The rain of cepheloshark bits brought with it a major influx of mana. Not as much as Prime had dealt with when the human died in her dungeon, but still enough that she began making her third floor just to have something to build.
With the notice that she needed a core defender’s room and a core room before she would be forced to move down her floors, Prime made a single, giant room, populated with cobbled streets and a plethora of buildings. She built out a space about 20 meters square and 4 meters tall before the mana calmed enough for her to pay attention to her above decks again, which was only about ten times the core’s reservoir in mana cost. It was going to take a while to build out the third floor.
The sailors the cepheloshark immobilized had been moved into the ship’s surgery and were being tended to. The ones it had grappled bore sucker bruises and prickle marks where its envenomed splinters had broken off in the sailors. The one that had been trapped under the monster had suffered crushed bones that were being set.
Able bodies sailors, under the direction of the ship’s Cook, dismantled the larger surviving pieces of the cepheloshark, but most of it had been rendered into a slimey gore the lower leveled sailors were now washing off the decks. Some of that gore slime fell down the bilge traps, but most went nicely overboard. Ultimately, not enough monster bits made it to Prime for her to get the creature’s pattern.
By the time dawn broke over her railings, the only evidence of the cepheloshark’s attack were the recovering sailors, a fishy stew, and a handful of the cepheloshark’s toxic barbs sitting in Ship’s Stores.
----------------------------------------
A’Ferun used the excuse of the creature’s attack to delay the morning delve by a few hours. Rupear Big Nose took that time to go over a few more last minute adjustments to his delving team. For one, he had all the slaves swap out cutlasses for hooked spears, though he and his hirelings kept the cutlasses.
The same slaves from the failed first delve were present for the second. Of the original hirelings, the one who had challenged him was understandably absent. Big Nose took it upon himself to handle the scouts, and the hireling managing the muskin had been changed out. The hireling who had died was not replaced, nor were new slaves brought in for this delve, so the hireling who had lost the first selkie and the second human while trying to get the original brawler’s handler away from the dire snake was also not needed. At six slaves and three handlers, it was still a crowded delving party.
When they did meet up, it was mid morning. Just before entering, Big Nose told the scouts, “Go left. There were four doors and only one key to start with, yeah?” The scout slaves nodded. “We’ll see if it’s a choosing puzzle — and if it is, we go left. If we have to to through all the branches first, we’ll do that, but the goal is to map as much as we can.”
Then he sent the scouts in first, again, but instead of Big Nose as their controller following on their heels, he sent the two remaining selkies in as the new brawlers, and then their handler. Then Big Nose entered, followed the muskins’ handler, with the two muskin at the rear of the slavers’ party. A’Ferun and Kinser trailed again, to ensure the slavers did not harm N’kieran.
Shadow rats in the left hand hallway ambushed the controllers and targeted magical equipment. That meant the control rings, but also a few charms the controllers wore. The rings weren’t easy pickings, but Big Nose lost a pendant of protection and the muskins’ handler had a good luck braclet stolen. The smaller muskin’s pen was snatched, too, but by then the brawlers and the scout slaves were making solid progress on killing off the first wave of the rat swarm.
In the chaos of the rats’ ambush, the pit trap in the tunnel activated underneath the muskin’s handler. He dropped a meter into the water, and the bonefish in the bottom of the trap tried a crocodilian move, rolling him under to slam into the shock trap on the floor of the pit.
The handler floated to the surface, despite the bonefish’s best efforts to drown him. When the floating proved too much to overcome, it chomped off the man’s fingers with the control rings and got a chunk of the man’s neck as the fish went for the pendant he was wearing. Then it turned to the soft parts of the man.
Kinser was delayed in helping the man. He had to shove the muskin to the side of the hall as the controls in the slave seals incapacitated them while their controller was being attacked. A’Ferun reached over Kinser, hooking the bonefish and dragging it out of the pit. Kinser put a dagger through the hooked bonefish’s eye, killing it, and then reached into the pit to try to pull the muskin’s controller up and out.
Big Nose swatted away one of the rats attacking him, turning enough to see behind him, and froze in shock. “What the fuck!?” he screeched.
“Delayed trap,” Kinser grunted, not quite managing to get a grip on the muskins’ controller.
A’Ferun ordered, “Up and switch. I have longer arms.”
Kinser returned to his feet and took the hooked spear, now free of the dissapating bonefish corpse. A’Ferun caught hold of the man’s shirt and turned that into a hold on his arm, hauling him up onto the untrapped decking, but the man was beyond help at that point, the blood leaking from the wound on his neck.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
The enslaved scouts and brawlers had moved into the first encounter room to clear the rat swarm. The brawlers’ handler went with them. They were making significant progress, if only because the rats seemed more interested in getting at Big Nose than fighting the foe in front of them.
Kinser glanced between the rat swarm and the dead handler, and remarked, “It looks like the dungeon monsters are drawn to magical gear.”
“It does look like that, doesn’t it?” A’Ferun agreed. “We’ll let the scholars know about this.”
“Did you just let my man die?” Big Nose growled more than asked, his face pale and eyes dilated wide with shock.
A’Ferun glared at Big Nose. “Don’t blame your incompetence on me. This is the reason I warned you not to show up if you weren’t ready, and now you’re in the thick of it. Are you ready to turn back now?”
Big Nose flushed and the aggression roused by the fight turned to mulish obstinacy. He produced a brassy rod from somewhere about his person and aimed it at the two muskin, starting with the healer. After a moment, the daze from her handler’s death cleared up.
“If he’s still alive, fix him up as best you can, but spare some healing,” Big Nose ordered, gesturing to the felled hireling. Then he targeted the smaller muskin.
The healer moved to the corpse and began triaging. She soon sat back on her heels, head bowed. “Master, he’s dead. I have no revivification spells.”
Big Nose made an inarticulate rage noise, then said, “Leave him then.”
The fight in the room was drawing to a close. Big Nose ordered the muskin to follow him and went in to help stomp on some rats. The muskin had no trouble leaping over the pit.
Kinser pocketed the mana stone the bonefish left behind as he and A’Ferun followed.
----------------------------------------
The mana from the slaver’s death fueled expanding the third floor to an open half acre with five meters of head room. That was about four times the mana Prime got from the cepheloshark. It was going to take a really long time to build up her floors, but Prime figured that was fine.
She intended for the third floor to be a full sized city and she had a rough idea of the city plan she intended to follow. For one, the main thoroughfares would spiral in toward a central keep, where she would house their core while she set about building up her fourth floor. There would be alleyways providing faster — and more ambush ready — pathways to the main keep, but navigating them would be as problematic as navigating through any large city’s back streets.
She presently envisioned three city walls with a partial fourth wall. The area between the third and fourth walls would provide space for farming and raising cattle to support her city’s residents. The gateway to the second floor, her imitation docks, would be set in the third wall, and when she was ready to connect the fourth floor, that gate would be across the city.
If any of the slaves she freed wanted to remain as dwellers in her dungeon, she figured the city would be a good place for them, when it was built. Otherwise, she would fill it with her ratlings and lesser naga, and any other defenders who would enjoy life in a more urban setting.
Scale-wise, she intended to make the city at least a square kilometer with another square kilometer for the fields. She wanted the ground layer at least 20 meters deep to allow for cellars and basements and sewers, and a sky at least 70 meters tall for those with some flight spells to enjoy themselves. With there being a little under 250 acres to each square kilometer, and the way her Construct costs were figured, Prime estimated if she wanted to see it built this century, she needed to level up. A lot.
----------------------------------------
With the first encounter room cleared, Big Nose had the scouts open the loot chest that appeared, then made the small muskin carry the coin bag and the mana stones from the chest.
“Search the room. Look for hidden doors,” he ordered, keeping a sly eye on A’Ferun and Kinser.
They just watched on, impassive.
The lupikin found the secret alcove, but he failed to spot the trap guarding it. Icy electricity scorched the air as he opened the door, and the lupikin fell back, twitching from shock, frost stiffening his beard. The control ring on Big Nose’s left thumb broke.
“Damn it!” the merchant growled. Then he sent the felikin in to explore the hidden alcove. “Carefully!”
The felikin cautiously opened the hidden chest growing out of the floor planks, and passed over the handful of bronze coins and three more mana stones it contained. The wealth was not worth the sale price of the slave just lost.
“That’s two down. How many more will you lose to this foolishness?” A’Ferun challenged.
Big Nose just shot him a glare. He ordered the felikin, “Open the puzzle door. We have more rooms to map.”
The icon image on this door depicted the Lord of Luck, a challenging smirk daring the onlookers to gamble with the capricious deity.
“Go on!” Big Nose snapped, and the felikin, his tail fully fluffed to bristling, reluctantly made his way forward, through the illusion.
The selkie brawlers kissed their knuckles in salute to the luck god as they followed, with their handler making the same reverent sign. Then Big Nose led the muskin forward.
It gave Big Nose a great view as the pit trap in this hall responded to the remaining bit of magical gear the hireling wore, a charm against plagues, and dumped him into another water trap with another bonefish guardian.
Big Nose managed to grab hold of his hireling, shouting to the remaining scout, “Get back here!”, but the hireling’s shock triggered the safeguards that immobilized the two brawlers. The felikin had to squeeze by the selkies, which gave the shadow kraits waiting in their hidden corners time to strike.
One bit through the merchant’s leather pants while another caught him in the back of his arm. A third bit the hireling even as the bonefish in the trap made a lunging leap and took out a chuck of the hireling’s thigh.
Big Nose screamed and released his hireling to flail at the snake latched onto his arm.
The hireling’s head bounced off the edge of the pit trap before he splashed into the water, dragged under by the bonefish.
The felikin dropped to his knees as the kraits’ venom took effect, and Big Nose toppled over, unconscious.
The two muskin huddled together, unable to retreat.
A’Ferun and Kinser took up a defensive stance, but the snakes released their bites on Big Nose and retreated, and the bonefish never resurfaced.
When Kinser moved to check on Big Nose, a scuffing sound drew the delvers’ attention to the as yet unentered next room.
A ratling, one at least very similar to, if not the same as, the ratling that had spoken for his light before slowly came around the corner.
“Ah-live, that one.” It pointed to Big Nose. “You take.” It gestured to the slaves. “We take. Say-cond flur. Safe.” Without seeming to hurry, it was right next to Big Nose, stooping to take the control rod the merchant had slipped back into his pocket. It pointed the rod at the muskin. “You come. Be safe.”