Chapter 1 Sand to Stone
It took me a while to stop digging, I’ll be honest. The people around here scared the shit out of me. But, well, this was my new life. Might as well live it.
And as I thought that, I saw the blue box, which instantly made my mind go,” Shit.”
Thank You!
Thank you for activating your Dungeon Core! You are the first dungeon in the world to have done so! As such, there is a friendly tutorial that will imprint all required knowledge into your mind so that you might be a better dungeon for the world. Will you accept the Tutorial?
(Yes/No)
Someone is clearly trying to fuck with me. I know that some parts of this are clearly just here to piss me off at this point. But you know what. Fuck it. I hit yes.
And once again, I black out. I’ve got to stop making a habit of doing stuff like that!
*****
Once again, when I awake, it’s like someone just pushed me through a grinder or something. My head feels like it was used as a pincushion and…. Actually that’s about everything, considering.
But I know so much more. It’s kind of weird as I just KNOW some things, yet I feel that there are certain things that tutorial taught me, but then locked away so I have to get to a certain point before I can use them.
Weird, like I said.
Anyway, with that in my mind, I push out my senses and figure out exactly where I am. Not the big stuff, like what continent I’m on or anything, just the generalities.
I’m about 300 meters below the oasis pool now, and I only stopped here because I actually hit rock. Sandstone to be specific.
It’s a pretty standard find really in the middle of a desert. But, carving out a few rooms and creating a floor of my new dungeon using the sandstone will be a lot easier than making sandstone out of the sand that is near me. So I get to work.
It’s kind of neat really how I do this. I’m actually eating down into the stone and carving out my rooms that way. And whatever stone is left over, gets stored into my “dungeon storage space”, which is like an interdimensional pocket that only answers to me. I can store anything I want into my pocket, and it’ll just sit there until I need it.
Convenient.
Anyway, I set to work. I’m not making my first floor huge, just about twelve rooms, and interconnecting hallways. Large enough that I’ll be able to have some monsters and such here, without worrying too much about overlapping.
Basically, the tutorial brought up what type of challenges are appropriate for which levels of a dungeon. In my case, the first floor is going to be a very basic challenge, just encouraging the adventurers to come in and practice actual combat, where they might die, but they should be able to kill their opponents.
Now I just need monsters and level one will be done.
Status, I think, as I don’t actually have a voice right now.
Name: ??? Class: Unassigned Level 1 Dungeon
Core Health: 10,000 HP Mana: 1,000 MP
HP Regen: 10/min Mana Regen: 1/min
Dungeon Regen: 100/hour Only applies to walls and furniture owned by the dungeon, within the dungeon.
Monsters: N/A
Well, that’s what I look like. I don’t even have a name. My name is…..you know what, never mind. Not only do I not remember my name, but I’m pretty sure it would be a pretty crappy name for a dungeon.
At least I can deal with the class thing, and possibly the monster one as well.
‘Assign Class,’ I think, and sure enough another blue box shows up.
Congratulations!
You have unlocked your first evolution, allowing you to become a real dungeon! To support your becoming a dungeon, and allow you to grow even more powerful, the following options are available to you.
Dungeon Type: Ruins
Ruin type dungeons seek to impersonate actual ruins, be they of settlements, past great works, or even castles and temples to the gods. The standard monsters that are earned with Ruin Type Dungeons are normally undead, goblins, or ratfolk.
Allows the Dungeon to create ancient style structures.
*WARNING*
This world is not yet old enough to actually have an ancient style for structures. Current Age of World: Stone Age
Dungeon Type: Wilds
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Wild type dungeons impersonate locations found in nature. They are unique in that they are quite likely to have many different types of environments, and many types of monsters as a result.
Allows the Dungeon to create different terrain types.
Dungeon Type: Mystic
This type of dungeon uses magic as it’s primary resource. Magical minions, and rewards, are easier to obtain. Mana Regeneration for the dungeon goes up while Health regeneration for the core goes down. The Dungeon is allowed to research it’s own spells and teach them to it’s minions.
Allows the Dungeon to create magical effects within itself.
Allows Dungeon to have alternate treasure resource: Library.
Switches regeneration rate for HP and Mana.
Dungeon Type: Graveyard
This is a sub type of the Mystic Dungeon. Instead of more standard magical minions, this sub type focuses entirely on the undead. A special room will be added, based on the current Age of the world.
Allows the Dungeon to have alternate creature spawn room: Ancient Tomb
So my four options right now. I know that the ruins and the graveyard style don’t actually intrigue me. I’ve never been fond of the undead, I mean zombie movies are cool, but definitely not my favorite. And having my dungeon look like ruins, when no one will appreciate that for a couple thousand years, no thanks!
Which leaves the Wilds and the Mystic. While the Wilds sound entertaining, I’ve always been one to read. Books were almost my lifeblood in my last life, and I don’t know what I would do without them in this one.
Congratulations!
You have chosen to become a Mystic Dungeon! You may now choose from a list of available creatures to have as your first minions! *WARNING* Certain creature types will evolve your dungeon into a sub dungeon style if picked.
Available creature types:
Angels
Beasts
Constructs
Demons
Elemental
Goblins
Undead
Hmmm. Seven Species to chose from huh? Well Goblins are out. While they can become pretty powerful, I don’t want my dungeon to become some kind of tribute to rings and halflings. Demons are also out, right along with Undead. In the case of Demons, I remember the stories from my world about them. They have a habit of misinterpreting what you want them to do, lying to you when they see it as convenient, plus the only way to get them to be truly loyal is to be constantly more powerful than them. And I don’t really want to have to deal with that.
That leaves me with Angels, Beasts, Constructs, and Elementals. I discard Beasts first, because while some of them can be cool, and I imagine that path would take me to getting things like Minotaurs and such, I remember the first person I saw on this world. A Lionman. So picking a dungeon that focuses on beasts just might not be a good idea.
Angels sound interesting, though the real problem there is if the Angels are here voluntarily or if they are being coerced or forced. If voluntary, then they’d be a powerful force to have. If forced, they might just find a way to kill me, or get a hold of whatever god they work for to kill me. Not good options.
Constructs sound safe, however I have a feeling that I would start with something very weak and have to discover how to make it better on my own. Though I suppose that’s true of every option on this list really. No, constructs would be a great late game changer, and I might pick it up when I reach Dungeon level five, but it’s not to be right now.
Elementals would be interesting as well. From what I remember of them, elementals are spirits of the world, taking some of their corresponding element to create a body for themselves. However, what stands out in my mind is that I’m in a desert. At an oasis of all things. A natural convergence of Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. Earth is the sand all around us, I might end up with Sand elementals, but whatever. Water from the oasis spring. I’m sure if I looked into it, there would be an underground river or something along those lines feeding that spring. Fire is from the heat of the desert, which does actually get quite hot. I’m around 300 meters below the surface and I can still feel the heat. And Air is a natural occurrence, at least above the desert, where the thermal drafts are constantly bringing warm air up and cooler air lower.
This is literally an elementals paradise.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You have chosen Elementals as your first dungeon species. With respect for your choice, especially due to your environment, you have been awarded twelve species of dungeon plants, three types of commonly used ore, and gain the bonus ability to create murals inside your dungeon!
Huh?
Wasn’t really expecting that. Oh well. I’ve got a sort of game plan, but now it’s time to get to work.
*****
First I pick one of my twelve rooms to be my library. I’m actually going with the odd tactic of putting my library in my core room. I’m hoping that by placing the treasury for my dungeon just past my core room, and my library in the same room with me, that adventurers will overlook me in the spirit of wanting treasure.
Granted, neither of my “treasure” rooms look like much currently. My library has no books, and my treasury has no gold, no weapons, actually, it’s pretty much just a room I decided was my treasury. Regardless, I do know what I can do, since I’m pretty far down and don’t actually need to connect my dungeon to the outside yet. That doesn’t become mandatory until the world has advanced to either the second age in both tech and magic, or the third age in just one of those.
I start really playing around with the design of the dungeon. I make the hallways between each room a maze, designed to confuse and help get new adventurers lost. I make it really simple though, if you put your hand on a wall, and follow it, it will take you either back to the entrance or towards where I am. Not too difficult, just don’t be dumb.
Honestly I think that should be the key phrase for the entire first floor. Granted I did do one sort of rude thing.
Traps.
I sprinkled traps all throughout the first floor, so much so that I’m reasonably certain anyone walking through here is going to very much hate me. But in reality I only placed four very basic style traps.
The first was a pit trap. This only worked, because I was supremely bored. I decided to ‘tile’ my dungeon from top to bottom. Which means that I have tiles on the ceiling, the walls are tiled, as well as the floor. I did my best to at least make sure that the tiles are fairly large, not going for kitchen tiles here! However my pit trap is just a twenty foot drop beneath some tiles that are about an inch in thickness, and liberally riddled with partial holes. Makes the tile weak enough that anything putting weight on it will shatter the tile.
My second trap is a spike trap. Similar in concept to my pit trap, however when someone steps in the area of the trap, it only drops that section by about a foot. Instead, out of the holes in the tiles will be a lot of sharpened earthen spikes. Might not kill someone directly, but it will definitely hurt. A lot.
Third trap is my first magic trap. When I became a Mystic Dungeon, I gained the ability to learn magic. It took me some time, but I finally figured out by studying the elementals how to do the very basic magic’s. Which includes my new fireball trap.
I set down a basic fire ward, which is essentially the fireball spell written down and turned into a circle, and presto! Instant trap. Which makes a lot of sense when you think about the fact that that’s all wards really are, magic traps.
I think I might need someone to talk to, I’m starting to go a little stir crazy down here. And it’s only been about a week since I got here. I think. I’ve slept seven times, how about that!
My last trap is my only completely non-lethal trap. I’m calling it the theft trap. After studying with the air elementals, and practicing quite a bit, I’ve got four hallway sections on the “outside” of the maze that have an air ward aimed through them. Basically a person enters the hallway, triggers the ward, and it will blow air at them REALLY fast. A strong enough wind, and they are losing items, as they can’t hold onto them. And then at the back of the room, the first tiles in this section of hallway flip, and my only “granted” spell, minor teleport, flips over and teleports anything on them directly to my treasury.
Pretty clever if I do say so myself. Just have to make sure to never use that on halflings, might get the Halfling along with everything else.
And now, to beautify this place!