17
Outside Help
It took some time to gather myself and calm down the panicked goblins after the demon left. It turned out the loud crashing noises weren't the rock fall as I had suspected. The demon had somehow gotten inside silently and avoided the tripwire, then, rather than collecting the key and using the lock as intended, he smashed through the door. Again someone had shown up asking about the ‘mistress.' Lilith had some kind of past that was for sure.
“So… I assume you don't remember anyone like that either?” I asked her.
“No, but he told me… He said there are still a few demons loyal to me. That they would join a dungeon and fight against Gib, whoever that is. He offered to kill you and take the crown.”
I swallowed hard. I had gathered as much from her half of the conversation, but to hear it plainly like that made it real. That I had come within inches of death, only spared because I happened to be on the fickle crown's good side at the time. That was scary.
But this didn't need to be a bad thing. Plenty of good had come from the encounter. First, the demon and his ‘few' friends who were loyal to Lilith may be an easy answer to the troll situation. Second, I now had gold, plenty of money to build up the dungeon.
That was another loophole, and this whole dungeon system thing was beginning to feel like Swiss cheese with all the holes. We had received a three-gold reward just for the demon showing up and then leaving. Why couldn't we just have him jump in and out of the dungeon a bunch of times to become rich beyond reason? Unfortunately, he hadn't left a business card to get in touch.
While Lilith and I considered the implications of our recent overpowered ‘allies,' I worked on all the changes and additions I had promised to the goblins. Several drawings had been made of the equipment and tools that were too complex and difficult for me, as judged by everyone involved save for myself. What I had done to inspire such a lack of faith I would never know.
The boss chamber was converted into a smithy, complete with a forge, an anvil, barrels of water and oil, and just one pair of tongs and one hammer. Gregg said he would make his own tools so that they would be reliable. I also worked out a small chimney that could be opened and closed to vent the smoke out of the dungeon.
Next, I finally made a workshop for Gale in a hidden room off of the cable trap room. She would be relying on Gregg for most of the metalwork and tools, but I still added a workbench and some samples of the trap parts we had used before, as well as some new things she had asked for. I also added a cabinet stuffed to bursting with paper. The paper had been surprisingly expensive to unlock, but I wasn't going to put it off any longer and risk assassination.
I gave Gina a desk to work at, but until I unlocked glass, I didn't want to set up what would effectively be an alchemy lab for her. Simple comforts were also added, things I had forgotten and had pointed out to me, or just couldn’t afford until now.
After checking the cost, I decided I could implement a few more traps that Gale had deemed suitable for me to install. The stair room was prime for a trap, but Gale insisted that she had a plan for it, so I was to leave it alone for now. Trying to add another trap to either the rock fall room or the cable room brought errors about trap power, which was apparently cumulative. The only other rooms that invaders would visit were the bunk room and maybe the smithy, so the bunk room got a trap.
The door was rigged to a trigger. The trap would remain disarmed until an invasion started, since the goblins would be teleported to the bunk room; they could arm it while we waited. The trigger would release a simple swinging log. When I pointed out how pointless hitting a monster with a log would be, Gale added a point. A nasty three-foot serrated spike jutted from the business end of the log. That should be enough, but then she also added a shelf next to the door in the drawing. Against my better judgment, I had asked her what it was for.
“We need somewhere to store the poison, obviously.”
Ah… obviously…
With the changes made and barely a dent in our newfound wealth, I confirmed. The slow work had really helped me center myself. Putting aside the overwhelming problems for a moment and just building a dungeon was great therapy.
The entire dungeon population was gathered in the bunkroom, which had received relatively few changes, so the goblins all focused on the obvious additions of furniture and partitions. All except Gale. She saw the log trap immediately and shot to her feet.
“Spike!”
Everyone's attention focused on her. But she didn't notice or care as she ran to the new trap and began scrutinizing my work.
“Spike?” Geoff asked.
“Yes Spike, his name is Spike.”
The declaration didn't seem odd to her, but everyone exchanged glances.
“You named the trap?” I asked.
“Of course! They are my children; they all get names.”
“You name ALL of the traps…”
She finally looked up at the group of very confused monsters.
Gale raised an eyebrow, as if we were the odd ones, “Everyone needs a name... There is Rocky, Mabel, Mitch, Shepard, and now Spike!”
“Wait… Rocky I get, and Spike… Sure, whatever, but what... er... who are the others?” Gary asked.
Gale's look of incomprehension only grew as she explained, “Mabel, the cable trap. Mitch the greasy trench, and Shepard the poison caltrops.”
I knew I would regret it, but I asked anyway, “How did you get those names?”
“Mabel… cable… It's obvious. I don't blame you for not getting Mitch's name, though; it took me a little while to name him; the trench is just a ditch, a M-ud d-ITCH, Mitch.”
I thought that would be the most ridiculous thing I would ever hear, but she one-upped herself immediately.
“Shepard, there are SH-arp things in the y-ARD, Shepard.”
“What about the ‘ep' in Shepard?”
Gale's eyes widened, and she looked from face to face for a moment before stuttering, “Th… They are EP-ic… Just go with it!”
I decided to save her, “The log trap isn't the only change. I added all the stuff we talked about: the forge, the workshop, and I even added some chairs and tables outside.”
Everyone scattered like I had dropped a grenade in the room. Cheers and celebration could be heard all across the dungeon as all of the changes were found and tested. Until a crash and shout of pain sounded out from the second floor. No messages popped up, and no one respawned in their bunk, so I just walked to investigate.
A crowd had formed around the ‘hidden' door to Gale's workshop. The secret door wasn't exactly the most impressive thing, but I had expected it to take longer than a minute for Gale to find it. Find it she did though. She had been inside examining everything when the paper cabinet broke free of the mounting brackets and dumped its contents all across the room. Gale sat in the middle of the mess, scribbling furiously on a sheet. As she finished whatever she had been working on, she tossed the paper to the side and snatched a fresh one off a nearby pile, barely slowing her scribbles.
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She spoke without looking up, “Rob, assign me to this room."
“I don't think that’s a good idea, invaders…”
“Just do it; someone needs to be here to trip Mabel; it's not an automatic trap.”
That was true, the cable trap was one of those that needed to be manually sprung; otherwise, it would set off trap power errors. Still…
“That's too dangerous; you’d be the only one on this side of the locked door.”
Gale sighed and lowered her fourth sheet of paper, looking me in the eyes.
“I am an adult, Rob. I am capable of making my own decisions. You don't get to tell me I'm not allowed to fight for my home. Assign me to this room, rig up the trigger mechanism to work from here, and give me a peephole to look into the other room… and make a big bar I can use to lock the door.”
An adult? She was clearly younger than any of the other goblins. I had made her do things that I regretted already, and now, if I let this happen, she would be the first to see and fight against any invaders.
But was she right? She wanted to fight and protect the dungeon; who was I to tell her no?
“Are you sure?”
“Oh yeah,” She smirked and turned the sheet of paper she had been working on toward me.
It was a diagram of something that looked like a ballista pointed at a door; a tiny goblin sat on the back holding a pull cord in one hand and waving a hat with the other.
“Is the hat necessary?”
“Very."
I had been wishy-washy about Gale fighting for too long. It felt wrong, but she, and all of the goblins, didn't see anything wrong with her being right on the front lines. I wasn't going to fight it anymore. I assigned Gale to the workshop and made the changes she suggested. The conversation prompted a ‘council meeting' where we discussed the other room assignments. With the advice of Gale, Geoff, Gary, and Tessa, we had almost settled on a team when a commotion outside interrupted.
Squirrely McSquirrel had returned, riding… something. Just outside the dungeon entrance sat a real monster. This thing deserved that title more than anything I had seen in this world so far, including the demon. It had the general shape of a horse but had dark scales rather than skin. Leathery bat-like wings curled against its sides, and large spines like spikes jutted out in two rows all the way from its crocodile-like tail, along its back, up its long serpentine neck, to its head, where they culminated in two pairs of wicked horns, one just behind its glowing red eyes curving up toward the other, which curved back from its brow. The head itself looked like a fever-fueled nightmare dragon’s head, complete with an elongated jaw filled with needle-like fangs.
The thing sat calmly right outside, and I could get a pretty good idea of its size without stepping away from the relative safety of the dungeon. It was about the size of a large dog. It was a nightmare creature, and the squirrel rode it proudly. They were close enough that I was able to get an information window.
Name: Unnamed
Classification: Unaffiliated Monster
Race: Hell beast
Level: 2
Level two? This thing could kill just by being terrifying; there was no way it should be level two. I targeted the squirrel with the translation power.
“What the hell is this thing?”
“Hell beast, Derrick’s first offering"
Derrick was the demon's name. I did recall him saying something along the lines of raising beasts for the dungeon, but there was so much more that needed discussing first.
“Where did he go? Can't he invade and retreat a bunch of times to give us money? And why do you both know Lilith? Who is Gib? What is happening?”
The squirrel sighed, “This is why he left... Well, one of the reasons anyway. We can't help you like that, and now you are asking too many questions about things that don’t affect you. Just take the beast's oath and name it.”
I started to ask more questions, but the squirrel patted the beast's head twice and took off into the trees, ignoring me completely.
I stared at the monster.
It stared back.
“So… you gonna work for me?”
I didn't expect an answer, so when the monster stood up and barked at me, I was startled. On a completely unrelated note, I also noted that, as a zombie who didn't drink or eat for the most part, I didn't have a functioning bladder to empty in terror. The sound of the thing's bark sounded like a garbage disposal with a fork in it, a rattling, clanking, grinding noise. Perhaps it was whatever passed for language among hell beasts, and that was the oath. That was the only explanation I had for the familiar acceptance oath coming to me at that moment.
“I accept your oath,” I started, but this was the point that the monster's name was supposed to be spoken, and this thing didn’t have one.
I could feel the incomplete oath hanging in the air, like a heavy mist. It felt uncomfortable.
With a shrug I continued, just going with whatever name came to me, “Andy, Hell beast. In turn I swear to protect you and not restrict your own growth. I swear to carry you with me to the peak and beyond. Rise as a minion of the Dungeon of a Thousand Corpses.”
New minion added
Minion details:
Name: Handy
Classification: Dungeon of 1000 corpses Monster
Race: Hell beast
Level: 2
Pay rate: 10 tin per day, 20 tin per slain invader
Minions detected without room assignments
Any unassigned minions will be placed in stasis during invasions
Wait, Handy? Did the dungeon system just add an H to the name I gave it? Also of note was the pay rate. Even at level two, this thing was the highest-paid minion of the dungeon. Race must have some bearing on pay then.
Handy did his horrible grinding bark again and took off into the trees.
Dungeon Minion detected leaving area of influence
Dungeon wave event started
Maximum cumulative level of minions in dungeon wave: 6
Cumulative level of minions in wave: 2
Well, that was great.
With the troublemakers gone, the dungeon went back to its business. The meeting that had been interrupted resumed, and we went back to room assignments. The addition of the hell beast to the dungeon actually solved one issue we had been discussing. The dungeon rooms’ minion allowances were normally maxed out at level three. Because we left the rock fall room and the cable trap room empty, we were allowed to put up to level six into the bunk room. Gale was assigned to the workshop, and I bypassed the boss chamber's level with my own level 4.
All of that meant we still had a room available, the stairwell room. No one felt comfortable putting one of our own in the open between the two absurdly deadly traps with invaders pressing down on them. Now Handy the hell beast could take that spot. It was all very convenient; Handy was too short for the cable trap to affect, and I was interested to see how strong he was to justify that pay rate.
Turns out Handy was pretty handy.
With the assignments done, I asked Lilith about where we were on the Tier Up requirements.
“As the dungeon is now… you still have to figure out how to kill one human and kill ten monsters with traps, as well as defeat at least one ten invader raid.”
The trap kills should be pretty easy; the traps were the main defense after all. Ten invaders at once might be trouble, though. Aside from the trolls, who should be done raiding us for the time being, we never had more than one invader at a time. We may have to rely on the humans to help with that, but I really didn't want to give away any information that we didn't need to.
The goblins continued their exploring and testing of the new changes, so I was alone as I lay down to rest for the night. Another long day, full of far too much excitement for me. This time at least I was the first to rest; maybe I would finally be the first to rise in the morning.
At that point I was given proof of a malicious, sleep-hating deity watching me and taking twisted pleasure in ruining my rest in particular.
Dungeon wave complete
Calculating results…
Adventurers slain: 0
Monsters slain: 7
Damage taken: 0
Damage dealt: 89
Minions slain: 0
Loot lost: none
Loot gained: none
Wave duration: 1:00:13
Wave reward: 2 copper 75 tin
Loot value: none
Before I could even groan and rise to see what the hell beast had done, the next message popped up.
Dungeon Invaders detected
Invaders: 18
Dungeon construction interface locked during invasion
Dungeon entry and exit locked during invasion
Unassigned minions locked in stasis for duration of invasion
Moving minions to assigned rooms
The minions and I were teleported to our rooms, and I was now fully awake. Eighteen invaders! What the hell was going on?
Invasion defeated
Calculating results…
Invaders slain: 18
Invaders retreated: 0
Damage taken: 0
Damage dealt: 180
Minions slain: 0
Loot lost: none
Loot gained: A really gross bag of slime
Invasion duration: 5
Invasion reward: 90 tin
Loot value: -20 tin
Convert Loot to mana coins?
What?
The messages had come so fast I couldn’t process them, and the only one that lingered was the last. Handy had done something though… and he wasn't done.
A dungeon minion has leveled up
Handy: Level 2-3
Pay rate remains the same
Fortunately, there was something different about the minion level-up message, so it didn't push away the invasion window. Handy was way off script right now, and I needed to stop whatever he was doing. As I charged through the bunk room, the goblins called out asking me what was happening. I wish I knew.
When I opened the door to the rock fall room, Handy was sitting there. He had grown. He had been the size of a large dog before; now he was the size of a pony. Oblivious to the panic he had caused, Handy just sat there, tongue lolling from his mouth and giant, scaly tail wagging like a happy dog. A bag rested on the floor by his feet, oozing a strange green liquid that smelled sickly sweet.