23
Third Tier
No one seemed to have any more information on Liches, and Sebastian stayed glued to Gale. So eventually I just shrugged and offered to clean up her workshop with the construction interface. Gale emphatically refused. She did, however, demand that I replace all her destroyed materials, which included the newly unlocked ones I had just given her. Thinking that the new samples may have had something to do with the explosion, I also made her another two cabinets for storage. I did refuse to make any more eggs, at least until we figured out what we had accidentally done. There was nothing quite like an accidental Lich for inspiring caution.
Once finished, I moved to leave, but Gale stopped me, “Wait, I was going to show you several traps all at once, but…” She gestured at the wreckage, “One did survive, though, so let me show you that.”
We walked together to the stairs room that I wasn't allowed to mess with until Gale finished whatever she had planned for it. Seems that time was now. She moved to the top of the stairs and looked at me with a serious expression.
“I worked with Gregg on this for a while. We made several prototypes and tested each of them, but in the end we settled on this. This… might be a bit much even for me, though. This trap is so dangerous and painful that I could probably stop now, burn all my notes, and still be branded a war criminal.”
Now I was intrigued; Earth had some seriously messed-up weapons, and no one was quite as good as humans at inventing suffering. Gale might be a close second, though, with her sadistic engineering.
“Alright, don’t keep me in suspense. What is it? Let me see.”
“Are you sure? This... this is cruel and unusual to say the least.”
“Yes, yes, come on.”
“Alright then,” She reached into a pocket and pulled out something tiny closed within her hand. “Dozens of tests, and this is the most painful thing we have found to date. Meet Evan, the EV-il master pl-AN.”
She slowly, gently, placed what she was holding on the ground in front of the top step. I ignored the terrible name and leaned down to look at it. It was a bright yellow rectangle, about an inch long and half as wide. On the slightly raised top surface were eight tiny protrusions… It was a Lego. I looked back at Gale.
“Where did you find this?”
She looked surprised. “Find it? We spent ages working on the most painful thing we could think of. It might not look like much, but stepping on this causes an immediate, crippling flash of pain that shoots up your leg. Anyone who steps on this will fall down the stairs without a doubt.”
She had accidentally invented Lego... as a trap... alright then. I didn't say anything else and just left Gale there, who was shouting about it being far worse than it looked.
With that settled, as well as could be expected at least, the dungeon finally got to rest for the first time in days. My glorious rest was once again interrupted. I was woken up in the middle of the night to deal with some emergency, again.
Geoff spoke as he pulled me to the surface, “The humans are back, not the scary one, but the shiny one and a bunch of his friends.”
“What do they want? Are they here for a fight?”
Lilith answered for him, as she was able to ‘see' outside without actually being there, “Not a fight... there are no weapons. They're carrying wounded.”
Sure enough, when we made it to the surface, several humans were tending to a few wounded on stretchers. The injured humans did not look good. Twisted and broken limbs were in abundance, as well as blood-soaked bandages. The sound of the groans of pain was almost like the speech of the zombies. Each and every one of them was awake and suffering. Either they didn't have any sedatives or painkillers to knock them out, or it would be too dangerous to do so. Geoff handed me the Amulet of Babel, and I looked at him questioningly.
“You need to hear it for yourself.” He answered my unspoken question.
With a shrug I put it on and targeted Hunter, who had noticed us and was rising from where he had been comforting a man with a head wound.
He spoke before I could, “Shale says you can save them… but they will turn into monsters.”
I nodded, unable to form words as I reeled from that idea. Rather than executing criminals, Shale was offering us mortally wounded people to ‘save' by turning into zombies.
Hunter's voice went dark, “I don't like this. We shouldn't be feeding each other to monsters. But I'm not in charge… yet. Do what you will, monster; we are taking these two back with us when you’re done.” He gestured to the man he had been comforting and another next to him, “The other two are going to stay here… with you.”
Not only would we be turning humans into zombies, but they wanted to take them back… and do what? They wouldn't be able to talk to anyone anymore; maybe if they had known how to write, they might still have been able to communicate like that, but none of these humans could read or write to my knowledge. Did Shale want to study the best way to kill a zombie? And then there were the others. We were going to have two human zombies in the dungeon. Were they supposed to be spies?
Another thing I had to consider, but didn’t mention to anyone, was if I wanted to heal them without turning them into zombies. I still had the Gilded Truffle unlocked. One of those could probably heal all four of these men according to what the goblins had told me. It was expensive to make, but they would remain human. The decision should have been easy, but this was an opportunity to finish the Tier requirement, maybe the only one we would get before the confrontation with the trolls.
These people had done nothing to me; they didn't deserve to die. But was that enough to obligate me to save them? They weren't my people; I didn't have people anymore. I had a family of monsters who would benefit from ruthless pragmatism right now. That settled it for me. I would act with the good of the dungeon first in my mind. Being charitable to humans would have to take a back seat tonight.
I nodded again and spoke to Hunter, “Alright, turn away and don’t look this direction no matter what you hear until I say so.”
I wasn’t thinking of protecting the knowledge of zombification so much as keeping Hunter from snapping when he saw me bite his friends. Hunter grunted at my demand but complied. Once all of the humans were looking away, I bent to the task. These were the first humans that I would bite. Human blood was sweet, but savory at the same time. I tried not to enjoy the taste, but it made me hungry.
Before I reached the last wounded worker, the first started his change. It was more like the troll's change than the goblin's. The humans paled and started to fade from consciousness like the goblins had, but then as they reached the edge of life, their bodies rebelled. Pained choking and coughing up blood was the order of the day as the humans, one by one, went wide-eyed and rigid. One man even started to rise and reach out to Hunter for help but quickly fell limp.
Hunter was true to his word and didn't turn around, even with the sounds of clear suffering right behind him. I could see his knuckles were white and his hands shook as he clenched his fists at his side, though. In just a couple of minutes the task was done, and four new zombies staggered upright, looking about wildly.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You can look now… In fact, you better do so quickly. They probably are going to freak out soo…”
The first to rise, the man with the head wound, roared in a raspy voice.
“HEEEELP!”
Hunter spun, and I could see wrath and rage on his face at that moment. He went to work without a word, grabbing the zombie in a bear hug and speaking calming words to him. They couldn't understand each other, though, so they just struggled for a while. Hunter was the stronger, and the zombie eventually calmed down and just started weeping. The others had similar reactions, and most took multiple humans to hold down while they calmed down.
A rousing game of charades later, and the two zombies who were meant to return followed the group back out of the dungeon area. I could have translated for them with the amulet, and they knew that as well, but no one suggested it. This was a moment for them; I had no place in it. Hunter said they had told the wounded what the plan was before bringing them here, but they were so out of it that none of them had understood.
The two who were left with us stood together some distance away. They had quickly discovered that they could understand one another, and ever since then they had been muttering quietly. I left them to it a while longer. I knew firsthand how strange suddenly becoming a monster was, and they would open up when they were ready.
While I waited, I conferred with Lilith, “So that was good for the requirement, right?”
“Yeah, just the trap kills now, and we can tier up.”
Somehow the requirement that seemed easiest at the start was the last one we would be finishing. There was probably some sort of message or lesson to take from that, but I wasn't going to worry about it. We were so close! If Gale's weird bag thing worked as she claimed, then we would be tier three in the morning. Finally the two new zombies approached together. I got a look at them now that the excitement had died down. They looked like average everyday adult men, nothing special about them. Except they were a bit larger and more muscled than most, which could be explained by the manual labor of cutting down trees all day. And the gaping neck wounds that didn't bleed, which could be explained by the lingering taste in my mouth.
Name: H-Walter Forester
Classification: Unaffiliated Monster
Race: Human Zombie
Level: 5
Name: H-Lawrence Woodsman
Classification: Unaffiliated Monster
Race: Human Zombie
Level: 6
The humans must retain their name from before the transformation. The ‘H' must be added to comply with the monster naming rule, like how Andy became Handy. The second name was new, but judging by these two, it would most likely be their old Class.
Lawrence spoke, “Monster… What is happening?”
They'd been part of the charades just like the others, but now they were in an alien environment surrounded by monsters. Rather than be exasperated at their question, I was impressed at their calmness and adaptability. I took some time to explain the situation, leaving out a few key details, like how I could have saved them without turning them into zombies.
“So… What now?” Walter asked once I had finished.
“Well… I suppose you’re supposed to spy on us and report to Shale what happens in the dungeon.”
They blinked at me for a moment before speaking again, “You would let us do that?”
I sighed, “I would prefer you didn't, but I can't stop you without violence, and I don't want more of that if it can be avoided. You could also just... leave, go wherever you want, back to your people if you want to and if they will have you. Or you could… join us. I think you’ll find we are a pretty friendly bunch.”
The two ex-humans looked at each other and then back to me before stepping away to talk amongst themselves again. I could probably work out some way to eavesdrop, but trying to convince someone not to spy and then spying on them immediately after would probably be counterproductive. They spoke in private, but they were clearly not on the same page. Slowly the need to be sneaky about eavesdropping became an exercise in pretending not to listen as they shouted at one another.
“… anywhere to go!”
“So, what? You'll have us become monsters? Kill people and eat them?”
“Of course not, but they don’t seem like that! They didn't attack us; they were buying timber from us for Gods' sake!”
“Then what was that today? We were just minding our business, and trolls come swarming out of the woods, smashing and killing! What was that?”
“I don't know, but look at them! They aren’t trolls. They’re… well, I don’t know what they are, zombie goblins? But clearly not trolls!”
I waved as Lawrence pointed at us. Walter scowled.
“I’m not doing it. Stay if you want. Be a monster. I’m going home.”
They quieted down enough that I couldn't overhear them anymore. After a bit more back and forth, Walter shook his head and stormed off. Lawrence stayed and returned to me.
“Alright, well, he's going to go get himself killed. Screw him. I... I want to try. Can I join you for a while?”
“Mmm… you can join… but it's permanent. Once you join, you can't easily leave.”
He grimaced, paused, and nodded, “Alright, not much choice. Let's do this.”
After I explained the oath to him and what it would mean, he hesitated some more. Eventually, though, he took a deep breath and delivered his Minion Oath. I accepted.
New minion added
Minion details:
Name: H-Lawrence Woodsman
Classification: Dungeon of 1000 Corpses Monster
Race: Human Zombie
Level: 6
Pay rate: 1 silver per day, 2 silver per slain invader
Minions detected without room assignments
Any unassigned minions will be placed in stasis during invasions
After seeing the pay rate, I was suddenly glad Walter decided to strike out on his own. An entire silver per day was ridiculous.
“Alright, Lawrence, come inside and meet the family.”
A round of explanations and greetings followed, but everyone was exhausted, so it wasn't long before we were all down and resting. Gale woke me early the next morning. The only way I knew it was early was because the rest of the goblins were still down.
“What?” I whispered.
“Come on, time to tier up." She said loudly, not caring who she disturbed.
She pulled me out of bed and up the stairs outside before I could process what was happening. Outside was a field of death. Dozens of birds and small animals lay all across the yard.
“Tada!”
“What the hell?”
“The bag was poisoned bait… sort of. Now we can tier up!”
I asked Lilith, “Did we pass the trap requirement?”
“No, not yet… None of these counted.”
Gale clicked her tongue at us while shaking her head, “tsk tsk tsk, Of course they didn't count. I don’t know if they would count if they died while outside… I coated little needles with the paralytic venom from the Jackalope. These are all still alive; we just need to drag them inside and squish them with Rocky!”
Gale was scary. We decided to do as she suggested and gathered up the animals. I wasn't willing to risk falling short for some reason, and there wasn't much use in keeping a bunch of semi-comatose animals in constant pain, so we decided to pile up all of the victims under the rock trap. They were indeed alive; as soon as we carried them inside, the invasion notification popped up, and we were teleported away.
We were lucky that we had been grouped up and there were so many more than we needed because the armfuls of crippled animals fell all over the place as we disappeared. Several were killed by the fall down the stairs, but none woke up or tripped the trap. Then we did the deed, and Gale volunteered to trip the trap manually. She clearly just wanted the coins, but with a silver going to Lawrence every day just for existing, I wasn't too worried about her taking some extra money.
Invasion defeated
Calculating results…
Invaders slain: 25
Invaders retreated: 0
Damage taken: 0
Damage dealt: 431
Minions slain: 0
Loot lost: none
Loot gained: A mess… Seriously, what the hell?
Invasion duration: 5:12
Invasion reward: 3 copper 13 tin
Loot value: -5 copper
Convert loot to mana coins?
Immediately the next, long-awaited message popped up.
Congratulations
Tier up requirements met
Tier advanced from Nest to Den
Maximum dungeon level raised from 2 to 3
Maximum room count per floor raised from 3 to 5
Minion Title system unlocked
Mini-boss system unlocked
Before even bothering to consider what that all meant, I fed Lilith coins to level up; this time it took two tin, still suspiciously cheap.
Dungeon level raised
Dungeon level increased from 2 to 3
Maximum minion level per room increased from 2 to 3
Maximum boss level raised from 4 to 6
Maximum floor count raised from 2 to 4
Dungeon avatar manifestation unlocked
Maximum Trap power per room raised from 2 to 4
Dungeon rename available
Rename dungeon?
I was only about halfway through reading the messages when the crown heated up to nearly burning hot for a moment before quickly turning icy.
“Why do I look like this?”
The voice was Lilith's, but rather than being in my head or right above it, it came from behind me. I turned to find someone new in the dungeon… or someone with a new body.
Name: Lilith
Classification: Dungeon of 1000 Corpses Avatar
Race: Dungeon
Level: 3
She looked to be straight from an anime. She had long pink hair and pointed elflike ears, unnaturally smooth pale skin, and sharp but delicate features. She wore a fancy white lacy dress and, for some reason, a laurel crown.
“Lilith?” I asked dumbly.
She looked at me, her face running through several emotions before settling on a grin.
“I’m… free!”