25
Tense Introduction
I really wanted to sit down and go over the changes after the tier and level ups, but Lilith was so excited over her liberation from being limited to hat status that she immediately ran off. A new message that I hadn't seen before popped up when she reached the edge of the clearing.
Dungeon avatar detected attempting to leave area of influence
If allowed, the dungeon boss will be restricted to the area of influence until the avatar's return
Allow?
Even though Lilith was at the edge of the clearing trying to leave, I could hear her voice from the crown as usual when she spoke.
“Rob! Let me out, please, please, please. I'll be back soon. Please let me out of here!”
I confirmed the prompt, and she sprinted off so fast it looked like she vanished.
Dungeon avatar detected leaving area of influence
Dungeon wave event started
Maximum cumulative level of dungeon wave: 6
Cumulative level of wave: 3
We had a lot to go over and preparations to make if we were going to survive the next few days. Lilith knew that too, so I expected she would be back soon. One of the changes was the increase of rooms and floors we were allowed. Before we had been limited to three rooms per floor and two floors, which meant we were allowed six total rooms. Now we were allowed four floors with five rooms each; that was more than triple the rooms we had before. Once the news of all the extra rooms spread, everyone had a great reason why their requests should get first priority. It took some doing, but Geoff and I managed to collect everyone’s ideas, and the council gathered to discuss options and layout. It seemed I was able to maintain a connection to Lilith no matter our distance because she kept dropping her input. When I suggested she come back and join the discussions though, she just told me she had full confidence in our decision-making and ignored any further attempt to include her.
The discussions took all day, and we had barely made any progress when Handy started raising a clamor outside. Geoff excused himself to deal with the interruption so we could continue. It was clear he just wanted to escape. Gale was mid-speech about how she should be allowed the final say on ten rooms so she could install more of her traps. It would sound like a good idea and be pretty convincing if not for the fact that she also wanted to block most of the new trap rooms off from invaders so that they couldn't be damaged. Whenever she made a point that sounded marginally logical, the ever-present lich-bird on her shoulder would bob and squawk in agreement.
Geoff returned before long and broke up the meeting, “Rob, some humans outside need your attention.”
“What for?” I asked, “You have the human situation handled right?”
“They aren't like the usual humans. There is something off about them. They're talking about deciding whether or not to destroy the dungeon.”
So not one of Shale's supporters then.
“Alright, we'll continue this later.”
Everyone started to file out of the room now that it had become clear the meeting was on hold, but I stopped Gale. It would be better to handle this part now before we had to sit through another hour of her explaining why her traps were the most important addition.
“Gale, we are going to use the new rooms for comfort and living arrangements, as well as stationing more minions for invasions. You can set traps in them, but make sure they can be quickly set and disarmed so we don’t trip them all the time. And don’t make them destroy the whole room, please.”
She didn't look pleased but nodded her understanding while Sebastian bobbed. Geoff and I made our way to the gate to greet our guests. When we approached, Geoff spoke with them, introducing me. Meanwhile I examined them to see what we were dealing with.
Name: Hiro
Classification: Semi-pro Tagonist
Race: Human
Level: 20
Name: Dianne
Classification: Tago… Error… Unafilli… Error
Resolving…
Classification: Multi-classed
Race: Hum… Error… Vamp… Error
Resolving…
Race: Dhampir
Level: 10/1
It had been a while since the system had to pause and consider. Something was very strange with the woman. I vaguely remembered hearing the term Dhampir before but couldn't recall exactly what it meant. Judging solely on the errors, though, this Dianne was unique among the creatures I had scanned until now. I must have been staring for some time because Geoff had to shake me to bring me back to the moment.
“Mr. Rob, what's wrong?”
“Nothing, what were we saying?” I asked, shaking my head.
Geoff looked concerned but continued on nonetheless, “I'm going to translate. What should I say to them?”
“Ask them what they are doing here.”
The human named Hiro answered after Geoff posed the question, “Some of the villagers are worried about the dungeon and you monsters. One of them asked us to come out here and deal with you… I've never seen monsters that could talk, only heard about it. How do you know human speech?”
I answered through Geoff, “Monsters are not the unthinking, unfeeling creatures you seem to think they are. They are people just as much as anyone. If not for the difference in appearance, you couldn’t tell the difference.”
Hiro scowled, “That's not true; monsters are... monsters! If the dungeons weren't so useful, we would exterminate all of them!”
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“What about her?” I asked, pointing to Dianne.
Until now she had remained silent, looking thoughtful. After Geoff translated, though, she looked startled and spoke up for the first time.
The translation didn’t come from Geoff this time but Lilith instead. “She said, Me? What about me?”
Lilith had been listening in through the crown. There were definitely some rules I did not understand when it came to her being able to speak and act through the avatar and the crown at the same time, but there were more pressing concerns just now.
“So I was right? She’s a monster?” I asked the crown.
“I can't tell for sure. I can understand her, and I could probably talk back to her if I tried. But it’s like trying to talk through a wall. Something is off, but I can't tell what.”
Hiro hadn't been part of our little discussion and answered the earlier question.
“What about her? Don't try to deceive me, monster. Just because you are able to talk doesn't mean you can turn us against each other!”
Something in Dianne's face told me she had some idea of what I was talking about, though, and I pressed, talking directly to her through Lilith instead of Geoff.
“I can't tell exactly what you are… but you’re not human. You know that, though, right? What is a Dhampir?”
She answered, but this time rather than sounding like human speech, her words sounded more like a hissing and clicking.
“I... I am human! What do you know? Why do you say I'm not human? Do… Do you know Victor?”
Hiro noticed her change in speech. He didn't seem to know what to make of it though, just staring at her in horror like she had grown another head and declared puppies were delicious. Dianne herself didn't seem to be aware that she was speaking differently, though, leaning forward and waiting for my answers. I gave them to her, though I knew they wouldn't be what she wanted to hear.
“I don't know anyone named Victor. I can tell you’re not human, though. Listen to yourself; you’re not even speaking like a human right now.”
Dianne's eyes widened, and she looked around in a panic. Hiro had stepped back a ways as we spoke and pulled out his giant sword. Geoff translated his angry words as he spat them at Dianne.
“You… what are you? I trusted you… and you’re a monster! How long? What did you do to the real Dianne?”
Dianne hurriedly answered, unconsciously switching back to human speech, “I am human! Mostly… I’m still me, Hiro! My father was... not normal... But I’m still me! Please, you have to believe me.”
“I don’t know what you are anymore… but… I have to kill the monsters… I have to protect the people…”
He took a deep breath and raised his massive slab of a sword threateningly. This was all going way too fast now. Whatever I had set into motion was well beyond my control, and Hiro was taking it all too far. Dianne was in a full panic now, quickly backpedaling. But there was nowhere for her to go, and she backed up right to the edge of the ditch. Hiro advanced on her, seeming to have passed judgment on the traitor and deciding to take her out before turning his wrath on us regular monsters.
“Wait! Stop!”
I recognized the voice as Cynthia, the little girl from the village. Hiro must have recognized it as well as he stopped mid-stride and looked around for the girl. Cynthia came running out from behind a nearby tree waving her arms wildly.
“Don't fight! You can't fight! You promised you wouldn't hurt my friends!... you’re all my friends, so you can't hurt each other! You promised!”
Hiro looked conflicted at the declaration for some reason. The little girl had taken his attention, which presented an opportunity. Dianne had the same idea I did and fled into the woods while Geoff and I hurried back into the dungeon. That had not gone as expected. Though I really didn't have a plan for a monster in human skin showing up.
I quickly stopped time to make some emergency changes to the dungeon, just in case Hiro decided to attack anyway. Most of the changes were simple things we had settled on during the previous meetings. It took some rearranging, but I ended up with all twenty rooms that we were allowed at the new tier, which opened up a bunch of options for minion assignments and trap placements.
We would really need to explore all our new options and figure out the best way to defend our home, but my information source, Lilith, was not here. Somehow she had been able to keep in contact through the crown even though she was away, but starting and closing the construction mode several times as a test made it clear that she couldn't talk while time was stopped unless she was actually here. That was pretty inconvenient, and I asked her, as politely as I could, to hurry the hell up so we could figure out the new changes together.
Fortunately Hiro decided we weren't going anywhere and left, most likely chasing after Dianne, so we had some time. As I gave a tour of the new rooms, Gale brought up a good suggestion that I hadn't considered before.
“All these rooms, we could make a network to connect them. That way you can assign minions to all of them, and they meet up somewhere to gather and defend against invaders. You can get a lot more minion levels defending that way.”
I already did something similar on a smaller scale. I started invasions in the boss chamber but immediately joined the defenders in the bunk room. If we were to do that same thing with several rooms, we could have a horde all gather up in one room and fight together. We would still have to have some empty rooms to boost the maximum wave level and if we wanted any minions over level three to join the fighting. That wasn't much of a problem, though, with all of these extra rooms. It made me wonder how many rooms the troll dungeon would have. They certainly were higher tier than us, and we already had access to twenty rooms.
With this new suggestion we had to scrap all our previous layout plans and start fresh. I really needed to find a monster interested in architecture to take over this part of dungeon management. Finally, deep into the night, Lilith returned from her adventure. Squirrely McSquirrel followed a pace behind and to the side, like a servant waiting on their master's word.
Lilith pulled me to the side. “We need to talk.”
“My thoughts exactly. What are all these new unlocks?”
“Mm, yeah, there is a lot to go over there, but first…”
She looked to the squirrel expectantly, who scurried to the top of a nearby table and started chattering. Having only one translation amulet was becoming a pain. After having that thought, I had to chuckle. How much more difficult would this be without it? We brought Geoff over, who offered up the amulet, and we decided to have Lilith wear it and translate since the squirrel was clearly subservient to her and not us. She cleared her throat and launched into the unenviable task of having a conversation twice in two different languages.
“Now that Mistress Lilith has a body again, there are some things you should all know.” Squirrely McSquirrel started, “Mistress Lilith is the previous Master Dungeon.”
That was a shock, not because she had been powerful before; I had guessed that much, but for a different reason.
I voiced my confusion, “How is that possible? I thought Master Dungeons ascended when another appeared. The last Master Dungeon should be on another world, right?”
The squirrel took a deep breath and ran a tiny paw through his fur before continuing, “Yes and no… When a dungeon ascends, the inhabitants are all given a choice. They are allowed to follow and become the first life on the new world, or they can stay. The dungeon itself is not given that choice. They do both.
The previous Master Dungeon was not named Lilith; she was called Naomi. Naomi became the new world itself, but also became Lilith. Many of the monsters stayed back as well to help the new dungeon. Artemis, an archdemon, took the mantle of dungeon boss… but we were betrayed.
There are only a few demons left now, and we must be careful not to draw more attention than we can handle until Mistress Lilith can regain her strength.”
There was a lot to unpack there, and I needed to take a moment before asking the next question.
“So… the demons… and Lilith, have enemies. Enemies that can track the demons and are far too strong for us. Is that what Hiro and Dianne came for? To finish the job?”
Squirrely shook his head. “No, I’ve been watching them. There are five humans from the capital in the village. They seem to be looking for Derrick, but not the mistress.”
“Dianne isn't human." I corrected the squirrel.
That seemed to finally render the chatty rodent speechless, and it took several seconds for him to respond.
“That… is very unlikely. Why do you think this?”
I decided to tell Lilith one of my last secrets and have her decide whether to trust the squirrel.
“Don't translate this right away. I can inspect people and monsters to get informati…”
Lilith interrupted, “I know; I see it too when you do it… I thought that it was a normal thing that the crowns could do. I guess it's unique to you…”
A quirk of the translation amulet meant I could still understand what she told the squirrel, even though it was being magically changed into squeaks and clicking before reaching him.
“We found an artifact that lets us scan people; Dianne is not human.” She lied.
At least I wasn't the only one with trust issues. It probably didn't help that we had just found out someone had betrayed Lilith recently. The squirrel didn't seem convinced but didn't press. The word of his mistress was law.
Squirrely looked thoughtful when he spoke next, “That may be an opportunity we can exploit. What is she?”
“A dhampir, whatever that is.”
The squirrel's eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, and the squirrel shuddered uncomfortably.
“That may be very, very bad. Dhampir are half vampire and half human. Vampires are exclusive to the kingdom to the south, Kinpire. The humans of that kingdom are little better than livestock to the vampires. It's rare for a dhampir to be born, let alone survive childhood. The vampires look down on humans as lesser. Any half-breeds are beaten to death by their own family to prevent the ire of the vampires.
If she is here... I don't know. There are too many questions and no answers. Still, we can use that. Turn the humans against her. If we are lucky, we might be able to have them take out the trolls as well…”
“And Derrick can't help us because that would draw more attention? What about having him take out the trolls for us?” I asked.
“No… any action would be like sending up a magical beacon asking for more trouble.”
“So… what do we do next?”
“We need to prepare for a fight and gather more information. How much more time do we have?”
I winced, “One more day until we are supposed to deliver.”
Squirrely nodded, “They probably won't attack right away, but we should be ready just in case. With the third tier, there are a lot of new options. It’s a major boost to power.”
I asked the question I knew I would regret, “What are our chances?”
The squirrel snorted, “Without any interference? Bad. With all of these variables? Well... Derrick is ready to swoop in and retrieve the crown when you fall, so don't worry too much.”
For some reason that didn't reassure me very much.