“This is the one?” Aster asked, stretching. With a firm jaw and piercing blue eyes, he possessed a rugged handsomeness that suggested he had never been fully tamed by society. Chestnut hair flowed on the wind, still in full color and thickness in the later half of his twenties. A leather vest laid over a loose white shirt, and well-worn leather trousers tucked into equally well-worn boots. A broadsword and a sledgehammer hung at the ready over broad shoulders.
Two rocks slotted against one another, forming a natural entrance as tall as a man and about as wide. Within, darkness awaited. Glowing magical stones, set in metal brackets on the wall, marched off into the distance. This close to the surface, the dungeon should have been tame and quiet, but instead, strange creatures writhed, wriggled, and squirmed, casting strange shadows whenever they passed by the glowing stones.
His guide, an old man who lived in the nearby village, nodded. “This is the one. It’s been like this since the Aces conquered the dungeon.”
“The Aces?” Aster asked, cocking an eyebrow.
The old man nodded. “A local adventurer squad. They’re the highest-ranking adventurers around these parts.”
Shaking his head, Aster turned to the dungeon and cracked his knuckles. “It’s not unusual for a dungeon to become more powerful after it gets conquered, but monsters this strong should not be in the first room. I’ll see if I can figure out what’s driven all the monsters up this high in the dungeon.”
“Please. Our village relies on the dungeon for income. Without the dungeon, in this remote region… I’m afraid our village might collapse entirely,” the old man said, clasping his staff tightly. He turned to look at the village.
Under their feet, a jut of rock stuck out from the mountainside. Below it, a town nestled in a wooded valley between the rocky peaks. Tall pines intermixed with oaks and maples, the latter already turning vibrant reds and oranges. Idyllic, high-roofed houses peeked out from between the trees, puffing thin strands of woodsmoke into the clear fall air. Townsfolk passed along cobbled roads, long skirts and cloaks sweeping the floor. A few rowdy adventurers kicked around down the town, roughhousing in the empty fields just outside town. Their flashy weapons and the low-level magical auras on their gear stood out even from the outcropping Aster and the old man stood atop.
“A hundred years ago, it was no more than a small logging outpost. Then my grandfather found the dungeon, and…” The old man gestured, pulling his hands away from each other. “I’d hate to see it all fall apart again.”
“We won’t let it come to that,” Aster pledged.
The old man chuckled. “That’s why I called a seasoned adventurer like yourself, after all. I’ve heard you’re a bit of a Dungeon Keeper?”
Aster waved his hand. “Not yet. I’m still learning.”
“As long as you fix our dungeon, I don’t care what you call yourself. You’ll be a Dungeon Keeper to me,” the old man declared.
Clearing his throat awkwardly, Aster turned back to the dark gap in the mountainside. “Have any monsters escaped the dungeon?”
“Not yet,” the old man replied.
Aster nodded. He reached over his shoulder and drew a broadsword. Giving it a practiced spin to adjust his grip, he took a deep breath and spread his legs. His calves tensed, and he lifted up onto his toes.
The monsters turned, gathering toward the door. A massive centipede hissed, narrow eyes glowing as it reared up as tall as Aster. A huge rat stood on its tiptoes, baring its teeth. Behind those two, a strange, tentacled being wiggled, reaching for Aster.
Aster released his breath and blasted forward, shouldering aside the rat and centipede. The tentacled thing reached for him. Aster slashed. Two tentacles fell free, streaming purplish blood after them. The tentacled creature screeched and fell back, flailing in pain.
Three boss monsters in the first room? This dungeon is out of balance. It needs to be adjusted, desperately! Aster thought, shaking his head.
The rat snarled and scampered after him. Slower, the centipede curled on itself, maneuvering razor-sharp mandibles toward Aster. It struck its head on the narrow ceiling of the first room and recoiled, hissing in frustration.
Aster shook his head. The monsters can’t bring out their fullest potential. The dungeon is sabotaging itself. There must be something wrong. But what? Did the lower levels flood and drive the bosses out? Or did some asshole high-level adventurer camp out in their room and force them up? If it’s flooding or something similar, there’s not much I can do, but in a tiny outpost like this, I should be able to fight off any idiots who’ve decided to make the boss rooms their base.
A vicious cry sounded out behind him. Aster slammed his forefoot down and pivoted, striking upward. The rat’s eyes widened as the sword flew toward it, and then its expression turned slack. Head flying free, red blood streaming after it, the rat fell in two parts.
Aster spun again, fleeing toward the rear door. The centipede finally navigated its head around the top of the cave and hurtled after him, its many legs pattering over the stone floor. I’m not here to conquer the dungeon. I’m here to diagnose it and figure out what needs fixing.
I might not be a true Dungeon Keeper yet, but I’ll do my best!
Only the strongest of adventurers became Dungeon Keepers. The title applied to those who no longer delved dungeons, but plunged into them to resolve whatever difficulties they faced, to ensure long-lived, healthy dungeons that could continue to create mana-rich mineral and biological resources for many, many years. Everything from camping adventurers spawn-killing bosses, to greedy delvers mining the dungeons’ resources bare, to bandits turning dungeons into hideouts, even natural disasters forcing the rooms and monsters out of order, Dungeon Keepers resolved them all. Since they often dove deep into dungeons, breaking the dungeons' natural progression and charging past bosses, they had to be strong enough to bear the consequences of such rash actions. At the same time, they faced rogue adventurers and delvers alongside the natural traps, dangers, and monsters in the dungeons. Only S-class adventurers and above could apply to become Dungeon Keepers, and even then, they had to spend a great many years learning all the possible ways dungeons could break and how to fix them before the Guild would consider testing them.
Six in the whole country. I’ll be the seventh! Aster vowed, pushing himself faster.
Intense heat burned at him from ahead. He burst out of the passage onto a shallow ledge, a river of lava ahead of him. A few rocks poked their very tips above the lava, only just breaking the surface.
Unhesitatingly, Aster sheathed his sword and leaped down toward the lava. The centipede fell behind, hissing in anger as its prey escaped. Aster landed on a stone, only for his shoe to immediately sizzle. The scent of burning leather filled the air.
“Hot, hot!” Aster grumbled under his breath. He leaped from one stone to another, surefooted as a cat despite his muscular build. A steep cliff awaited him on the far side of the lava. Jumping off the final foothold, Aster tensed his fingers and dug them into the cliff face. His toes found tiny ledges. Refusing to look back, he hauled himself up the cliff.
Far too difficult for such an early trap. It’s as if the entire dungeon is overreacting to its first defeat. Everything from the monsters to the landscape has become much more dangerous. It can’t keep this intensity up. Something has to break.
He scrambled over the lip of the cliff and found himself gazing at a huge set of paws. Silvery claws reflected the lava’s glow. He gazed up, up, up. A pale underbelly gave way to shaggy white fur streaked with black. Cold blue eyes narrowed at him, and the tiger wrinkled its nose in distaste.
“Ah… haha…” Aster chuckled, sweat breaking out down his back.
The tiger growled and lifted a paw.
Aster heaved his legs over the edge and immediately threw himself into a roll. The tiger swept its paw at the edge of the cliff seconds later, knocking scraps of rock into the lava. The scraps slowly sunk, melting as they were subsumed by the lava.
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The tiger pivoted, leaping up to bare both paws for a claw attack. Aster drew his broadsword just in time to block. Sparks flew as the tiger’s claws met the sword.
“Ha!” Aster gloated. He backed toward the path ahead, glancing toward it out of the corner of his eye. Just a little further, and I can run past it! When a dungeon’s out of whack, it’s not good to kill too many of the boss monsters. It costs the dungeon too much mana to respawn them, and if the issue is a mana deficiency, I could run the dungeon dry without realizing it. I’m not trying to destroy this dungeon, but fix it!
The tiger pushed off his sword, sending Aster stumbling, and turned back. Aster ran for the path ahead. Before he could get there, the tiger let off a mighty roar. Sound waves crashed into Aster. His vision distorted, the world suddenly wobbly. Off-balance, he crashed into the wall.
Dammit! I let my guard down.
This must be a boss from deep in the dungeon! This powerful, and able to use secondary magical attacks… it’s not an upper-dungeon boss. Any low-level adventurer would struggle to survive, let alone pass it by.
Aster spun around, barely getting his sword up before the tiger clawed his neck. The tiger backed away again, circling around for another pass. It jumped up, slamming its shoulder into Aster’s sword. Aster’s arms trembled, struggling to hold out against the beast’s weight. I can’t take many more hits.
Turning about, the tiger rushed at Aster again, its blue eyes blazing.
I can’t hold back any longer!
Aster dropped his sword and drew the sledgehammer instead. He whirled it around. The tiger sped up, seeing an opening. With a roar, it leaped, claws spread wide.
Aster’s eyes flashed. There! While it’s in the air and can’t dodge! He slammed the hammer into the tiger’s head. The tiger fell back, letting out a pained yowl. It convulsed as it hit the floor, its claws trembling. Stumbling, it struggled back to its paws, but tripped over them and fell again, punch-drunk. It trembled again, then laid still, eyes rolling up.
“Phew, that was close,” Aster sighed, wiping his forehead. He slung the hammer over his shoulder and picked up his sword. His reflection appeared in the sword’s blade, and Aster shook his head at it. I know I shouldn’t resort to the hammer so easily, but I was originally a blacksmith’s son. I’ve held a hammer since I was big enough to stand upright. I can’t help but use it in a pinch!
He sheathed his sword as well. Rolling out his shoulders, he turned to the dungeon ahead of him. From here, it expanded. A dozen paths led in every direction. Dead ahead, a cavernous room opened in the stone, deep and wide enough to fit the entire town. The mounted glowing stones fell away, the dungeon too deep for humans to light its entirety. Instead, glowing mushrooms poking out of the floor lit the ground with a dim, green phosphorescence, while luminous crystals blossoming from the ceiling far above lit the space with pale blue light. At one time, crystals had burst from the floor and walls as well, but only the stubs remained. This early in the dungeon, all the valuable resources had long since been stripped away. Only the difficult to reach ones remained.
Aster crossed his arms, recalling the dungeon map he’d received earlier from the old man. In his mind’s eye, a twisting and branching map appeared, turning this way and that as it wandered through the mountains. The dungeon had only been discovered in the last hundred or so years, and very little of it had been fully explored. Most of the passages ended in question marks, the unexplored regions not marked on the map. According to the group who conquered the dungeon, the correct path is… this way!
Brandishing his sword, Aster charged into the open chamber. The shadows cloaking the ceiling peeled away, morphing into a swarm of bats. They charged at Aster, claws bared, screeching at the top of their lungs.
Whirling his sword, Aster slapped them with its broadside and knocked them out of the air. They flopped to the ground, stunned but not dead. Quickly, they piled up around him. He stepped carefully over their downed bodies, careful not to kill any of the stunned bats. Hmm, too many bats are attacking at once. The swarm ought to be smaller. If they attack like this, they’ll have a better chance of killing low-level explorers, but the dungeon will quickly run out of bats and mana this way, too! After all, I could kill the entire swarm in one fell swoop, and then where would the dungeon be?
Although there are some signs of mana deficiency, it’s in the early stages, at worst. I’m seeing no sign of human intervention, either. Is it some kind of natural disaster that’s overtaken this dungeon, then? Aster wondered. High-stepping over the last of the downed bats, he charged on, dodging his way past the rest of the mobs in the chamber. At least the boss rush is over. Maybe it’ll get easier from here on out!
At the end of the chamber, a rain of translucent blue slimes fell from the ceiling. Before Aster’s eyes, they glommed together. The rain formed a slimy puddle, and that puddle began to grow upward.
Me and my big mouth! I can’t kill a King Slime without magic. Fuck!
Aster sped up, racing toward them at top speed. The slimes grew and grew, the pile of slimes as tall as his waist, then his shoulders. Aster sheathed his sword and kept running. The slime coagulated at a chokepoint in the chamber. There, the chamber narrowed, its walls and ceiling both closing in as it narrowed back to a tunnel through the earth. The slime’s growing body slowly blocked up the narrow pass that led out of the chamber. Only a small gap at the very top of the rock remained, and even that quickly vanished. As Aster sprinted, it diminished from his height to half his height, then barely a foot across.
The words of his mentor sounded in his ear. For a moment, Aster again stood in that grassy field, facing the scarred woman who’d taught him everything he knew. The sunlight beamed down, hiding her face, but he could see her shadow shake its head. “Without mana, you’re going to have a hard time running dungeons solo, Aster. You should group up, find a party. Aim to be a top adventurer.”
“No! I’m going to be a Dungeon Keeper,” Aster insisted, fists clenching. He glared up at her. “I won’t let you stop me!”
She chuckled, and remembering it, the adult Aster chuckled as well. I was a hell of a kid.
“If that’s what you’ve decided, then so be it. I won’t stop you.” His mentor strode forward. She dropped a translucent bundle before him. “Once you’ve beaten a dozen of these, come find me.”
“What is that?” Aster asked, stepping forward. He poked it. His finger pushed into its body like jelly, only for the body to repel his finger back at him.
“A Magic Slime. Do you know why it’s called that?” she asked.
Aster shook his head.
“Because it can only be injured by magic.”
Confused, Aster frowned at her. “But I don’t have magic. That isn’t fair.”
His mentor grinned, baring her sharp incisors. “Dungeons aren’t fair, kid.” Reaching into her bag, she dropped another handful of the slimes. “Beat those, and let me know what you think about solo adventuring afterward!”
In his memory, the slimes wobbled closer, over knee height to the ten-year-old him. He swallowed, his fists clenching harder. If she says there’s a way to beat them, there must be a way. I won’t give up!
The slimes jiggled. One heaved up, suddenly growing as tall as him. He stared up at it.
It reared back and smashed its top into his gut. He went rolling.
His mentor laughed. “Going to let them beat themselves to death on your body?”
“No!” Scowling, he hopped to his feet just as another slime attacked. He stumbled sideways, off-balance, but didn’t fall this time. Instead, he turned and ran.
His mentor put her hand on her chin. “Well, I guess running is a good idea when you meet an enemy you can’t beat.”
“I’m going to beat them!” Aster insisted.
“Not without a weapon, you won’t,” she replied, amused.
One of the slimes closed in on him, faster than the rest. Aster planted his feet and kicked it. The slime flew merrily into the distance and cleared a fence, bouncing to a halt in a grassy pasture. Undamaged, it bounced back up to its usual size and shape and began to squelch along through the grass. The cows wandered over, curious about this new interloper, and the slime hurried enthusiastically in their direction.
Whistling, his mentor shaded her eyes with her hand. “That’s Farmer Niam’s land, isn’t it? Slimes love beef. You’re paying if they eat a cow.”
Aster whipped around. “But you’re the one who caught them. That’s not—”
“What did I tell you? Dungeons aren’t fair,” she replied, tutting.
Aster glared at her for another moment, then ran off. He scrambled over the fence, narrowly avoiding a cow pie as he hopped down on the other side. Pausing, he took in the pasture. My boots aren’t enough to hurt it. I need a weapon.
An uneven, reddish shape mounted on a pole in the middle of the pasture caught his eye. Aster sprinted toward it and kicked it, breaking the pole. He caught it as it dropped, hefting the two-or-so feet of pole and the footlong salt lick at its end. Gross. It’s all wet from cow slobber.
Across the field, the kicked slime closed in on the cows. His mentor shook her head. “It’s getting close. Cows are pretty expensive, you know that, right, kid?”
“I know!” Aster snapped, annoyed. He charged after the wayward slime, raising the salt lick high.
The nearest cow lowered its head to sniff the slime. The slime surged upward, forming a concave shape as it prepared to engulf the cow. Aster sped across the field, kicking up grass in his wake.
“Take this!” he howled, smashing the solid block of salt down on the slime.
Back in the cave, the King Slime closed off the path ahead. Its gelatinous body completely plugged the hole in the chamber. It opened its mouth toward him, and two lumpy tendrils reached out, trying to grab him and stuff him inside.
Aster grit his teeth. I learned a valuable lesson that day. One I won’t forget!
He reached into his bag and drew out a fistful of salt, throwing it at the King Slime. The King Slime let out a pitiful screech. Its body gurgled, wriggling in and out as the slimes that made it up fled the salt. At last, it burst into a hundred smaller slimes, each of them fleeing the salty pile of gunk on the floor.
Grinning, Aster slalomed through the slimes. They ignored him, too afraid of the salt to attack. He leaped the gunk and charged deeper into the dungeon, leaving the chamber behind him.
In his memory, the slime retracted, crumbling under the salt lick, then began to dissolve as the salt ate into it. The cows retreated, lowing and grumbling. Aster braced his hands on his knees, panting, then turned to his mentor with a triumphant grin.
She turned away, shaking her head.
Back in the cave, Aster beamed. That day, I learned that slimes hate salt!
Just because most people think you have to use magic, doesn’t mean it’s the only way to get past the obstacle! It might be expensive, or take some creative thinking, but there’s always another way!
He raced on, vanishing deeper into the dungeon. No matter what, I won’t give up. I’m going to become a Dungeon Keeper one way or another.
Then maybe I can see her again…