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Time froze as the vision faded. My interface burned with a single new addition.
< Soulbind Artifact >
Without a second thought, I used the new ability on the dagger sticking out of Gella’s back, and in an instant of terrible clarity, I understood.
The dagger wasn’t merely a dagger, created for cutting, stabbing, and war. It was more than that. A sentient thing. Alive despite the lack of a true mind or circulatory system. Much the same as myself, it was sentient — the terrible creation — with an underlying cruel intelligence laser focused on a single purpose. Control and subjugation.
And it was mine.
Dagger of Geas
Weapon Artifact
Level: 11
Life: +50
Attacks with this weapon cannot kill
+5% physical and mental resistance
Abilities: Suggestion, Suppress Soul, Consume Soul
It was ancient. Old beyond reckoning and yet untarnished by the passage of time as the foul intelligence it harbored protected it and urged its masters to use it. Yet as it fell under my control, I could feel how restricted it was in its current form. How merely sticking into the back of Gella was merely the bare minimum that enabled the lowest of its powers.
The interface provided me the names of its abilities, but it was through its soul bond to me that I understood them. Soulbind Artifact didn’t give me a stat block or a long description to read, rather, it gave me a sense of what each of the abilities did. A feeling full of impressions and notions on the cold-hearted possibilities that could be achieved with each one.
[Suggestion] whispered sweet nothings to me, of destabilization and pain. It told me stories of spiteful words and callous apathy. Of silent nudges that could obliterate a steady marriage if only they were enacted. Of tiny terrible manipulations whose effects would amplify a thousand fold to create endless seas of beautiful destruction and irresistible desolation. It told a story of a madman dancing over corpses because deep within his heart of hearts he knew that it would just feel so good.
I shuddered in comprehension, but Soulbind Artifact wasn’t done just yet.
[Suppress Soul] sang a song of sadism and confinement. It crooned to me the joys of watching another wither in a cage, and the delightful gratification of seeing them break. It begged me to use it, to allow the chains of the ability to constrict around its host for no other purpose than watching her squirm.
But it was the last ability that truly struck me with fear.
[Consume Soul] did not beseech or exhort to be used. It sat back, smug and confident, that it didn’t need to resort to such base measures to get my attention. It knew I wanted to use it. To sever the motive force behind its host’s will. To rip and tear and take for myself the fountain of youth bubbling so peacefully within an innocents heart.
The ability exuded a sense of intangible perversion. Urging me to simply taste. Take the smallest of bites so that I could savor the sensation, because it knew that once I succumbed, I would be back for more. So was the addictive power within the soul. Even the smallest fragment danced with an unimaginable morass of possibilities
The primordial potential in that tiny fragment terrified me.
Time resumed its endless march and the the moment of clarity faded. As the instant faded, I hated the dagger. I despised it with every fragment of my being, but with death so close, I had no other options. I locked my omniscient perception on Gella, and used [Suggestion].
Protect me
The message, composed more from intent than words, struck the low-leveled girl like a truck. She collapsed before the edge of the pit in a full body spasm and gagged as the level eleven artifact twisted, crushed and shattered her will with the power of the suggestion. On her back, the Dagger of Geas flared a bright crimson and a dull haze settled over her eyes.
“Gella? What just happened?” Martin asked from behind, confused. “What are you doing?”
Gella slowly stood, panting hard as a thin trail of blood soaked the back of her cloak from the blade in her heart. She turned, hood up as she took in her environment as if she was just waking up from a long sleep.
“Gella! What are you doing,” Martin said, a deep frown marring his features. “I command you to answer me!”
“You are going to destroy the dungeon,” Gella said in a hoarse whisper. She tilted her head to the side, and with slow measured movements, unsheathed the twin daggers at her waist. “I can’t let you do that.”
“What are you blathering...” Martin narrowed his eyes which darted to the tendrils of the Deep Dark which retreated from Gella’s form. “The dagger failed. How?”
Before he could properly understand what had occurred, Gella blurred forward and appeared before him with both daggers flashing. Her first dagger thrust high and Martin squealed as he wildly brandished his staff. The dagger struck the aged oak with a resounding thud followed by a meaty squelch as Gella’s second dagger snuck underneath the dismal defense and sank into the necromancers shoulder to the bone.
Martin squeal turned to a scream, as the Dagger of Geas flared a bright red and Gella twisted the blade to elicit a gush of arterial blood from the wound. He fell backwards, tripping over his own feet as tears clouded his vision.
“Stop! Stop!” Martin screamed.
Gella ignored his pleas and lunged at him. He raised two shaking hands and a pulse of black energy shot out in a wave. It struck Gella in the chest and lifted her up and back until her momentum was abruptly halted by my unyielding stone walls. She collapsed to her knees, coughing, as the impact forced the Dagger of Geas deeper inside her back.
Martin recovered first and a bolt of purple energy slammed into Gella. She rocked back but quickly rolled to the side of the next spell then burst to her feet and dashed towards him.
“The dagger couldn’t have just failed...” Martin murmured, backpedaling as he unleashed another death-tinged emanation. Gella blurred backwards, dodging the spell again before rushing back in. She ran right through a purple bolt, tanking it, and lunged at Martin. He dodged back but couldn't make enough distance on the wily rogue to avoid the blades.
Blood spattered on the ground, and Martin whimpered. He stumbled, nearly falling, but as he righted himself comprehension dawned on his face.
“The dungeon,” he whispered. “It must be. There is nothing else.”
He jumped back, and pointed his raised hand directly at me. With a whisper, he launched another purple bolt.
Before I could panic, the Dagger of Geas flared and Gella blurred right into the bolts path. The dark magic crashed into her, burning skin and knocking her to the ground. She coughed, struggling to roll to her feet but halfway through the motion the Dagger flared and she awkwardly jumped to intercept another of Martin’s projectiles.
“Amazing!" Martin burst out laughing, shooting another bolt at me which Gella blocked. “Every step I take the world is determined to oppose me. I find a new dungeon but it turns out my party is useless! I kill them, but then just as I am about to get my dues, an Artifact turns on me. An Artifact! I can’t catch a break!”
The unhinged man screamed to the heavens as he threw bolt after bolt of dark magic at my core.
“It doesn’t matter though!” Martin burst again into maniacal laughter which abruptly froze as his eyes grew cold and serious. “It doesn’t matter, because I will crush every challenge and grind every single opponent this shitty world throws my way beneath my boot. I’ll destroy this dungeon. Destroy the church. Free my sister and all the weak and downtrodden. I will destroy them all, and reap the reward.”
Martin walked forward and stepped on Gella’s throat. She convulsed weakly, but even the incessant light of the Dagger of Geas couldn’t lift her broken and battered body up from the ground.
I turned my perception away. I couldn’t watch this level of cruelty for the sake of some nebulously good purpose. This unhealthy focus on the destination before the journey was just wrong. It mattered how something was done, not just what the results happened to be. It wasn’t right that this little boy sacrificed everything for power. It wasn’t right that he would stoop to such levels on his mission. It wasn’t right.
And yet...I couldn’t help a blip of chagrin to color my thoughts. I was no better than he was. I was using that terrible dagger to bind Gella against her will in precisely the same way the Martin had. My reasons for doing so were likewise nearly identical. My life or theirs. It was eerie, but it shouldn’t matter that my life was at stake. There were lines that you just shouldn’t cross, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I’d crossed a lot of them without a second thought.
Even without considering Gella’s enslavement, I had experimented on the Nothic in ways that could only be described as cruel and unusual. They hadn’t spoken and they weren’t really powerful enough to fight me, but they had struggled. They had cried, and their little eyes had spun in fear and distress. Embedding them in my walls, experimenting on them, and ultimately turning them into shadow variants had hurt them. Their damaged life totals attested to that fact.
At the end of the day, I was no better than Martin. I treated this world as a game, where life that was not my own had no worth other than what it could provide me. I had trapped that salamander for a level, which had only escalated into a life or death battle with this group. If I had just spent more time making signs to try and communicate would things have ended up differently? Would I have been able to reach a peaceful conclusion without all this bloodshed?
I didn’t know, but one thing that was sure, was that it was always better to be late than never arrive in the first place. If there wasn’t a chance that I would survive this, then it was downright unfair to drag Gella down with me. She was innocent in this. She had a life outside of this singular conflict. A family who loved her, and she didn’t deserve her last moments to look like this.
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Hell, if my death could help Martin save his sister, who was I to get in the way of that? I had been given a second chance on this world and for the brief time on it, I had enjoyed it. Shouldn’t that be enough?
At the end of the day, what I had to do was simple. All my cooldowns were down, and even if I wanted to summon something, my domain was warped beyond my ability to control due to the pair of humans right beside my core. My mana had ticked up significantly due to the fight, but was no where near high enough for a level up. So there was really only one thing to do. I had to use the cruel, terrible, disgusting dagger that started this all, to end it.
Back home, there was a common saying that you shouldn’t blame the gun for a shooting, you should blame the shooter. After all, the gun is but a tool and cannot kill anyone without a guiding hand. In books back home, dark magic was often given the same justification. It was just a tool. Raising the dead wasn’t evil, it was unleashing them on a village that was evil.
But the dagger was evil. It was very much alive and desired to fulfill its savage mission until the day it was destroyed. I couldn’t destroy the dagger. Not here. Not now, but there were some things that I could do.
I reached out with my will to that evil dagger and I suppressed it. As its master, I demanded it silence its incessant whispering. To halt its purpose, and for the first time in its long history, I demanded it stop [Suggesting].
Gella’s body relaxed, the grim red glow at her back faded at last.
But that wouldn’t be enough. Her injuries were too great, and if I didn’t do something then she would die. I was limited to the dagger’s abilities but when I looked back on them I couldn’t help but silently laugh at myself.
I was such a colossal hypocrite.
With wry amusement but a firm conviction I reached once again to the dagger and asked it quietly to use [Consume Soul] to take a small piece of Gella’s soul. Just the smallest sliver. The bare minimum conceivable fragment that could possibly be taken.
The dagger complied.
With jealous hunger, it reached into a space beyond my perception and tore something. My cilia rippled as the volume of the distortion shrunk by the barest margins, though I had little time to analyze that when a small piece of Gella’s soul touched mine.
Euphoria.
Bliss.
Power.
I let the pleasant sensations to wash over me as I flexed my dungeon-empowered will. Somehow, some way, manipulating the soul fragment was easy. As if it existed in a separate physical plane. One where the two humans didn’t distort my ability to manipulate the environment. One where I had complete and total control over everything. Omnipotent. A god.
It was a familiar feeling. It was the same sensation I felt while crafting items, yet a thousand times greater.
I knew what to do.
With deft motions I reached out to Gella and began to weave a complicated web of intent. I didn’t just want Gella to heal from her injuries. I wanted her to grow strong enough to be able to escape Martin, my dungeon and be able to make her way all the way back to wherever she came from. I wanted her to survive.
There was more to my crafting than simple survival, however. I worried deep in my heart that taking a piece of her soul would do irreparable damage. It would be pointless for her to survive this encounter only to waste away a week or month from now due to a damaged soul. So I rendered the smallest fragment of her soul into a cradle. One that would nurture and grow so that the terrible ablation by the Dagger of Geas could heal in time.
This was the first time I was doing something of this complexity, but I wasn’t worried. I knew it would work because — at its core — crafting in this world was simply an act of will. Right here and now. My will was like iron.
My creation grew and grew, gaining a fractal complexity of infinite twisting patterns that seemed to gain a li—
< You cannot craft Artifacts >
A sense of loss filled me, but then my craft was complete. It sank seamlessly under Gella’s skin and vanished in the place where I could not see.
And then all was well.
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Gella gasped as the heavy mental constriction locking her consciousness in place vanished in a flash. The endless whispers grating at her mind dispersed and for the first time in what felt like forever, she relaxed. The pain of her injuries seemed far away. Distant in that unimportant way that her mom had told her meant she was on the brink of death.
It didn’t seem that salient however, so Gella closed her eyes.
< You are afflicted with Soul Burn >
The unfamiliar system notification blinked into her thoughts as a great sickness welled in her chest. The painful pressure built behind her sternum and she curled around it with a cry but no matter what she did, the pain wouldn’t go away.
< You have been cursed by a Dungeon >
A deep dread filled her as she comprehended that notification, but before the feeling could really settle in, another notification stole her attention.
< You are afflicted with Soulfire Overcharge for 12 minutes:
You have gained +20% all resistance, +2% to maximum all resistance, +20% of maximum life as life regeneration, +20% to maximum life, +20% more damage, +1 to effective tier >
Power coursed through her, and she felt her body twitch from the whiplash.
She blinked uncomprehendingly at the notification. Never in her life having heard of any single buff that could provide such powerful and varied effects. In seconds, her various wounds scabbed over, then peeled off to reveal perfect pink skin underneath.
She opened her eyes and was immediately floored by how everything around her was illuminated by a brilliant cerulean glow originating from her exposed skin. Wide eyed, she raised a shaking hand and saw that her bones where clearly visible — and glowing — underneath her pale skin.
“Wh...wha...wha...”
Martin’s stuttering voice brought Gella back to the present and noticed for the first time that the mage’s boot was on her throat. She gulped — marveling at how with the barest effort she could lift Martin’s boot up — as the memories of the past few days washed over her. Her gaze rose to Martin’s terrified face and settled into a stormy frown.
“I-it-it’s no-not p-p-possible...” Martin stuttered, falling back and landing on his back. He stared at her with eyes so wide that it seemed that they would pop out of his skull at any moment.
Gella couldn’t care less what was or wasn’t possible. What mattered was that, here and now, she was free. Free and strong enough to enact revenge.
“I’m going to kill you,” she whispered a quiet promise.
Gella carefully stood, still feeling out the new power suffusing her body, as she took in her environment. It shocked her how deadly the dungeons defenses had grown in just a few days, and it shocked her how far Martin had come in breaching them. If it wasn’t for the dagger, he wouldn’t have escaped his bonds and none of this would have happened.
With a twist, Gella reached around and wrapped her hand around the hateful dagger's hilt. A twinge flickered through her mind, but then the comforting weight of the Dungeon Presence settled around her and she yanked the knife out and tossed it aside. Arterial blood drenched her back in crimson, but only for a second as the unbelievable effects of [Soulfire Overcharge] took over and healed her in seconds.
“Th-this can’t b-be happening.”
“You...you...” Gella clutched at her aching chest, as she hunted for one of her daggers.
Martin launched a purple bolt at her from his place on the floor, but before the projectile could even fully disperse, her flesh knit back together. Martin shook his head. He rolled to his hands and knees and began crawling away. “I did everything right. Why? Why does the world hate me so?”
Gella seized Martin by the hair, yanking back hard as she exposed his throat to the ceiling. She screamed in impotent fury as she stabbed down with her dagger. All the terrible helplessness of the past few days welled up and was released as she stabbed him again and again. First in the throat, but then in the chest, shoulders, back and wherever she could reach.
In seconds, the necromancer was dead, but it took significantly longer for Gella’s turmoil to calm. Eventually, as all thing must, she did and tossed the corpse aside in disgust. Blood and tears covered her, and the pain in her chest throbbed despite her full life total. She was about to collapse from exhaustion when the Dungeon Presence wrapped around her like a comforting weighted blanket. There was no emotion attached to the sensation, but to Gella, it felt like a warm hug from a friend.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she looked to the Dungeon Core floating on the other side of the pit.
“Thank you,” she said as she kneeled in the direction of the crystal. “Thank you for freeing me, thank you for...thank you.”
She prostrated her head to the ground and smiled as the words her mother ingrained in her since she was young rang through her mind.
Dungeons care not for words, but actions. If you wish to entreat with a dungeon grant it the gift of your skills.
Getting up, Gella smiled one last time to the core, then jogged out of the room. The oppressive dark was no obstacle when her very skin glowed bright, and soon she transitioned to a sprint as she reveled in the power flooding her body. She ran through the maze, following the trail of bodies as she spammed her skills.
Soon enough, she found herself at the entrance and spent another hour using her skills and resting. When the Dungeon Presence faded she smiled and left its domain. She needed to return to Krimta as soon as possible.
There was much she needed to tell her mother.
----------------------------------------
I watched the girl run around like a fool until my mana ticked over.
< Mana 551/551 >
< You have leveled up! >
< You are now level 7! >
< Mana 0/714 >
I took my attention away from the girl and idly stored the Dagger of Geas in a stone beside my core. I hated the thing, but I had paid through the nose to get it, and would be damned if I just threw it away.
There was other loot from the battle. My halls were littered with fallen undead, and Martin had brought his pack in with him. There was some travel food and other amenities inside, but the real treasure was a monster manual. It listed in excruciating detail the strengths and weaknesses of hundreds of different monster types. Hopefully with this in hand, I would be able to understand my upgrades better before one was chosen for me.
With baited breath I looked at my options, hoping and praying for something that would prevent another such disaster in the future.
Summon Totem of Worm Infestation:
+3 to maximum totems
Minions near Totem of Worm Infestation are infested with regeneration worms
Minions near Totem of Worm Infestation are infested with strangling worms
Strangling worms grant [Worm Whip] once per 3 minutes
Regeneration worms grant [Worm Regeneration] once per 25 minutes
Summon Totem of Pyrrhic Victory:
+3 to maximum totems
Minions near Totem of Pyrrhic Victory explode upon death dealing 10% of their maximum life as physical damage to nearby non-minions
Minions near Totem of Pyrrhic Victory explode upon death dealing 10% of their maximum life as fire damage to nearby non-minions
Summon Totem of the Roller Turtle:
+3 to maximum totems
Minions near Totem of the Roller Turtle gain +30% to all resistances
Minions near Totem of the Roller Turtle gain [Ethereal Shell] once per 3 minutes
Minions near Totem of the Roller Turtle gain [Spin Dash] once per 25 minutes
Looking in Martin’s monster manual, I found that totems were a common feature in many dungeons. Their effects were wildly varied but shared a few commonalities. They couldn’t move, and provided a powerful buff to nearby minions. The monster manual then went into detail on the importance of drawing the monsters away from the totem or figuring out the effect of a totem before engaging, because some could dramatically change the course of a fight. Barring luring the monsters away, the manual suggested destroying the totem as a possible avenue as they tended to be only slightly tougher to kill than regular monsters.
Delving deeper into the manual, I figured out what each of the abilities the totems granted did. [Worm Whip] would allow my monsters to strike once from a range or use it to drag adventurers closer to them, while [Worm Regeneration] was a grotesque healing ability that the manual suggested baiting out as its healing effects were strong but short lived. [Ethereal Shell] on the other hand was an ability that increased resistances for a time, but could be broken with enough firepower. The last ability, [Spin Dash], was deemed dangerous as it could quickly allow monsters to reposition in a battle and the manual warned against battling any large or slow monsters with the ability.
I couldn’t help but sigh in irritation. The options were interesting, but I had hoped for a real game changer. It wasn’t that these...totems...wouldn’t be useful, it was that they didn’t seem like the gamechangers that I really needed to prevent another disaster. Sure, having them in key strategic positions would bolster my defense, and if I could figure out how to get them mobile I could inflict some serious damage, but it wasn’t drastic enough that I could imagine it stopping another horde of undead in its tracks.
This current fight had ended well in the end, but had been way too close for comfort. I needed something more than just a big maze, traps, and a few monsters to defend me. I needed a boss monster that would be able to stop any adventuring party a dozen levels higher than itself without missing a beat.
I was done waiting for the system to provide a solution. If a boss monster was what I needed, then a boss monster was what I’d make.
Never again would adventurers sully my core room with their presence without my permission.
Never again.