When you've advanced enough as a dungeon you obtain certain benefits, in this case that would be a map, depicting the significant area that it covered. On this map was all of the dungeons that it knew of, not only the ones that have grown enough to gain sapience, but also the ones that he knew about through his humans visiting them. Regular patrols were being made to the coastline and a significant portion of his forces were sent there to protect the dungeons that cropped up there. In futility. The Messenger operating the communication crystal shook his head, and I dimmed another dungeon, later cartographers would be back to inform me of how much of the coastline that bastard ripped out of the continent this time in lieu of payment that the dungeons could not afford to give. From what horrors Leviathan was capable of from one of the attempts he's made the rescue those dungeons Leviathan would 'Keelhaul' them, drag them along the bottom of the sea floors forcibly stuffing them with materials to facilitate their growth, pieces being constantly scraped off along the way only to then be picked up by Leviathan's contracted abominations and fed back to the beast itself.
Nothing advances dungeon growth more than consuming other dungeons. But Dungeons are not designed to operate in this manner, and eventually the core will shatter, being left in so many broken pieces along the ocean floor. Over Time these shards of crystallised mana will either become the seeds of new dungeons or be starved out and broken down to be fed to others. Thanks to Leviathan hundreds of these dungeons had formed along the bottom of the ocean, and thanks to Leviathan hundreds of dungeons have been destroyed time and again. It was barbaric and were it within his power he would go take every dungeon under his command this instant and rip the bastard apart piece by piece but he couldn't. Conquerete was on the move again, and right now he had to defend himself before he could defend anyone else.
[Dungeon Keeper: I understand Lithilas. You've been a great help thus far. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you the next time the bastard comes calling.]
[Lithilas: Same to you.]
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With that Lithilas left the Chat group, presumably to make preparations to deal with Conquerete. Having done that I now turned to my new partners in crime.
[Jewel: I have some Aquatic type creatures I can send over to help with the attack on that guy if you like]
From Aphrodite's floor right?
[Dungeon Keeper: No thanks Jewel, I'd rather not have your people caught up when I hit that ship bastard]
[Jewel: Your Griffin has been working so hard to track down the Scorpion for me though. We even think we know which city they're going to now. I'd like to be able to thank you if possible]
[Dungeon Keeper: I need a schema that I can use to freeze a large amount of water]
[Jewel: ?]
[Jewel: Is this part of your strategy for defeating Leviathan?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Since I already got my blessing for my Second floor I'd like to start working on my third now]
[Jewel: Leviathan is coming you know, I don't know if building up another floor to fend him off is the best course of action that you should be taking]
[Dungeon Keeper: Not fend off. I intend to attack him. As soon as he gets into range I intend to start kicking his arse]
[Jewel: ?]
[Jewel: You're young, you just don't know how the world is. Graves, would you mind making a sapphire core for this fool?]
So she doesn't even want to waste a Schema on me is that it? I mean unless it's E-Rank or below it would be wasted on me but that's not the point, or at least it's not supposed to be the point.
[Graves: Sure give me a minute]
A few moments later.
[Graves: Done]
[Holy Water Core: A Silver Undead Core with one sapphire and five diamonds infused with the power of holy and the ability to command water]
I created another Animated skull and installed the water core inside of it. Now for phase two.
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Charles looked down at the bay of water that stretched out in front of the Dungeon's entrance. His new business partner came to him with a plan to kill Leviathan, part of that plan involved preparing a tunnel to connect the dungeon to the future third floor via a wooden staircase/tunnel. He was happy that the base he was building for his men wouldn't get taken over, but at the same time he was also visibly concerned that the dungeon wasn't thinking about how they were going to kill Leviathan. When asked what his plan was Keeper Merely replied that 'if I talk about it I'm afraid someone will be able to hear it and then patch it' whatever patching means. No matter, the dungeon is just a tool for his revenge after all. Once the staircase was finished the dungeon swarmed it with its mana, the entire thing turning vine like to create a canopy pathway leading down. If the Dungeon wants to expand into the water now, all the power to it, but Charles has other things that need tending to as well.
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Apas looked down on the city, sad little place that it was, all abandoned ruins and such after being overrun in a monster Stampede. If the Keeper was the dungeon of this place he would've eaten the miserable creatures. And yet it wasn't quite as abandoned as it initially looked, as she could see the smoke from a lit fire off in the distance. A temporary base camp? Or a hub they use to distribute their merchandise over a wider area. She knew how she was going to find out though. Flying over the city Apas nosed her way into a tent she reasonably suspected belonged to the ring leader for this little circus, as it was the middle of the night though she was quite certain he was still asleep and she was right in her assumption. Sticking in her beak Apas started rooting around the man's tent. She could do something like trying to find the rights of the slave ownership, some nonsense of a magical token that controls the collars or tattoos or something equally as important but honestly?
Apas had a way of simplifying this entire excursion and so took one of her claws and stabbed the throat of the slaver, then took a knife from the nearby table in her beak and got the squirting gurgling red liquid all over it. Flying over the Slavers camp she found the tent with the largest concentration of the worthless schmucks inside and dropped the knife inside for them to find. That should take a couple of days before they get wise. In the mean time she looked around, for the one building that all the other buildings avoided. She saw it back with her Keeper, dungeons can take things people attach to them and make it their own, if you don't want your house suddenly becoming a dungeon room one day steer clear. She entered this hole, getting the feeling that it's been very long time since this place has had visitors, already the mana she was passively giving off started to revitalise the crippled and drained dungeon functions were slowly waking back up. What it would do if it knew what was waiting just outside it's door. When Apas opened the door she was greeted by a scorpion, a scorpion that died very quickly but a scorpion none the less and she dealt with it and moved on.
[Would you like to end the raid now? Yes/No]
[Yes]
However then came the bonus feature she learned from raiding Lithilas's place.
[Would you like to save Check point at Sand Dune Dungeon? Yes/No]
[Warning, if you do not return within 24 hours your progress will be lost.]
[Yes]
And so Apas left, leaving behind the promise of violence yet to come.
----------------------------------------
They're camped out at a dungeon? And you can return to it if you hit it within twenty four hours? Okay then, that sounds rather promising actually. I'd like to nip this Scorpion mess in the bun before Leviathan gets here. In the mean time I was preparing part A of my plan, starting with a second river Slime. Slimes take on the characteristics of the liquids that they consume in the largest quantities, luckily for me one of Charles men left their flask in here before they left so I now had access to alcohol, and so I started poring the the stuff into a river slime that was also eating a bunch of fish that were stuck in a cycle of rebirth and death until finally.
[Evolve E Rank monster River Slime into E Rank Monster Booze slime? Yes/No]
Well, I suppose they all can't be box office smashers.
[Yes]
I watched my river slime turn from a glob of light blue slime to a clear slime instead. Now for the next phase of my plan to go into action. Well plans, I have a few of them on the go right now.
[Jewel: There's a dungeon in the town where those apes made their base of operations?]
[Dungeon Keeper: Apas found it when she broke into their camp. And she set up a save point in it.]
[Graves: We deploy in force.]
[Dungeon Keeper: No arguments here. Everyone's okay with me just sending Apas again?]
[Jewel: She found them after all.]
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This was shaping up to be an absolutely horrid evening, first his second in command gets his throat slash and a dozen of his men get framed for it. Now there were lights coming from the old dungeon. What was with today?
"You three, go inside and ferret out what the devil is going in there!" The bushy haired man who was leading the Slaver group indicated three of his men to run into the dungeon. Those three men were cut down with three cross bow bolts to their fore heads, emerging from the dungeon was a group of men in armour of the White Flame and their priests. "And what are you supposed to be? Dungeon Mobs?" The leader of the slavers asked looking at the group of men with blatant suspicion.
"Death." The leader of the knights stated bluntly as he raised his blade into the air at the slavers. A hail of cross bow bolts went flying through the air, and were smacked aside with impunity by some force they couldn't see.
"Mine or yours?" The rest of the slavers walked up, carrying whatever weapon they felt best suited them. "Let's find out!" There was a tent of slaves nearby, the men manning it opened the tent up and pointed their blades at the group of children inside. The entire tent collapsed as one as Apas knocked it over with a swoop before landing on the ground, she took one look at the two figures who stood up underneath the fabric of the tent, and with a swing of her claws Apas decapitated both of them. "Well isn't that interesting." The leader of the forces swung around and knocked over several of the Knights from Grave's dungeon, one of them had visible claw marks in his armour from where he was pushed away. Under normal circumstances a human wouldn't be able to rend steel with their bare hands or knock over an entire group of men in heavy armour. A human that is. "Looks like I'm going to have to stop being human to enjoy this." As the man continued to walk forward something seemed to disappear around him, like stepping through a water fall, in this case though the thing that was moving away wasn't water it was the human, everything but his face. He was at the same height, if you discount the long scorpion tail that was hanging over head like the dangling axe of an executioner's blade. Of course Six foot two was a lot more impressive on a creature with a lion's body than a human's. The scorpion she presumed. "I can smell the urine on you, mating season was it?" The human face used an inhumanly long tongue to lick its entire face. "I'll try to enjoy myself!"
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[C Rank Monster Manticore-A vicious and violent monster combining the cunning of a human being, the brute strength of a lion and the poisonous stinger of a scorpion. Enjoys eating humans but will also target beings who have strong magical power]
So those aren't his merchandise, they're his rations. His advantage was his higher rank and poison, Apas's her flight. If she just stayed out of his range he shouldn't be able to get to her but that also means not being able to attack him either.
"Flanking formation! Now!" The White Flame Paladins circled around the Manticore, shields up and weapons pointed, receiving buffs from their non paladin allies while they used mana to strengthen and reinforce themselves.
"Well now you're just making things interesting!" The Manticore swung his claws and tail around, the paladins expertly positioned and angled their shields to catch the blows at a angle deflecting them and following up with a stab from their weapons. They had this situation covered anyway, now the next question was how to separate those kids of their contracts. "Oh is that what you're after!"
The Manticore's eyes started to glow, something bright red, and suddenly lightning went through the tattoo's across the various enslaved chests, including infants. Apas thought quickly, the Keeper wants them saved but how? It can't be as simple as scratching at the tattoos can it? With a single swipe of her Talons Apas leaves a cut going through one of the tattoo's on the slaves chest and the pain inducing magic stopped, and then the cut healed at the pain resumed. Well. Progess. But it seems like the only way to deal with this is to cut it off at the source. Now that we know that... The Paladins weren't doing as well as the shiny armour and weapons would imply, either that or the manticore was just too strong, it's claws and stingers able to rend through the steel of the men's armour. And it he hadn't escaped unscathed either, for as the contracted knights started to disappear one by one, recalled back to their dungeon by Graves to heal and respawn they left behind several gashes in it's skin, dripping blood from the paladin's swords and other weapons leaving his body full of wounds. So Apas took to the air and swooped down on him, he of course struck back with his main weapon the scorpion's tail. Apas pulled back at the last moment and grabbed the tail with her talons before taking off into the air. Apas never thought about using her wind magic to suck the air out of a target before Keeper popped into her head to do it, so she allowed him to do so again as they flew over the skies that surround their home. One of those implications was what he called 'wind shield' which was a magic that sucks away all the air in front of her removing any friction that keeps her from going forward, and then uses that same air to flow around behind her and push her forward, or she could instead use this magic to push her up using her wings instead. Apas rocketed into the air carrying the Manticore as she went along for the ride.
"STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" The Manticore couldn't attack from this angle, Apas had him by his tail, and his other set of offensive weapons were all the way on the other end of him, it wasn't like he could just curl up and bite down on Apas. Even if he could attack, what would he do in this situation. Fall to his death? "STOP!" Apas complied with his request several stories into the air. In fact since he wanted back to the ground so badly she even provided him another wind shield so that the air would push him down faster and there would be no pesky air friction to slow him down. Ain't she generous? "DAMN YOU!" And so Apas dropped the Scorpion of the North, using her magic to send him slamming face first directly into the ground shattering every bone in his body.
[Giant Slayer 2 3/5]
Apas breathed deeply sucking in the rich points, she could see the red lights of the slave seals stopping, the slavers scattered like baby spiders and in the distance she spotted a caravan of Jewel's people rapidly approaching them. All was right with the world, and then Apas saw the Manticore break down into light and be reabsorbed into the nearby dungeon.
[Would You like to end the Raid? Yes/No]
She couldn't go after him, she already felt the light of evolution on her, and she didn't want to do it in this place.
[Yes]
And so Apas disappeared. She'll be back and deal with that Scorpion bastard later.
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As soon as Apas appeared in the dungeon she was wrapped in a cocoon of evolutionary light. I didn't even have to look at the options before I clicked on Sphinx, for one thing it was the only C Rank.
[C Rank Monster Sphinx-A highly intelligent species of monster possessing a human torso as well as the limbs of a lion and the wings of a hawk. They enjoy testing their intelligence against travellers that they encounter while acting as guards of temples and passes]
It'll probably take a while for Apas to finish inside of her cocoon, for now though, I thought up more of the countermeasures for dealing with Leviathan. I possessed the wisps and looked into the ways that they could manipulate heat. According to Archie's books earth mages usually yank out chunks of rock to manipulate instead of creating them on their own, same with wind mages who, frankly speaking, if they're not in their element then they have some serious problems. Then what about fire, or rather heat? The result of my experiment was two fold, the surface that I was practising on was covered in a layer of frost and was then followed up by a loud boom of concentrated heat. And then I got a message from Graves.
[Graves: The chat says Leviathan is in range for a raid. You want in?]
I wouldn't be implementing my secret weapon quite yet. No that would have to wait until the bastard was closer, close enough that I could keep him from escaping, for now it was enough that I just piss him off and get an idea about what he's actually been doing, from there I can decide if I want to slow him down or speed him up.
[Would like to join Consecrated Mass Grave on a raid against Pirate Fleet Leviathan]
[Select a Monster to be in Charge of your floor while you are gone]
[Archie the Warlock Skeleton]
[Designate Raid Team]
[Contracted monster Ifrit, 50 Will-o-wisps, 1 Alcohol slime]
Here's hoping the bastard hasn't made counter measures for obvious weaknesses yet.
[Transporting in 3. 2. 1.]
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I was inside of a wooden sailing ship, so it seems that we're in the right place.
"Ugh?"
I turn to the sound of confused moans and was greeted by the sight of a shirtless zombie, it's body stitched up from the numerous battles it has gotten into and only wearing some gloves as any form of armour or weapons. What the heck? Is this the zombie that Graves has guarding the first floor over at his place? The one that spars with the order of humans that have set up their base of operations around his dungeon? Well, at least he has lots of combat experience. I turned around to see a nearby door opening up, out from which emerged a creature that can generously be described as a Gilman.
[E Rank Monster Sea Hag-A violent species of amphibious monster known for ambushing unweary sailors and dragging them off into the water from their boats, or sinking them outright using their highly proficient water magic to manipulate the sea]
"Dinner for the master has arrived!" The Fish licked his blood red lips sinisterly while he looked at the group like they were his next meal.
"Dude. These are spirits, and that's a zombie. What exactly are you planning on eating?" The sea monster ignored me and jumped forward.
I responded with a fire ball. The sea monster let out a ungodly screeching noise in response to the fire licking at it. As it died the sounds of various other sea monsters was let out while the flames on the charred sea monster corpse died down. So he doesn't even bother to name his monsters so that they'll come back after they die? Well, I treat my sea monsters the same way but still. Right now I had to deal with the tied of more screeching sea beasts that were coming directly at me. Right then.
"Keep your zombie over there Graves. Well handle this." I positioned my slime in front of the door, and then followed that up with placing my strongest Wisp Blue between the slime and the door. The door swung open, and then the sea monsters on the other-side proceeded to burn, the booze going from my alcoholic abomination through my wisp and into the door way where the sea monsters started to scream.
[Giant Killer 2 5/5]
[Giant Killer 3 5/5]
[Giant Killer 4 5/5]
And so on, I had no idea what was on the other side of that door but I was glad I didn't have to deal with it, the number of Fish monsters that were poring into the hole was only getting bigger while the effects of giant killer kept going up. After a few moments Blue dropped, wrapped in a cocoon of my magic.
[One Possible Evolution]
[E Rank Monster Mitama-A human spirit separated from it's body by death and nurtured until it has achieved minor divine status]
Well I can't argue with Minor divine status. While Blue evolved I positioned another Wisp in front of my booze slime and resumed torching the enemy forces, The enemy was demonstrating a nasty habit of kamikazeing through the door way while on fire and getting eaten by my slime. Then a few more death's later it was my alcohol slime evolving alongside the Wisps this time around.
[D Rank Monster Fire Slime-A slime that has acquired a body of flammable liquid and has learned how to use it offensively]
Well that sounds promising.
[D Rank Monster Medical Slime-A slime that has acquired a body composed of medicinal liquid that can be used to heal its allies]
Is that because alcohol counts as medicinal liquid? Whatever I already have the eggs.
[D Rank Monster Greater Alcohol Slime-A alcohol slime that has foregone reproduction in favour of growing bigger, combines 10 normal slimes together]
And we have a weiner. I checked the Greater Slime option and watched as my boy grew bigger, in the mean time the fish were running away now, which only made sense since the boat was on fire now. For the time being I extinguished the flames using Ifrit's power of fire and moved on to the next part of the dungeon.
"You've caused quite the Ruckus!" The leader of the Sea Hags was bigger than the rest, his body composed of ripping muscles and he carried a rod in his hands.
"What is Leviathan planning?" I asked casually looking at the plus sized sea monster that was before me.
"Look at the ones below the ship fools! There is the answers you seek!" Well if you're going to be stubborn about it fine.
"Boozey. Blaze." My greater slime and my various wisps rolled into the boss chamber, Boozey puffed himself up and sprayed the contents of his body in ten different directions into ten different Wisps setting the entire room on fire, and the boss and his minions along with it. A few moments later the boss's body disappeared and recompiled into a staff while my will-owips dropped into evolution again, with giant slayer the way it is right now I could easily get over a hundred points from a single F Rank. I wish I thought of this weeks ago. I picked up the Staff from the Sea Hag.
[Tide Caller Staff-The Staff of the Legendary tide caller, it has been blessed by multiple gods of the sea and has immense water manipulating properties]
"Well that's useful." I had the Zombie and my monsters evacuate to the next boat and had the slime and the Wisps finish torching this boat. An ear piercing screech was released, using the Flight magic Charles taught me I took Ifrit's body outside and saw the source of the screaming, the ship's figure head.
[B Rank Monster Sacred Wooden Gargoyle-The Figurehead of a ship made in the image of the sea god Dagon possessing immense divine power and the ability to manipulate the waters around it]
That may not be good.
[You have angered the God of the Depths Dagon]
Yep definitely not good. But before I do anything else let's have a look at the waters below. With the power of the Tide caller it was a simple matter to create a pocket of air around my Ifrit and go down below the water to have a look at what lies beneath the fleet as that one monster eloquently put it. Three... masses for lack of better term one of stone, one of ice and one of coral had been attached to the fleet via several chains and were being dragged along the ocean floor being force to suck material inside, I watched part of one of the masses break off and something within me from the very depths of my core screamed in pain. Were those dungeons? Ripped out of the ground and being dragged along the bottom of the ocean floor? One of the creatures that had been circling around the dungeon dived down and grabbed the broken mass with it's mouth before carrying it back to the fleet, one of the ships, the largest one that looked to be made out of ice, ate it, before the creature that retrieved the broken piece returned to it's flock of sea monsters.
Oh. Oh is that what's going on here? Some of my emotions from old were coming back to me now, pain, albeit phantom pain, felt for the dungeons who were being blatantly tortured in this way, but also another one... Anger? Wrath? No... Rage. So that's what's going on then? With the Tide caller I drew upon all of the water in as wide a area as I possibly could and I commanded it to shrink down, compress itself in as tight of a mass as possible around me, then as easily as I would summon a ball of fire I had it freeze into a solid mass of blue coloured ice. This made room for more water to come into my effective radius, and join the rest in being crushed into a dense mass then frozen, this cycle repeated itself until all of the water in the area had been frozen solid, lodging out of the top several of Leviathan's ships and the dungeons that were being unwillingly dragged along the ocean floor.
"I hope you enjoy my ice path you over grown tugboat." I raised a single finger to tell Leviathan exactly what I thought about it. "Cause as soon as you get your butt over to my dungeon, I'm gonna have a far nastier surprise waiting for you."
While I pooled ice together the heat that had been sucked out of the water gathered above the water into a mass of fire before being brought down and torching several ships.
[Would you like to end the Raid? Yes/No]
[Yes]
With that I left Leviathan with the task of thawing himself out.