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Chapter 6; Expansionism

Chapter 6; Expansionism

> The [Memoire of the old gods], as the inspiration for this book's title, shall obviously be the first to be stated.

>

> It is a dagger lacking a guard with a blade of 24 cm in length along with a hilt of 14 cm, with 10 cm of that space being taken for the grip. It's blade holds a special pattern of obsidian much alike to damascus steel, with golden runes that constantly shift, distort, and flow, obscuring the material underneath. It's handle is made of a dark grey material that looks akin to wood, though it is uncertain whether it was truly as such.

>

> As something forged by the mad god, it is naturally highly compatible with the combination of myriad elements. But unlike any weapon randomly forged by the mad god, the [Memoire of the old gods] is a [Remnant], something left behind by the mad god when he realized that the end was near, infused by his essence and abilities. No regular dagger would be able to hold his true power.

>

> [Memoire of the old gods] was just a dagger made by a mortal, but it held a greater purpose, enchanted and forged to be able to contain and use the authority and essence of the divine. As one might guess, it holds the ability to use the divine authority of the slain gods with the user's abilities as the basis for their manifestation, their potency depending on the wielder.

>

> Though it seems to have once been called; the 'Graveyard of the gods'

Excerpt from 'Memoire of old gods' Written by an anonymous character going by the name 'Demnos'

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Falc mused silently all of his findings 'Okay, so from the entrance to the first room there's a stairway that is angled to precisely 45 which holds a length of 10 meters both horizontally and vertically, after which there is a half-circle room with a diameter of 7 meter in total.

After which there is a reiteration of the first stairway but this time 5 meters down.

After which there is a 2 meter tall cubic room that's 5 meters long between the two surfaces from which you enter and you leave the room, and 3 meters on the other axis.

Then another 5 meter stairway and then another room alike to the 2nd but 3 meters tall this time.

Then a 10 meter stairway to the next room which is another half circle but stretched in the longitude between the entrance and the 'Exit' in order to obscure the hidden tunnel.

From there the fake path goes on with straight, smooth stone walls and floors that curve by 90 degrees in total per hallway with a room that's 3 meters tall, 4 meters wide, and 6 meters long. the pattern repeating 4 times in total.

The tunnel hidden behind the hooking entrance of the 4th room, after entering will expand slightly reaching full hallway size after 7 continuous meters of movement, after which it will curve downward, and right till a full 90 degree turn on the horizontal axis has been achieved. It, in total goes down 7 meters and has a length of 26 meters.

From that there's an entrance to the 5th room, colloquially termed 'The slime plains', which is a 12 meter high, 210 meter wide and 270 meter long room filled to the brim with slimes.'

He kept this recorded in the back of his mind, then he started to plan out a complete renovation. It was too... Normal. Too... Straight forwards. He wanted to confuse the sentients and waste their time, not give them a slight misdirect.

He was certain he couldn't replace the slime plains due to it's size, but everything else could quickly morphed into something... A little bit more favourable.

He could replace the entrance as many times as he wish- And he was sure to do so, just to mess with the people currently hiding within his domain.

Falc was certain of one thing, he wanted a more confusing navigation issue, not just easy to follow corridors, a straight up labyrinthian nightmare.

But there was one slight problem; To make said labyrinthian nightmare, he'd need a lot of space and time. Luckily he had all the space he needed, there not being countless sentient mines in the area- He had searched for them in the area he needed- But there was a serious issue; He couldn't let sentients make maps of his labyrinth, what would the use of it be otherwise? So there was an obvious conclusion; 'The pathways have to shift and morph constantly.'

For now he just had to carve out the base version that he had in mind right now, then use that so that he didn't have to excavate an entire new floor whenever he needed to pause sentients- Just close a few walls, cave in a few pathways, bend entrances, morph rooms, twist tunnels, ect. So much quicker than making a new floor or something.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

But that Scheme of his would take far to long to implement, taking into consideration people were still trying to find out where his core was.

He really just needed something quick, something simple, something he could set up in a minute or two.

Then it snapped into place; At middle of the slime plains he would make a 3 by 3 square hole as the entrance to a gigantic stairway, even the steps being massive- Just to increase the difficulty of traversal. It would go down at 60 degree angle for an ever more difficult journey, down a total of 10 meters. Then the reverse for 5 meters, for a bit more redundancy of course.

From there, there will be a cilindrical 10 meter drop, 2 meters in diameter. After falling through said drop, you find yourself falling another 4 meters into a 4 meter high, 20 meter wide, and 20 meter long room. Which Falc plans to fill with as many slimes with [Acid shot], it'd basically be a kill room.

That obviously wouldn't be the end, as at the far left corner there would be a 1 meter diameter circular opening which will bring you to a vertically dispositioned cilindrical tunnel through which one would have to climb 3 meters in total.

-'Actually, let's make four of those tunnels, have all four of them not be dead ends immediately, having them all get the same pathways except one. Which will then lead to even more- Which is to come.'

After a few moments of pondering, all four corners of the 'Death room' would have a tunnel to climb up. For the three fake ones; top right, bottom right, and top left, it would open into the middle of a 2 meter wide room which has for both length and width 3 meters. The room would by rotated so that at least one of it's side's middles would line up perfectly with the death room's associated corner, on said side would be the standard hallway he had previously used to renovate his entrance sequence.

It would go down 3 meters and forwards 3 meters, giving way to a 2 meter high, 4 meter wide and long room. Then at the other side another standard entrance was made which would be 1.3 times larger than standard, along with the steps of the stairway behind it. It would go up 4 meters and forwards 3 meters, giving way to a 2 meter high, 5 meter long, and 5 meter wide room.

This would continue for a total of five rooms after the first, each time the room's width and length increasing by 1 meter while the hight didn't change. Why did it stop of 8 meters? Because otherwise it would become to unstable to maintain. The slime plain's ceiling was an arch of sorts, so it was pretty stable, but even then it would probably collapse if attacked. Which he wasn't against in any sense of the word, how many sentients- Which were all totally open to killing him- would die from that? Though it would be pretty troublesome to remold the roof.

And yes, each time the stairway's size- Along with the size of each step- and the hight it traversed increased manifold by the previous room's size in comparison to the first.

The real pathway? That one was, of course, the same as the three fakes for the first two rooms.

Then, from there, after a- Seemingly the same- staircase out of the second room, but the third room?; it's actually a hallway that increases in size to 3 meters wide over 4 meters, after which another 3 meters forwards at that size till the hallway ends. In the center of the 3 by 3 room with one wall missing- which will be called 'Hallroom 1' from now- Another tunnel would be opened in the ceiling, said tunnel would go up 5 meters, then slowly increasing in diameter from 1 meter to 2 meters over another 2 meters, then continues with it's new diameter for 3 meters.

Said tunnel led to a 5 by 5 by 5 cubical room. Since this sentients that got here had already burst through the Death room and the climbing of the vertical tunnel, Falc found it prudent not to waste any mana by trying to stall the stubborn and powerful sentients that got so far, it was easier to just use another scheme.

From that room- In the opposite reaction from the hall that originally led to hallroom 1, a hall twice the normal size was opened for a total of 3 meters, which led to a 2 meter tall 3 by 3 with a 2 meter in diameter spiral staircase that went down a total of 10 meters.

Then, that spiral staircase then shifted into a normal sized hallway that went in the same direction as the previous of it's kind, which- After 3 meters- lead to a 2 meter high, 4 meter long, and 4 meter wide room. In the middle of the ceiling, a cubic hole of a surface area of 1 meter by 1 meter was present, and through that there was another 2 meter high, 4 meter long, and 4 meter wide cubic room with a square hole in the ceiling the same as the previous.

This cycle repeated 5 times in total, the space in between each room being only a meter, meaning that it went up a total of 14 meters. Well, it was 14 meters, but the floor of the last room was partially hollow as to make any sentient that steps on it make it instantly fall apart. But, ignoring that;

At the side of the top room opposite of the hallway leading to the lowest of the five rooms, another hallway opened up- Though 10 centimeters of the ground from the floor. This hallway went on for 9 meters, leading to a little cubic room that was 2 meters high and both 2 meter wide and long which had a hole with 1 meter in diameter. This hole went down a total of 28 meters, expanding by a meter- in radius- per meter down.

He made sure to make the hallway longer than 7 meters to be certain that the expanding hole would not be easily found by breaking through stone, who knows what one of those sentients would do.

Fun thing, unlike any other hole he had made, this hole ended in a flat bottom. But that couldn't trap sentients who had come so far, at least not for long, so Falc had to put in... Less savory measures. Well more like annoying to set up measures, but still.

The walls of the hole? They were perfectly stable for half a meter, but beyond that, another half meter had a structure somewhat akin to the inside of a sentient's bone- Even if Falc had no knowledge of a bone's structure- It had multiple crucial connections which he could rapidly sever in order to have the front, half a meter thick, wall fall on whoever dared to trespass.

Having finally designed the new stalling tactic, Falc reluctantly went to clearing out rock and stone reluctantly, being annoyed by the lack of both affinity and control he suffered for the earth aspect.