They’d been down here for days now. Less than a week, but only probably. Time was rather fluid without access to daylight. Lucid had collected another group of humans, making their total grow to fourteen. Thus far, each new group of villagers brought down had been easier to convince than the previous one, on account of the fact that there were simply more people around to convince them that they were alright.
Not that it made anyone comfortable at all. The fact that they only had two sources of light really didn’t help.
Owyn’s eyes hadn’t ever fully adjusted to the darkness, but earlier he’d given up his headlamp to someone else so they could clean up the bedrooms a little more efficiently. As such, he was currently walking blind, trusting his memory of the terrain to guide him. Well, that and Mycroft.
Mycroft was his new companion. The mimic crab that he’d been playing with a few days ago. She was named by Lucid, though Owyn couldn’t tell why he found it so entertaining. She’d grown considerably larger than before. Much like her father Rab, she no longer fit into the core room, and had to remain outside, much to her apparent disappointment. Whenever Owyn went into the core room or the caves, she’d wait for him right outside, patiently waiting to see him again.
Owyn held her ‘thumbs’ on either side of him. Mycroft walked behind him, holding out her claws like railings to either side of Owyn for him to hold on to for balance. Owyn could feel the other half of her claws brush against his knuckles, relaxed and gentle. Mycroft wasn’t as large as Rab, but she was a little larger than Mimi. Outwardly, the only physical change her evolution brought her was her size, but if you looked closely enough, like Owyn had, you might be able to notice a few small changes.
Dotted in a pattern across her carapace, several plates hid what lay beneath. Each plate was circular in shape with a crown type ridge holding it shut. As Owyn stopped to observe the darkness before him, he heard one such plate click open. A few seconds later, a wet tentacle brushed up against the underside of his arm before flinching away. Owyn let go of Mycroft’s thumb, touching the tentacle. He traced it to its end, feeling the bumps along its length grow more rigid and sharp as he got to the end, where several teeth-like protrusions decorated the tip like a spiked mace. Owyn gripped the end tooth, sharp like a spear, and tugged. Mycroft pulled back the tentacle, playing tug-of-war with Owyn’s grip.
Several more plates clicked open, and more tentacles snaked their way through the air around Owyn, tempting him to play with each and every single one of them. Owyn took a second tooth in his other hand and pulled, absentmindedly playing tug of war with Mycroft while he let his vision adjust further to the darkness.
There weren’t many sources of light down in the caverns. In fact, besides the light cores that Owyn and Mr. Vernant brought, the only other source of light was a bioluminescent moss, and at that, there wasn’t very much of the stuff. Dungeons, especially young dungeons, don’t tend to cultivate plants, favoring fast, explosive growth that meant consuming anything edible nearby. And while the larger dungeons could afford to let some plants grow to their advantage, they seemed to disregard the glowing moss entirely. As his eyes settled into the darkness, Owyn could actually pinpoint the locations of each remaining four large dungeons by the mere fact that they were devoid of the glowing moss. Which made sense, he supposed, since the dungeon’s monsters could see perfectly well within their territory, but not elsewhere. It didn’t make tactical sense to keep a source of light in your own territory for the enemy to use when you didn’t need it.
Mycroft pinched Owyn’s legs.
“Hey…” Owyn chastised her.
She walked closer, pressing her body against Owyn’s back. She chittered a rumble deep within her chest, almost sounding like a purr. Owyn let go of one tentacle to pat her as he thought.
Lucid was gaining mana from the human occupants, which was good, since that meant their protector was growing stronger, but he was foolishly using that strength to expand his territory and rescue more of Settertons villagers. Owyn couldn’t find it within himself to complain about helping more people, but at the same time, there were more important things Lucid could be spending his mana on.
Like evolving more of Mycroft’s brothers and sisters for example.
It wasn’t that Owyn wanted to see more cool monsters, although that wasn't a non-factor either. It was just that Lucid was on the lower end of the power hierarchy of this ecosystem.
Almost like Mycroft could hear Owyn’s thoughts, she growled, this time a little more threateningly. Owyn gave her more pats for assurance. Apparently it wasn’t enough. He felt her claws close in on either side of his body and pinch down on his stomach. Owyn flinched, as much as one restrained like him could, before struggling. Mycroft lifted him up easily, holding him over her body. Almost like she was going to dump him into her mimic mouth.
“Ah- Hey! Mycroft! Lucid!!”
His feet touched hard shell. Mycroft set him down gently on her head, releasing him when he got to a sitting position.
“Ah… nevermind.” Owyn pat Mycroft’s shell. She purred again, placing one of her claws in his lap. Owyn held on with both hands, rocking slightly as she began moving. Owyn hadn’t ridden many horses before, and Mycroft wasn’t built to let him straddle his legs on her sides. But this was nice. Awesome even! He was riding a dungeon monster!
He briefly wondered if he could do mounted warfare. Theoretically, people could ride a horse and shoot a bow at the same time. What was the difference here? Certainly, it would be useful for defending the villagers back in the caves.
Owyn began thinking aloud, for Lucid to hear. “I was thinking… we need more power.” Goddess, he hoped Lucid was listening, otherwise he was just making a fool of himself, speaking to open air.
“I was thinking, what if you let me and maybe Mr. Vernant go outside for a while? So we can go dungeoneering. I know you told us that there’s not many dungeons spawning in the center any more, and that they’re not exactly free, since the other dungeons are going to be fighting for them, but maybe we could get one or two? If nothing else, the monsters fighting for control over the middle won’t have the benefit of being directed by their dungeon directly, so maybe we could whittle their numbers down a little bit. Even out the playing field, you know?”
If Lucid was listening, he wasn’t giving a response.
Owyn cleared his throat, petting Mycroft’s claw absently. “It’s, uh… It’s weird to consider that in order for me to go dungeoneering, that I’d need to leave a dungeon. You know? Because normally it’s like, I go in to a dungeon. Well, normally I follow Abby but…”
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Owyn smiled a little. He sighed, putting his head in his hands. Mycroft took back her claw.
“Well, normally Abby takes the lead. Not always. Sometimes I get, uh, a little excited, shall we say. I’ll notice something interesting ahead and just go for it. In fact, I think that’s how we met you, right? I saw your thausens and… ran in.”
Actually, come to think of it, what was with those thausens? Why were they here? Where did they come from? Owyn hadn’t exactly had the chance to come to terms with the discovery quite yet, there’d been just so many other things going on that their significance never really clicked before now..
Thausens were thaumovores, they ate magic. Far from wanting to obey a dungeon, they actually much preferred eating them. Owyn didn’t know how that translated to usefulness in gaining mana for a dungeon, but that wasn’t their original function. Thausens were created by a dungeon for one job, and one job only. Consuming magic. They were the antithesis of human magic casters, their perfect counter. However, they were only ever seen in larger dungeons. Ones with the resources to waste on the kinds of experimentation that resulted in the emergence of a thausen.
None of the dungeons within this lower cavern had the time nor resources to waste on the creation of a thausen. So where’d it come from?
Mycroft jolted sideways, nearly making Owyn fall off. He flailed, spreading himself out over Mycroft’s shell.
“Woah! Hey, slow doOOOOWN!”
Mycroft leapt left and right, and multiple hatches along her body clicked open, revealing the hissing mouths beneath. A relatatory hiss came from in front of them, and Owyn suddenly realized they were in combat.
“Oh shit.”
Owyn draped his legs over the front of Mycroft’s shell, splaying himself as flat as he could get on her back. His head just hung off her back, and his arms wrapped around her sides, securing him to her.
“Mycroft, go! Run as fast as-”
She didn’t have to be told twice. Owyn felt his stomach lurch, and they were off. Mycroft glided effortlessly over the terrain, unbothered by the hidden rises and falls the moss floor covered up. Claws impacted stone beneath the moss. Owyn could hear the moss tearing itself up as their pusures made chase. As far as Owyn knew, there weren’t very many, maybe a little more than half a dozen, but that was still more than enough to take down an unarmed, blind human and the crab trying to protect him. Not to mention he was pretty sure they were gaining.
Mycroft came to a sudden stop, flipping open her hatch to screech at the enemies. Owyn, not expecting either motion, was bucked off, and fell blindly to the mossy ground. Owyn heard her raise and then lower her claws onto what was probably a ratkin. Then, falling from the sky like a shooting star, came Mr. Vernant and Dweller. Silver and Damian where’t far behind, swooping in to join the little scrap.
Owyn rolled over quickly, getting to his feet. He drew his knife, ready to fight, but the battle was already over. Besides a very dead ratkin laying in a bloody mush pile beneath Mycroft, five other monsters were pinned beneath one of Lucid’s monsters, and two were beneath Mr. Vernant. Two other monsters ran away, retreating back into the darkness from where they came.
Mr. Vernant grinned up at Owyn, keeping his weight on the necks of two lizards struggling to escape. “Hey! Sorry to drop in like this, but we needed to borrow your helpless nature.”
“... what!?”
Mimi walked into view, reverently carrying Lucid’s core in two hands. She bowed, placing the core on one of Mr. Vernants hostages.
He explained. “Well you see, when Lucid noticed you were going for a walk, he decided to try and see if he could bait some of the stragglers in the center to make chase. He figured that if you were out there alone, you would make for a tempting target. And you did!”
“We flew above.” Damian said with a grunt, wrestling his much larger opponent back down. “Lights low, out of sight. The stragglers thought you were without backup, close to the edge of the master’s territory. Genius ambush.”
Owyn got to his feet, and Mr. Vernant did too. His lizard captives shuffled away, heading deeper into Lucid’s dungeon. “But… why?”
“You were right.” Dweller gargled. “Lucid’s weak.”
Damian growled at Dwellers' casual insult. “But the master is not stupid. He knows he cannot keep wasting resources, but there’s not much he can do if he wants to both save your villagers, as well as conquer the caverns. So he’s deciding to stretch the one advantage he knows he has.”
“His will.” Owyn surmised.
The last of the captives were converted over to Lucid’s side. Damian released his grip over the large snake creature that slithered away. “The other dungeons have a constant number of minions. That number isn’t small, and it isn’t known exactly, but it is steady. The master, in his infinite wisdom, has discovered that the dungeons have a limit on how many minions they can control at one time.”
“I thought that was obvious.” Owyn commented. And he really did. How did a dungeon not know that? Surely, even if by chance, Lucid would have…
“Has Lucid never met his limit yet?”
Lucids monsters grinned at him. “Nope.”
“Come on!” Mr. Vernant said, bringing an arm around Owyn’s shoulders. “Let’s go home!”
Owyn let himself be led, deep in thought. He spoke aloud for Lucid’s benefit. “A dungeon’s limit is dictated by its will. Stronger creatures take up more will for the dungeon to control, meaning they can have less of them. However, the dungeon grows with time and mana, passively growing in both size and will. So older dungeons, or more successful dungeons, can have more, and more powerful monsters. But, that would imply that Lucid has a lot of will because he’s one or the other, and yet the size of his core indicates that he’s still young and unsuccessful. Is it just that it hasn’t been enough time for his core to grow to match his abilities? Or…”
Damian walked ahead of the group, stopping the procession to lean in close to Owyn, his face nearly meeting his own with a smile.
“Please.” He said like a threat. “Tell the master more about the limits of a dungeon…”
----------------------------------------
Lucid
I hummed thoughtfully after Owyn finishes his explanation. The limits of a dungeon weren't exactly alien to me, not anymore, but I did learn one very interesting fact. First of all, the knowns. I already knew that I could not use magic, that wasn’t new. I’d already learned for myself that I couldn’t heal or evolve undead. And finally, I now suspected that dungeons had a maximum number of minions they could sustain, but I didn’t know how to calculate it. I had originally thought that the limit was some sort of soft cap, based on the amount of resources one could effectively utilize to feed your minions. Basically, I thought the limit was the dungeon's ability to not starve its creatures.
But according to Owyn, the limit was actually hard coded into the size of the dungeon’s core. The volume of the core equaled the volume of will it could control. Each creature under its command would fill that volume, just slightly. And until that volume was filled, a dungeon would always be able to subjugate more, so long as the effort didn’t exceed the limit of the core.
However, I seemed to be a bit of a black sheep by Owyn’s knowledge. Between the humans I enthralled, Grant included, and the hundreds of guppies in my old core room, and all the creatures down here, especially Damian, since his will fought against mine originally, I should be well over my limit, if not nearing it. The fact that I wasn’t feeling a strain was apparently odd to Owyn.
And yet, despite all that, there was one fact that came to me out of the blue. One limit I never even thought to consider. One that’s making me reconsider my plans for conquering the dungeon.
Monsters had a limited ability to evolve.
I couldn’t infinitely feed one monster over and over and expect it to just keep evolving. There was a maximum. And while I technically hadn’t reached it yet, I was beginning to wonder if any of the other dungeons had. Why else wouldn’t they continue evolving their boss monsters?
I wandered above my territory, watching Mimi and Rab’s children collect food alongside the humans. Undead wandered my border.
So many moving parts… I needed to be careful.