“Son of a bitch! Don’t gods know how to do proper parting comments?! I didn’t even get to say goodbye to the big guy.” Sighing Marcus begins to observe his new surroundings. “Well, there’s a lot of dark lights are definitely first on the list.” Scanning the modest cubic room eventually Marcus’ *eyes* land on a lone figure sitting in the corner of the room. Further observation revealed a feminine figure draped in a modest blue robe, the figure looked up at Marcus her soft facial features cut by bright hazel eyes and her face framed with black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.
“Ah! Finally, the dungeon’s soul has arrived in its vessel. About time too, I was about to just leave back to the Consortium saying that it was a dud.” The figure nodded while noting aloud. “So to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking to, First Human Dungeon?”
“Whuh? How did you even know that? How did you even know I’d be here? I’m so very confused. Well, I suppose answers can wait for after pleasantries; I am Marcus Vitruvius or at least I was in life. Architect, Adventurer, and former nobleman, how might I address you fair la-gack…” His attempt at introduction cut just short by his new *body* being lifted suddenly from the ground.
“Fascinating! It truly is a dungeon with the soul of a human! This goes against everything the consortium has on the lives and deaths of Dungeon Cores.” She continues to manipulate the *body* of Marcus looking for something. It truly seems to be…
“For the love of the gods can you please, please put me down, I feel like I’m going to hurl if that's even possible as whatever the hells I am now.”
“Oop! Sorry, I just get so excited when the thought of being able to document new knowledge arises.” Placing him down gently she takes a few steps back before bowing “Livia, Magus of the God’s Consortium at your service Marcus. My apologies for not introducing myself when I had already been given the courtesy.”
“That’s just fine madam but for the love of the gods above please never pick me up again without my permission. It’s not pleasant in the slightest even if its an attractive woman such as yourself picking me up.” Chuckling at his poor excuse for a joke he moves on. “Well, Livia what is it you are here to do per say? I don’t remember getting offered any beautiful women after I died so your being here is a tad… off-putting.”
“Well, as a magus of the Consortium we are often given tasks by the gods…”
“I’m going to interrupt you there, a Magus following the wills of the gods? That makes very little sense based on what I knew of them.”
“Mr.Marcus there are a great many types of Magus, not all of them hate the gods. In addition, the terms that the Consortium offers are quite, extravagant. Access to Godly knowledge of the world chief among them and more than a few Magus are more than willing to trade a few decades of servitude for immense knowledge.” Pausing for breath she ponders for a moment before continuing. “ Dealing with the safety and teaching of Dungeons is among the tasks delegated to Consortium Magus’.”
“And how pray-tell am I supposed to trust a Magus who for all I know could simply choose to dominate my soul and do whatever they want with it?” he replies whilst eying her suspiciously
“All I can say to allay that worry is that the last few people who did that in the long history of the Consortium were all smote by the gods and their souls put on display in the Consortium’s headquarters eternally tortured for all to see. I personally do not want to be added to that number.”
“I suppose that will have to suffice. Now then, on to how to actually do this thing, how do I actually do what a Dungeon should do? I suppose as my adviser you should be able to at least tell me that eh?”
“Well normally you would connect to the dungeon system by nature, but seeing your special nature the gods foresaw that you might have a problem connecting so let me just use this scroll on you and you should be good to go.” Livia opens the scroll and inputs some of her own mana. As she does the scrolls ink burns brightly eventually consuming the scroll. The remaining magic circle floats over to Marcus’ *body* before rapidly beginning to rotate.
Beginning Awakening Process…
Process Complete.
Welcome Marcus, to the Dungeon System.
“Well that's certainly interesting…” pondering a moment Marcus then calls out “Livia I’ll probably be a bit I need to figure this system out please forgive me if I ignore you for a bit”
Main Menu
>Achievement Points: Check Achievements
Mana 100/2000
Mana Regen 100/Day
Achievements
Achievement Shop
Construction
Dungeon Fauna
Dungeon Flora
Congratulations on the Following Achievements!
First Human Dungeon - Gain 100 AP
Accessing the System (you managed something a dungeon does automatically, way to lag behind)
Main Menu
Achievement Points:100
Mana 100/2000
Mana Regen 100/Day
Achievements
Achievement Shop
Construction
Dungeon Fauna
Dungeon Flora
“Livia, what do you think I should do first? I've got a lot of options here and honestly while I have ideas I don’t know what’s best to do with my time.”
“A few new rooms would probably be a good start I suppose?”
“I’ll see what I can make”
Accessing Construction…
Stolen novel; please report.
Godly Override detected.
Allowing access to the following functions for dungeon Marcus.
Room Resizing, Basic Carving, Instancing.
Construction:
Basic “Room” 50 mana: a 3x3x3m room supplies 5 Mana/Day
Basic Hallway 10 Mana: A hallway 1.5m wide and 3m tall. Extends as far as needed to connect two rooms. Does not supply Mana.
Room of Elements: a room designed to house Elementals, can be upgraded to be more attractive to certain Elementals.
New Floor 1000 Mana: Gives access to a new floor.
Other room types currently locked.
Functions:
Room Resizing: Can add “rooms” together to make larger singular rooms (Combined rooms add to mana regen as if separate). Also allows for making a normal room into smaller non-standard sizes.
Basic Carving: Allows for the carving of the room and objects in the room to the Dungeons preference. Purely Aesthetic.
Instancing: Allows the dungeon to make multiple separate “Copies” that exist within the same space, allowing the dungeon to split up separate parties or people challenging the dungeon.
Livia was sitting down in the corner watching the Dungeon now known as Marcus flash dimly when a rumbling caught her attention. “Gods above Marcus what did you do?!” She could almost swear that in the dimly shining orb that sat on its pedestal there was a grin.
“Making a room like you asked my dear lady. What else would I be doing?” grinning to himself he continued. “However, I’ve noticed I don't really have an abundance of mana floating around to make the changes I want. How unfortunate.”
“Wait, you just use mana? That’s it? That’s underwhelming.”
“I thought similarly, but the system itself is rather interesting. A thought based interface that spends mana to create things, how novel. Well Livia, unless you have a better way for me to get mana I believe we are stuck here until tomorrow. As that’s when I will have the mana to connect my new rooms and build others.”
“Here, have some mana stones they should give you enough to get all of that done.” Livia offered out a bluish stone that glowed.
Marcus stared at the stones before speaking “How, exactly am I supposed to pick them up or use them for that matter?”
“You should be able to exert your will on most things in your dungeon to move them, and placing them on your body should absorb them.” She added on after, “I think.”
Marcus stared again at the stones and attempted to visualize them floating into his *body*. Sure enough, after a moment, the stones floated into him and he got a notification.
Mana Stone detected. Absorbing. New Mana value 1500/2000.
“Yes, that seems to have worked quite well thank you, Livia. Now then let me make a few adjustments and then we can discuss a few things.” Quickly Marcus began to open menus and buying rooms before lining them up straight and adding doors between the 10 rooms. Marcus appreciated his new mana regen total of 150/day before observing that he had an extra room beside the one he resided in. “Livia, what is this other room that I had before I made the others?”
“Ah, so you finally noticed the Elements room! That's a room that allows for the calling of various elementals, it’s extremely important in establishing a dungeon ecosystem!” Livia answered
“That will suffice as an answer for now as it only raises more questions. As such, let's ask you some questions. Specifically, do you know how I should be building my dungeon?”
“Well, Marcus that will depend on what you want to do, I am not allowed to influence your decisions. I can only help guide you to your intended goal, and even then I cannot claim to know everything about dungeons.”
“I have an idea, I simply don't know if it's feasible. What does the territory outside of my dungeon look?”
“You are in the largest mountain at the middle of a roughly U shaped mountain chain there is a fertile valley in the U. Outside of that there was very little of note that I saw on my way here.” Livia professionally replied.
“Wait if I'm IN the mountain how did you get here?” Marcus asked bewilderedly
“Teleportation magic. I knew where you were but I had to get close enough to actually teleport myself into the mountain. Then I waited here until you woke up.” Livia shrugged as if what she had done was at all simple.
“I’m just going to go along with that then. Livia, what if I told you my idea was to make two kingdoms? One outside of the “dungeon” and one inside of the dungeon.”
“I would ask exactly what you mean Marcus by outside of the dungeon” Livia responded
“Well in order to make sure that it’ll work I need to know something. If things die in the dungeon do I get something from that?” Marcus asked
“Yes, I wasn't exactly sure what you would get but seeing as you use mana it would be likely that you get some amount of mana when things die inside of you,” Livia answered clearly
“Then what if I build two cities, one inside of my dungeon lived in by creatures of the dungeon. Sentient creatures that I know exist having explored more than my fair share of dungeons in the past.” Marcus paused, “and a city outside of the “dungeon” in the valley. Still under my control but perfectly safe from any intrusion of monsters from the dungeon.”
Livia’s face lit up in understanding. “Basically, a City for humans, and a city of Dungeon Monsters! The natural deaths would still feed you no matter what! How devious, and scarily intelligent for someone who just became a dungeon.”
“I mean, I was an architect building things is in my nature, but to do this I need to know more about how dungeons work. If you could Livia please explain as much as you can.”
For the following few hours, Livia explained to Marcus about dungeon ecosystems. How he would need to build a functioning food chain, the use of elementals in keeping water flowing, earth fertile, air breathable, and even keeping the area warm. She omitted anything related to building, figuring the architect would be more than capable at that. In addition, she explained how mana flows in such a way that as predators eat more of their prey they build up mana, eventually leading to the potential for evolution.
“So, from what I am gathering from your explanations. I COULD do what I want, but I would need to build up a working ecosystem first. Well, that certainly makes sense a city without water will not remain a city for long after all. So I need to work on my first few floors making a functioning ecosystem then work on getting bigger and stronger creatures so that my later internal dungeon city will have food, then I can establish the city and its residents, yes?”
“That sounds about right, but you will need sentient creatures earlier than you could likely establish that city, as they can help you with various tasks that you yourself cannot do Marcus.”
“I see, that probably has something to do with those locked rooms huh?” Marcus asked no one in particular. “Well, first of all, I need to get the ecosystem going so let's do this!”
“1100 mana huh.” Marcus checked his mana in the menu. “Well, let's see what options I have in these other menus gah!” Marcus mentally recoiled after opening the Dungeon Flora tab “By the gods that's a lot of things!” Marcus tried to read through them but found they never ended. “Any suggestions Livia?”
“I’ve heard many dungeons start with a few moss types, some insects to eat the moss, and a few animals that eat those insects. With your mana levels, you might even be able to find predators for those.”
“Well, let's see if we can sort this menu or something.” Marcus tries a few mental tricks before “Haha! Success! I can sort it now, now then let's get down to business.” Soon after several patches of moss appeared in all of the rooms. “Hmmm, it seems a decent sized patch of moss costs 1 mana, that's fairly low. Let's see if there aren't some better types of moss or even grass we could put down.” Searching for a moment he finds a moss that uses its mana to glow dimly, and a grass called whistlegrass after the sound it makes when a breeze passes it. Purchasing both and placing them down he notes they cost 10 mana a patch.
“Hm that's 100 mana spent, let's buy some bugs now.” soon the cacophonous sound of insects populated the dungeon, all sorts of varieties of grasshopper, ant, cicada, and others popped into the dungeon. “Wow, that was very cheap mana wise, 10 mana for all of those. I suppose it makes sense though as each insect has very little mana and it takes many to feed even a single creature.”
Next Marcus bought some bats, a few flightless birds, and 2 Anteaters. “Wow, the prices go up steeply for the animals, the bats were 5 mana each, the birds 10, and the Anteaters a whopping 100 a piece! At least the anteaters might be a bit dangerous in the right situation.”
“Time to finish up Livia looks tired and I don’t want to do something too experimental without consulting her first.” looking over to Livia “Livia, is the core room completely safe from monsters?”
“It should be, I've heard that any dungeon creature can’t enter the Core room without the Core’s explicit approval. The only reason I'm here is that I was here before you got here or even I would have to ask for access.” Livia replied succinctly "Although if I was hostile I'd have to fight my way through the dungeon if I did the gods would likely smite me though," she added.
“Mmm, then it should be safe to add a low-level monster to prey on the birds, and bats.” So he added the most common monster he could think of, the Lynxus. A Large feral cat creature that preyed on almost anything smaller than it. As an afterthought, he also added in some common mice types to round things out. Quickly the Lynxus went to work catching a few of the birds before pawing off into one of the rooms it quickly claimed as its own.
“Yes, I do believe that should do for the day, good night Livia.”
“Good night Marcus” and she quickly to sleep in the sitting position he had found her in.