Dungeons: A Primer

Dungeons have existed throughout all of our recorded history, dating far far back into the days before writing and reading were a concern and pictoglyph cave drawings were the only means of communicating ideas over the generations. *

The purpose is multilevel, as are the structures typically. Dungeons first and foremost collect the volatile unaligned Masaara from the world around them, drawing it in and aligning it to more controllable Masaara types.

Secondly dungeons are able to perfectly reconstruct everything that is absorbed by them, often times yielding a far superior version of the item, how this is done no one knows, if you find a dungeon that wants to talk let me know and I'll teleport there immediately.**

Third is as a cleansing ground for the souls of those who fall, in, around, on top of, inside of or nearby the dungeon itself. The dungeon washes the soul akin to when we do our laundry and spits out an untainted one to dry in the process of reincarnation, this is fact and has been proven by the reincarnates near the Kingdom of Aldar, who complain that the Dungeon hasn't been removing every memory from their past selves leading to more than a few misunderstandings.***

Lastly the Dungeons of our wonderful plane allow us to gain abilities by fighting in them, wealth by plundering the items they have no use for anymore and materials and skills we never would be able to gain from other sources.

-Tomas S. Treacc III

*There are cave paintings in the jungles far to the south on the continent of Trylla, depicting Cores and monsters engaged in combat.

** No really I mean it. Go to the nearest mages guild and have them send a message to the guild in Maldova asking for me specifically.

*** Imagine coming back to life to find your wife is married to your killer, and that you were born to them as an offspring of the coupling. This also proves that Dungeons have some type of sentience and the will to not work properly, in my opinion at least, people also debate whether the Core there is damaged in some way.

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"I don't understand it Jewel, it's been seeded for almost a year now and it is barely pulling in any Masaara from around it.

Maybe it's defective like that other one is? Should we go check and see if it's okay?" Erifis asked to her partner, the two women staring out through the magical lens upon the island barely visible on the horizon.

"It's a Dungeon Eri, our Dungeon, maybe it's a little bit slower on the uptake than the others but it isn't sending out creatures we know about yet. Did you see the report from yesterday, the one from the fishers? Is that what has you in a fuss?"

Jewel responded removing her Masaara Observation Crystal from her eye and focusing back on her friend and partner, worried.

"Yeah I saw the report, really big whirlpool in the shipping lane, I'm worried it might have flooded itself unintentionally, but more worried since Lord Ricard said he'd order it destroyed if it wasn't up to speed soon."

Jewel let's out a sigh at Erifis' reply,

"And you're worried because you think your ex-husband's soul is out there, that if it's destroyed he'll come back as angry and drunk in the next life as he was in this one, you're like that book you are, easy to read because I know you as well as I know it." Erifis looked at the book pointed out and laughed, "how're your wee ones anyway?"

"As rambunctious as Rael and as energetic as Seren, I swear they have some Brille in them too when they get in trouble or don't wanna sleep."

The conversation on the Dungeon forgotten, switched over aptly by the older woman to help cover her friends troubles forgotten for the day.

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New Connections Established

Verifying .... Verified Successfully

Checking Network... 7.2% Connectivity

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Downloading Memories... Success

Installing.... Complete

Commanding Will....

"Fuck off you rat bastard, this is my body, my soul go get your own!"

Query... Why reactivate? Unit Failure.

"Picked the wrong soul to fight, I don't blame you, go for the damaged one so you have a leg up on it, almost like an animal instinct but still, I won, you lost, get over it and show me your belly like a good dog."

Query... What?

"Accept your loss and roll over, come help me build this damned thing and stop sulking in your own self pity you dumb fuck! I don't know how half this shit works and maybe you just might still come out successful on whatever your soul stealing task is as a Dungeon."

Assist.... Pending Response.... Confirmed

Asserting Dominance

"Like hell you are, we do this has partners or not at all. You can keep your 7.2% bullshit and I'll keep what's mine."

Partners... Confirmed...

Query... What now?

"Well I'd like to close up this entrance to my, err... Our core room but want to allow some of that juicy mana to seep through the wall. I tried making grates like I did up in the Spiral of Madness but the flow is too much. Got any ideas?"

Query... Mana?

"You know, the wispy lines of energy that flow into the big FUCKIN GEM IN THE ROOM?!?"

Massara. Masaara strong... Dirt no... Create Will

The DIEsight screen flashes through windows faster than my mind can keep track of resting on a picture of dark colored stone with a slightly different atomic structure. This one features a name as well, Oceanic Enhanced Dungeon Stone(Permeable) "See that's not so hard right?" I don't want to tell the parasite I've been floating here for almost 4 months trying it over and over.... Same thing, same result, day in and day out. I'm pretty sure that is the definition of insanity....

I look over my DIEsight map of the Dungeon itself, and I'm a bit shocked but mildly happy with the results. From the sink and down down deep into the pit, which is absolutely full of spiders at this point, some as big as a car tire from back in my other life. Into a pit of water that has been stagnant for so long that there is more mosquitoes and gnats in it than there are spiders up above it. Into a large room with old looking moss covered and broken in places statues by the door.

They look like Spiky, angry rats the size of bulldogs, with rubies in the eyes. The door has a hole the size of an arm and at the halfway point through the hole is large spike of stone. The goal is to fill the hole in the center of the door with liquid, blood, water, urine, I don't care. It takes one gallon, or 7 pounds of liquid to activate the pressure plate at the bottom unlocking the door mechanism and letting it swing open. It has to be liquid, because the channel that is filled is a zigzagging line, no cheating my door.

Inside is a few 100% pure gold bars, visible on top of the table in the middle of the room with a fairly high ceiling. Far above any range that a torch could reach, are several sharp thin stalactites, they cover the whole roof.

Say for example some horrible asshole shows up and forces his servant to impale their arm on the spike in the door to get that delicious pile of gold bars, while he's struggling to lift the bar I can find the right spike and simply remove it's connection to the ceiling. Eventually they'll realize that the bars are fused together, and then held in place by the stone table, yeah gold is soft and all, and if they had a pickaxe or something they don't mind dulling they can cut It into pieces and take the pieces but that stack isn't going anywhere for the unprepared.

The next room is my rat den, by imagining rats the size of dogs, that's what I got, and when they had babies.... Well uhhh, I pity the fool that comes into here. The attentive people who sit down at the table will get to see that there is an indentation on the wall to an upper area of the next room, one where the rats aren't allowed. Leading all the way across the room and to a set of stairs, that also go up, to my next floor. It's more spiders, but they're bigger and there is more of them.

There is also a "Save Me Plate" name pending. A large disk in a circular tunnel, made of palm wood surprisingly and it fits perfectly in the tunnel. With my access to elements I filled it with hydrogen gas, and helium gas, enough that if someone is standing on it, and under 400 pounds, it won't sink into the deep pit of water underneath it. Then I just fuse the entrance shut and fill the water level underneath the plate, and they float all the way up and out, to the old well, modeled perfectly I might add to seen like a dried up well, complete with a rotten rope and no bucket.

After the spider floor is another Save Me Plate room, leading not all the way to the surface but just under the tide pool on the beach, and a set of stairs to the next room created in my umm loss of focus is a large cavern, random stalagmites and stalactites all of pillars with crystals and a glowing moss all over. At the back of this chamber it features a large crystal dome leading up to the ocean, like a magical deep sea aquarium, but the animals aren't in the tank, you are.

I purposely made it so that visitors would have to walk to it and look at it by creating very thick walls with holes in them and leaving sharpened sticks inside of the holes. It doesn't do anything, it just looks like a trap and after entering I can just throw the sticks at the wall and they'll think they're being chased. This leads to a steep cliff face where they'll have to climb up the cliff to see my Beautiful Basketball Shaped Black Chiseled Heart. It's also where I'm likely to kill them, since I can fly, and I presume they cannot. The boss monster, and I can totally call her a boss monster, is a very large black gecko. Like she could swallow a kid whole, large. She likes to crawl around on the ceiling and stare at the fish outside in the ocean. Now how do I get the attention of the humans around...... "Any idea how to get humans to notice me, uhhh, us?"

Can see Masaara, more Masaara, means ready to operate.....

"So just breathe. Gotcha. I'll still call it mana cause I'm just used to that word. Masaara sounds like Indian or Thai food." I start breathing again, wondering what a good stopping point is....