear was the one who kept massacring us without being able to fight back. And by my estimates we only had another 2 trips before I was able to obtain a second floor. Can we find another D-Rank monster to grind on the third floor? Apas shrugged her shoulders by way of reply. Right then, we have another problem, your mate hunting is going to attract a huge number of monsters to this area.
Apas squeaked happily in response to that.
Right. You were doing this in the first place because you wanted to get a boy friend in the first place, I get that, but this could be a serious problem you know. I should be happy too? We can attract a lot of monsters for schemas and experience this way? Right. I only need eighteen more points don't I? That's 32 goblins. We might be able to work with this, but I don't know if you should be flying outside too often. I saw them putting together plans for balista when we were poking around down there before.
Apas Squawked in a way that I was somehow able to understand.
That could work.
[Dungeon Keeper: Hey Jewel, Graves you guys there?]
[Jewel: Hello]
[Graves: What is it? Are your humans giving you trouble?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Sort of but not what I'm here for. Can you guys tell me what kinds of monsters you used for your first floor bosses? I want to use them for reference]
[Graves: Mine is called George the Grappler, he's a zombie I raised to help train the White Flame soldiers in hand to hand combat, though sadly he's only E-Rank]
[Jewel: Lithilas already mentioned my first floor boss before, a Mirror with the power to copy the appearance, power and rank of whatever looks at it.]
[Dungeon Keeper: So if a D-Rank was sent in to fight it then it would copy them and produce a D-Rank creature?]
Are monsters with the power to copy their enemies level of power popular picks or something? This is the second one I'm hearing about, and they're both first floor bosses.
[Jewel: Yes. Sadly though it lacks the fighting experience that it's opponent's have in using their own bodies and powers]
[Jewel: After all the trouble I went through to set up the boss like that, only for so many people to turn around, have their party huddle together and force my beautiful creature to form a jumbled mass of body parts and weapons! Give me my loot back you scoundrels!]
Oh no how terrible.
[Lithilas: You two are way too easy to fool sometimes. I'm honestly embarrassed for you]
[Graves: ?]
[Jewel: ?]
[Raid Dungeon Concubine's Bejeweled Mirror? Yes/No]
[Yes]
[Jewel: !?]
[Please Select your monsters for the raid]
[1 Contracted Monster: Apas the Griffin]
[Transportation in 3. 2. 1]
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Honestly, Apas was embarrassed for this 'Jewel' or whatever it was supposed to be. Yes The Keeper's first floor was a nest as well but still, various humanoids were gathered in the floor, spread out onto a variety of furniture, some looked like fish, others like birds, a few with bits of animals attached to them replacing ears, arms and legs or giving them tails. Others still didn't have a human shaped body at all instead resembling snakes or even worse horses. The only thing any of them had in common was the presence of humanoid body parts, mostly in the torso area, and they had belonged to females. Was this a trend? Were these characteristics that dungeons found to be desirable? And why were there so many delvers here? Did the Concubine's mirror not have instancing in effect here? With over 20 floors that she could tribute to the gods she couldn't spare one to earn such a useful defensive measure? None of them even look like they're here for a fight, she even caught a few of them copulating with the dungeon monsters. Do people really just come here to copulate? They're so pathetic she can't even bring herself to fight them or the monsters. She can only hope that the boss isn't this pathetic. A pause. Is the boss here just so that people can plow themselves? Shaking that thought off Apas pushed open the door leading to the boss's room with her front talons.
"My, my it isn't often that other dungeons send their monsters here, let alone for a fight." The Mirror could easily be the mascot of the Dungeon, speaking in a feminine voice and currently taking the appearance of a full length silver mirror with it's frame encrusted with various jewels. That form didn't last long though, the entire thing cracking and shifting it's form, getting down on four legs while two wings of shattered glass formed coming from the back, all the broken glass flipping over to reveal the exact form of Apas. "I hope you weren't-"
Apas pounced on her counterpart, rolling across the ground with her as the two of them pecked at each other. The trick with air magic probably wouldn't work on a inanimate object, even one masquerading as a living creature. Then the best way to settle it is to apply violence. The two clawed and bit at each other, stabbing with beaks and tearing with claws as they wrestled with each other on the ground, Apas taking flight in the middle of the brawl in order to repeatedly smash the opponent into the ground, with a final plunge of her beak Apas severed the coroded artery of the creature, inflicting a fatal wound and causing her opponent to shatter like a pile of glass. The remains of the boss evaporated into mots of magical particles and eventually came back down as a mirrored shield.
[Goddess of Monsters Echidna has taken notice of the Dungeon: Dungeon Keeper]
Her business finished here Apas prepared to return to Keeper, mirror shield underneath her talon foot as she prepared to leave.
[This space is sealed, you are unable to use the return function]
"My my my." A massive amount of hostile energy had gathered behind Apas. The intensity of a Rank of power several times her own was leaving her unable to move. "It has been quite some time since someone has been so foolish as to cause trouble in our place of business." The sound of someone stomping their foot expelled the hostile aura. Apas could finally breathe as she turned to face the creature that was behind her, a horned humanoid, four of them to be precise twisted into long and thin spirals, she had cherry red skin and a uniform that while it covered her body leaving only the hands and head expose also didn't seem to be built for combat, a servant's uniform maybe but Apas didn't know. Hooved feet were crossed with one another as she sat while a spaded tail flickered in annoyance. "You aren't aware of this so allow me to put this bluntly, the blessing of the seventh floor comes from master Asmodeus, the demon lord of lust, who's able to directly convert desires from others into raw energy, we succubi are able to stockpile that energy. Combine that with the amount of time we've had to do so in a place that has no hostile intentions thus far and well..." Normal Succubi, D Rank monster. Concubine Bejeweled Mirror Dungeon Succubi, B- Rank! "Mirror wouldn't like having a memory of her defeat left lying around, so we'll allow you to take your prize and return to your dungeon, but if you do this again your Dungeon is going to learn what it's like to fight a group of B-Ranks. Understood?"
Apas nodded in the affirmative, and then was allowed to leave.