Martin awoke with a splitting headache pulsing behind his temple. He groaned and rolled over. A sharp rock dug into his side through the thin tent canvas which served to banish the disorientation that the headache brought about.
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Martin attempted to sit up, but rough hemp restraints pulled roughly against his wrists and ankles. Shocked, he pulled up his interface on instinct but instead of the reassuring window popping up, a sharp heat burned at the base of his throat.
He gasped, eyes flying open as he took in the dim walls of his tent. A faint stream of evening light pierced the thin fabric and illuminated his packed belongings. Near the entrance, the hooded form of Gella sat hunched on the small camping stool he had bought in a moment of weakness upon leaving Krimta.
“Gella. Gella!” Martin hissed, reaching up to feel at the dreaded silver collar wrapped tightly around his throat. A primal fear constricted his gut as he ineffectually patted at the unyielding silver. He tried to summon his interface and cast spells, but each time the collar burned and he was left with nothing. “Gella, what the hell happened. Why am I tied up, and why do I have a slave collar around my neck?”
Gella straightened, turning dull eyes on him, then shrugged. “James knocked you out in the dungeon and brought us all out safely. He put the restriction collar around you and told me to watch you while he patched up Aurora and himself.”
“And you let him?!” Martin said, his shaking hands freezing for a moment as the blurry memories rushed back to him.
“You told me to come with you,” Gella shrugged again. Martin stared at the young lady for a second, trying to process how the dagger would allow her to behave the way she did.
“Never mind that,” Martin licked his dry lips with a shake of his head. “Take this thing off of me, I have to be able to feel the system.”
Gella nodded and stood, then made to leave the tent.
“Wait!” Martin interrupted her. “What...Where are you going?”
“It’s a Guard collar. James has the key. I was going to ask him for it,” Gella replied simply. Martin’s heart jumped into his throat as he realized that despite the dagger, she was about to rat him out.
“Alright, never mind that. Sit back down, and tell me about what the situation is like outside.” Martin shook his head, taking a moment to breath and calm down. He listened to Gella speak as thoughts whirled through his head. The spike of panic the collar had brought around faded as she spoke and he began to think clearly once more.
He had been betrayed. Betrayed by a noble man. An upstanding member of the Guard. The shitty organization that claimed virtue and humility but in truth were the worst scum on the planet. All guards—No. All people were liars and cheats. Monsters who would backstab anyone they could if there was even the faintest hint it would benefit them.
James would be rewarded handsomely for stopping a budding necromancer. Hell. It was likely that shit-eating mouth-breather had already sent the message ahead so that they could prepare his advance ahead of time. Even if Martin somehow managed to get out of this alive, he wouldn’t be welcome back in Krimta, or any city with even a smidgen of a Guard presence.
A cold acceptance settled over Martin. The rage and helplessness he had held onto for so long vanished in a breath. No one would come help him. He knew that. Not any of the factions. Not his family. Not his patron. If he wanted to get something done he had to do it himself. He knew that, but at the same time he had never really internalized it until now.
If he was screwed no matter what, he would have to fully accept the power of his class. It was him against the world and there could be no remorse. No mercy for anyone or anything that stood in his way. It was freeing. Released from the arbitrary rules and morals of society. Constantly having to think twice about every action just in case he angered someone.
Not anymore.
He would have to tier up. There was no way he would be able to avoid the Inquisition as a tier 1 classholder. Even when he tiered up and raised his level cap, he would have a tough time, but it would buy him some time to find another dungeon to destroy.
But to tier up, he had to clear the dungeon. A task that was easier said than done considering the dungeon had shown a surprising amount of malleability in between the first and second runs. He would need to hit his current level cap and summon a veritable army of tier one undead to get to the core, especially since he doubted James and Aurora would be all that willing to help.
Well? Why did they need to be willing?
He raised a hand, cutting off Gella, as a faint contented grin rose unbidden to his lips. James had done well in binding his arms and legs, then using the restriction collar to prevent access to his skills, but there was one thing he had missed.
The Dagger of Geas, a great artifact from the Dungeon of Souls, and currently embedded deep within sweet Gella didn’t require a direct access to the system to function. It worked based on soulforce, and couldn’t be blocked, silenced, or broken regardless of level. It would allow him to not only escape, but achieve absolute victory.
The dagger itself had a great number of limitations and had to be handled with care. It didn’t truly enslave the mind as some would believe, but here and now? On low level scum like Gella? It was inviolable.
“So, Gella,” Martin turned his cold gaze on the blank eyed rogue. “Here is what you are going to do..."
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Two days passed. Two days with nothing at all of interest happening. The system had granted my halls the Deep Dark biome effect which was cool, and my Nothic loved it, but otherwise it was just meh. I mean, what was the point of an offensive biome if no adventurers came knocking? Plus, it ruined my secret external expansion into the forest by covering that area in darkness that tenaciously resisted the sun each day.
After the first desperate night, I had been sure that the adventurers would be back. Honestly, I’d been surprised that they hadn’t popped up later that evening with how incensed the necromancer had been, and if not the same party, perhaps some other party.
Boy was I wrong, and man was I bored.
No mana flowed in, except for the barest trickle from the nearby forest. An occasional creature walked by, but even when the lizards and birds entered my domain, it couldn’t hold a candle to the amount I gained from even a single human. Few of the creatures bothered staying too. Likely due to the cold, dry walls and the complete lack of anything edible within.
Or maybe it was because of the pervasive, terrifying darkness that latched onto each one and drained their vitality.
During this time I discovered several things, including how to create shadow weaponry, improving upon the shadow Nothic creation process and more, but I didn’t have nearly as much time as I expected. The reason for that was the last and most terrifying discovery I made during this time period.
Dungeons hibernated if left unchecked.
The first time the unwanted hibernation occurred I barely realized I had lost hours just staring into the distance, and it was only the sudden shifting of the sun outside that clued me in. I had spent hours searching frantically for a mage or rogue that could knock me out of commission, only for my consciousness to fade for another hour out of nowhere.
It terrified me. Suddenly losing hours of the day without having felt a thing was not something I was used to. I didn’t know why it was occurring now, and not when I was level one with the lightning salamander, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I tried fighting it, but it was difficult when I barely even felt the hibernation coming. I persisted and while I couldn’t stop the random bouts of lost time, I got better at feeling them approaching. What scared me most, however, was that the duration of each blackout was steadily increasing.
I did learn what snapped me out of it, however. Each time I came to my senses, I noticed it was because my mana had ticked up from something or other. Whether the wind blew excessively against the forests branches, or a colorful bird, or slow moving lizard moved through my domain. No matter what, I would suddenly find myself intently focusing on the source of my mana influx with no idea why I was staring so intently, or what I had been doing just a second prior. Regardless of the underlying reasons, it seemed that I needed the humans just as much as they needed me.
The whole affair was likely an innate defense mechanism to prevent madness due to excessive boredom, but like vomiting and all the other unpleasant reflexes humans were saddled with, I was less than amused.
That was why, when the undead walked through my domain, I was initially thrilled.
It was a boar. Around waist height and burly with coarse fur and curling tusks, but with patches of skin missing and sickly cast to its fur. The other telltale clue that it was one of the walking dead was that its left eye was missing and I could see its brain from the outside.
The thing just walked by until it saw one of the ubiquitous salamanders and charged. The salamander sprinted into my darkness and granted me three whole points of mana — woke me up like a shot of espresso before bed — before it escaped and vanished into a divot in the ground. The undead boar didn’t seem perturbed that it had failed in catching the smaller, faster creature, and after a brief search for the missing salamander, ambled out of my domain.
Several aspects of that encounter were interesting. The first was that the undead’s movement didn’t grant mana. I didn’t find it all that surprising, as the observation was consistent with my current model of manergic induction, but it was still a shame. The second was that I was once again enamored with the fauna of this world. Salamanders that shot lightning were cool, but the existence of — hostile — undead were one of the hallmarks of an awesome fantasy world.
It was breathtaking to see a roving undead boar and it sparked so many questions. How did it die? How did it become undead? Did dead bodies spontaneously rise, or was there some other mechanism at play? Did being undead have a time limit? Did they degrade in the sun? Did they have an urge to kill life, or did they just wander and attack the living?
The questions were endless and that excited me.
In retrospect, I should have been able to answer some of the more pressing questions immediately. All the signs were there, but I blamed the low-lying panic and random losses of time as for why I didn’t recognize it sooner.
Later that day a certain necromancer stepped into my domain with his party. He didn’t stay long, spending his time summoning lights and watching them vanish after a couple minutes due to the Deep Dark. That was nice as it told me how strong my biome effect was, but the shocking thing was that James and Aurora were now both zombies. They shambled after him with lifeless eyes, and I could only be grateful that the little creep hadn’t killed Gella as well, though I wasn’t sure her situation was any better.
It was tough to figure out what was happening when I couldn’t actually see the forest, but from the context clues I came to the conclusion that Martin had summoned a boatload of undead and had them systematically murdering every living creature in the forest, only to reanimate the corpses to join his growing army.
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That made me...nervous. A man who had explicitly stated he wanted me dead was collecting an army in my backyard and there was jack squat I could do about it. I didn’t really understand the hostility, and kind of wished I could talk to the man and settle on a reasonable compromise. I even tried moving my core, but quickly realized that wouldn’t be viable as it involved shifting every single one of my cilia in parallel. It might be possible with immense amounts of practice, but for now I would be better off hitching a ride with a snail.
Barring a more peaceful resolution. I prepared.
I kept falling asleep and losing my train of thought, but I did my best. I added another floor to the maze, and expanded upon the boss room. In three locations in the maze, I created larger arenas filled with the same thick intractable darkness of my boss room in the hopes my Nothic could use the areas as ambush points.
Lastly, I spent a whole hour carving out a detailed mural near my entrance that depicted humans peacefully residing within my domain.
Hopefully the bumpkin would chill.
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At the start of the fourth day I woke to a familiar party of four standing at the base of my cliff. Perhaps I should say party of one with three hanger ons. James and Aurora were very clearly dead and in much worse condition than they had been mere days ago. Gella on the other hand was still very much alive, but the dagger in her back looked sorta infected.
Martin though. Martin stood tall. Confident, and lacking the terminal bruises under his eyes. He had acquired an easy smile and a carefree attitude of a man reborn. That more than anything improved his standing from lanky and thin to chiseled and handsome. In addition, his aura had grown, distorting my cilia more and farther out than it had when he had first come to me. It was a stark transformation, and I couldn’t help but be intimidated by it.
Especially since, streaming around the group, was what appeared to be an endless horde of undead. Birds and bats filled the air above, while boars and large cats stalked around on the forest floor. Several apes lumbered off to the side and made way for several large undead alligators with six legs. Each one was either recently deceased, or long dead and composed of more bone than flesh.
All that controlled by a single tiny little necromancer.
Skills were such utter bullshit.
Martin glanced at the mural at my entrance hall then smiled and gestured to his undead.
The undead climbed my cliffside as, deep within my bowels, my Nothic stirred.
Once beautiful birds and bats with glowing eyes emitting a pale teal smoke fluttered up to my entrance and dove into the Deep Dark. Black shadows curled around the creatures, but within a second it was clear to me that they had no trouble navigating the dark.
My Nothic slinked out to meet the coming force but they were outnumbered too heavily to have even a hope of escaping unscathed. My first Nothic died from a thousand tiny pecks by birds, while my second was brutally ripped in half between four different creatures. The third and fourth fell as a flood of the ravening monstrosities drowned them in bodies.
Still, for every Nothic that fell dozens upon dozens of undead died. The Deep Dark drained the invaders and made the Nothic’s Rotting Gaze pierce through the ranks with terrifying ease. Their claws rent bone from rotting flesh and their shadowy nature meant that nine out of ten blows from the purely physical invaders missed or hit allies.
But it was their intelligence that proved to be their greatest strength. The undead were stupid. They saw a foe, and charged, which allowed my Nothic to lead the undead through my traps. My many, many traps.
Hundreds died.
But through it all, I couldn’t help but keep an eye on that wily necromancer and his posse of three. He strode through my halls, clicking his staff on my floors, like he owned the place. That infuriatingly casual grin never left his face as he constantly resummoned spheres of lights to guide his way. He didn’t sense my dungeon flows this time, or if he did, he didn’t use them to navigate. Instead he simply had his army exhaustively search my maze. Despite multiple levels, dead ends, and random turns it simply wasn’t large enough to prevent such a strategy.
So it was, nearly an hour after the undead first arrived that I found myself watching my last two valiant Shadow Nothic standing guard in my final chamber as Martin and his three companions stepped in. Every last undead was crushed, cut, impaled or otherwise broken in my maze. Every undead except for the two humans that Martin hadn’t let leave his side.
I quickly glanced at my mana, tension palpable in the air.
< Mana: 403/410 >
My two injured Nothic snarled through the dark and opened their eyes. Martin casually stepped behind Gella and gestured. James and Aurora lumbered forward into the stygian dark of my boss room.
They had no trouble locating my Nothic and lashed out. My Nothic dodged back, retaliating with claw strikes that devastated the rotting undead as they led them through the traps set in the chamber. Whatever Martin had done to them, James and Aurora were both far weaker than they had been in life. Lacking skills and a sharp mind to guide them, their bodies mindlessly charged after my Nothic, and were ripped apart for their trouble.
But it didn’t matter. With the Nothic located, Martin unleashed a few targeted bolts of writhing purple energy and my valiant protectors fell.
“Finally,” Martin took a deep refreshing breath through his nose and stepped into the dark.
< Mana: 404/410 >
They explored the room and located the exit after some trial and error.
< Mana: 405/410 >
They paused at the start of my final hallway. At the end, my brilliant core floated languidly in the air. The source of all my power, and my heart, stood exposed to this foul invader.
Martin grinned and gestured. My two Nothic rose, broken bodies and injuries intact, and limped over to stand beside their new master.
“Retrieve the core,” Martin gestured grandly at my heart.
< Mana: 406/410 >
The first Nothic shuddered, then limped into my hallway. Three steps inside, it stepped on a pressure plate cleverly hidden between the flagstones, and an ominous click resonated through the hall. A hundred tonne slab of stone fell from the ceiling as if in slow motion, smashed through the undead without even slowing, then crashed through the weakened floor to a pit nearly thirty feet deep. The earth shook with the impact, releasing a wave of blood tinged dust out of the colossal pit.
I had considered simply blocking the entrance in the case of this exact eventuality but I needed to breath so I settled on huge pits and falling stones.
“Amazing!” Martin let out a delighted laugh and grinned, pulling out a notepad where he began jotting down notes. “The sheer number and quality of traps in this dungeon is spectacular. Something I did must have triggered an abnormally aggressive response.”
< Mana 407/410 >
“Retrieve the core,”
The second Nothic shambled across the pit, using its sharp claws to crawl along the walls. At precisely the midpoint of the hallway it stepped on my second redundant trap. Another huge slab of stone vaporized the undead and doubled the length of the pit now opposing the Necromancer.
Martin grinned at the carnage, then picked up Aurora’s femur and tossed it across the pit. It landed at the end of the hallway and triggered my last redundant trap. I watched in dismay as my last line of defense crumbled, silently cursing the fact that I hadn’t figured out a more intelligent trigger for the traps.
Just then their light winked out, getting consumed by the Deep Dark. Martin tsked and resummoned the light.
“Retrieve the core,” Martin smiled wide, making a shooing motion at Gella.
She nodded and jogged to the rear of the room.
< Mana 409/410 >
She turned around and broke into a sprint with the direct intent of leaping over the huge pit before my core. Just as she was about to reach the pit, she activated a skill and my mana ticked over.
< Mana 410/410 >
< You have leveled up! >
< You are now level 6! >
< Mana 0/551 >
I slammed my interface open as fast as I possibly could in the vain hope that there was something — anything — in the upgrades section that could save me in this situation.
< Upgrades: [Summon Nothic, Create Shadow Source, Wily Intellect, Deep Dark] >
< Upgrades pending: 1 >
My world went dark.
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“She’s useless! Dead in less than a week!”
I blearily opened my eyes to a large auditorium full of red velvet backed chairs and satin curtains. I stood on the stage, overlooking an audience of sixty-four individuals arrayed in a neat eight by eight matrix.
“She’s not dead yet, and she managed to level, which is all that matters!”
Each audience member was wearing a black and white suit, with some other form of accessory. There were monocles, top hats, canes and more, and each one was unique, in their own way. As I studied them, my heart caught in my throat as I realized that each audience member had the face and features of a penguin.
“Give her an upgrade!”
“Save her!”
“Gnomes rule!”
I turned to the side, shocked and oddly at peace with the strange environment. To my right, I saw a strange sight. A broad shouldered statue of a man in full plate stood in an action pose with two shields raised towards an invisible foe. A cape of stars spilled from his collar, and dark purple flames endlessly danced across the surface of his armor. He stood on an ornate plinth decorated with various engravings, including a headless smith, a cold elf with two faces and a prominently featured deer skull.
Beneath it all, was a simple inscription:
Chilly
“Silence!”
I jumped, spinning back to the crowd as a particularly grouchy looking penguin-person hobbled up to the front and turned to face the crowd.
“Skills we want, so skills we shall have!” The penguin-person raised its arms wide and the crowd went silent.
“The first, we offer, for those who seek the dark.
Blood and death and nothing good lies down this road.
Yet death is but the end for some.
While others shall receive salvation from the chains that bind.
We offer Bind Dungeon Knight!
To chain the emancipator and bring about a new era”
I jumped as a great blue box popped into my vision.
Bind Dungeon Knight:
+1 to maximum Dungeon Knights
Level cap of Dungeon Knights is equal to your level
You gain [Summon Knight] at a 1 minute cooldown
-50% to maximum creatures
25,000 minute cooldown
“The second, we offer, for those who seek a friend.
The art of creation can take one far along their path.
Yet steel and stone can leave a void
That only flesh and bone can fill with joy.
We offer Soulbind Artifact!
To uplift another, so that both may rise.”
Soulbind Artifact:
Soulbound artifacts can be controlled regardless of distance
Soulbound artifacts are immune to skills less than +7 of your level
You understand the abilities of Soulbound artifacts
You cannot create artifacts
25,000 minute cooldown
My eyes sagged as I felt myself fading. Being pulled back through a psychedelic dreamscape of twisted geometry and endless darkness. At the edge of my consciousness I heard the last words of the penguin orator.
“The third, we offer, for those who seek order and virtue.
The law may be twisted, and perhaps it has fallen from grace.
But it was never intended to imprison, reform, or punish.
In its primacy, the law was made to deny the need for vengeance.
We offer Greater Revive!
For if an Eye cannot be traded for an Eye.
Then perhaps the world shall be able to see at last.”
Greater Revive:
Revive any single sentient or non-sentient being to perfect health
Sentients return to their original level or your level +7 whichever is lesser
Lose 0.5% of maximum mana per hour
25,000 minute cooldown
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Collated list for your convenience:
Bind Dungeon Knight:
+1 to maximum Dungeon Knights
Level cap of Dungeon Knights is equal to your level
You gain [Summon Knight] at a 1 minute cooldown
-50% to maximum creatures
25,000 minute cooldown
Soulbind Artifact:
Soulbound artifacts can be controlled regardless of distance
Soulbound artifacts are immune to skills less than +7 of your level
You understand the abilities of Soulbound artifacts
You cannot create artifacts
25,000 minute cooldown
Greater Revive:
Revive any single sentient or non-sentient being to perfect health
Sentients return to their original level or your level +7 whichever is lesser
Lose 0.5% of maximum mana per hour
25,000 minute cooldown