Rise!

I strained with every fiber of my being. Literally.

As a dungeon core, I was composed of a plethora of tiny blue threads radiating out of a floating blue gemstone hidden deep within a mountain. I was no longer human, but that didn’t grate on me as much as it once did. The translocation process had been simple and painless and I rarely thought about it nowadays. The few regrets I did have, were overshadowed by the sheer excitement of being able to manipulate stone, flesh, and even sunlight as if it were clay.

At the edge of my perception, thirteen pillars of reinforced stone ruptured earth and roots as the edges of my vision darkened from the strain. The pillars rose through the branches and broke through the canopy of the nearby forest with a hollow grinding sound that reverberated through the earth like the world's worst symphony. Wildlife screeched and scattered to the winds in a cacophony that was lost beneath the manifest might of a dungeon.

The panicked souls within the forest pushed against the cilia infused in the stone pillars and I felt my control over them wane. I ignored that, opening the secondary pressure chambers I had painstakingly built beneath the earth. Superheated steam rushed through the rudimentary valves, impacting the bottom of each pillar with upwards of fifteen thousand kilograms of thrust, and launched the columns of stone up past the canopy.

The pillars crashed against their limit switches and I hastily opened the last valves. The excess pressure vented into my internal halls, scalding the walls and filling me with steam. Each pillar ground to a halt, as massive reinforced pins dropped into place to support their colossal weight.

Before the last of the pressure could dissipate, I popped open the valve at the base of each pillar and watched in satisfaction as superheated steam rushed up the hollow length. The wave of force crashed into the cap with a detonation, not unlike a gunshot. It shattered the cap — where the majority of my cilia were anchored — into eight identical chunks that were launched in graceful arcs over the forest. The pieces landed among the trees, scaring wildlife and tangling the long lengths of attached cilia around and through the boughs.

At long last, I could see!

I rippled my cilia in jubilation as my domain finally stretched into that obstinate forest. For hours I had tried extending out to encompass the forest, and for hours the enigmatic force — which I had dubbed the soul — emanating out of all living things pushed back on my cilia and wrested control of the strands from me.

< Mana 705/902 >

My mana ticked up as a stray scaled ferret-type creature skittered past one of my cilia, and I let out a contended sigh at a job well done.

It had been four stressful days since Martin had been defeated and I had messed with Gella’s soul. Four days of desperately trying to kidnap animals to dump into my infinite mana train I had developed. Four days of trying to feed and water the animals before they fell dead and I had to discard their corpses all while trying to find new ones before the dreaded hibernation returned.

I had failed on all fronts. Keeping animals alive in a small box turned out to be beyond my abilities. Getting water was simple, but food was a different story all together. Not to mention the definite psychological toll of being in malevolent darkness for hours or days on end.

I had initially thought that gaining a new floor would make the process easier. With the Deep Dark pushed back into the cave system, my outskirts were no longer overtly hostile to sentient life. The issue arose when the six new Nothic of my second floor killed every creature of flesh and blood they could get their grubby little mitts on. By the time I realized my mistake, the animals of the forest had already learned to avoid my edge of the forest.

I didn’t dismiss the six Nothic after that because if I was being honest, I needed the defense. Plus it allowed me to study the strange boundary between floors that had spontaneously formed when I hit level eight.

My research into the topic revealed that getting a new floor had indeed doubled the number of creatures I could summon from six to twelve, with the small caveat that if one of my minions crossed the boundary it would burst into dust that would dissipate in moments.

The strange pattern my cilia formed at the interface was the culprit, but I had yet to figure out how or why it did what it did. I didn’t even understand how to replicate it, as my cilia split into thinner strands at the interface that hurt my head just looking at it, let alone trying to do it myself. The barrier was immutable, and the cilia that composed the invisible barrier had become unresponsive upon its formation. The only thing I managed to do was to move the barrier by manipulating the cilia around the actual barrier. After much fruitless investigation, I had settled with shifting the barrier to the entrance of my maze and moving on with life.

With the mana train infeasibly difficult to fuel, I had instead come up with a convoluted plan to bring the forest into my domain by forcefully injecting the area with copious quantities of cilia.

Just like that, I had obviated the need for my mana train.

It had worked beautifully but the small issue of not having any control over the area scared me. Martin had gotten too close on his attempt and the presence of so much life brought up unpleasant memories of that time.

I closed my perception for a moment and calmed my nerves. The whole purpose of this entire endeavor was to out level the competition. Levels were everything in this world as exemplified by the stats of my Nothic.

Shadow Crafted Nothic

+28 life

Level: 8

Level Acquired: 1

Life: 351/351

Resistances: None

Rend: 44-90 Shadow Damage

Rotting Gaze: 17-36 Chaos Damage

From starting at just over a hundred life and dealing a maximum of twenty damage with their rend attack, my new Shadow-infused Nothic were a whole different beast comparatively. With nearly three times the life and almost five times the damage, I had no doubt that Martin’s party would have folded like wet paper against a pack of these dangerous predators.

Speaking of stats, I brought up my own.

Consumable Artifact

Changes maximum level to 21

Level: 8

Mana: 788/902

Upgrades pending: 0

Floor 1 Upgrades: Summon Nothic, Create Shadow Source, Wily Intellect, Deep Dark, Soulbind Artifact, Summon Totem of the Roller Turtle, Monstrous Generosity

Creatures:

Floor 1: 6/6

Floor 2: 6/6

Many things had stayed the same since the last time, but there were a few notable differences. First, getting to level eight had increased the maximum level I could grant through my consumption from fourteen to twenty-one. Presumably I would have a bunch of level fourteen adventurers knocking on my door in the future. I was confident in my current defense by now, but there was no way to tell how strong higher level adventurers would be until they got here. If anything, it meant that I was still — and would always be — at a slight level disadvantage against hungry adventurers.

The second change on my status was the last skill on my list. It wasn’t any of the three options provided but rather a weird hybrid ability that seemed a mashup of Monster Factory and Armored Generosity.

Monstrous Generosity:

Minions respawn 200 minutes post death

Minions respawn 5 levels lower than your current level

Minions do not respawn if there are no available spawning locations

+1 to maximum gear slots

Gain no benefits from equipped gear

Minions benefit from equipped gear

The weird part though, was that everytime I glanced at the skill an image seared itself to the forefront of my consciousness. An image of a skeleton holding up its right hand in an ‘L’ on its forehead. Parts of the image had the strange halo that made me think of an x-ray image, but not in all areas. Especially the hands which were solid with the fingernails clearly visible.

All that was to say, I had absolutely no clue what the image meant or what it was supposed to represent. Did it mean that Monstrous Generosity would lead to death? A loss so to speak? Or did it mean that either other option would do the same and the skill had changed to prevent a loss? Regardless, the skill was cursed, and I avoided looking at it for too long in case it would spontaneously explode or something.

Cursed or not, I had no intention of not using the skill to its utmost.

The first part of the skill worked as advertised. Around three and a half hours after decapitating a Nothic, it reappeared at level three in a random section of my maze. The part where it wouldn’t respawn if there was no available spawning locations was still a mystery, but I had my suspicions that it referred to areas that were affected by a soul. During the spawning process, the cilia in the area pulsed and writhed which I doubted would be possible if a soul was nearby. Plus, the few experiments on my second floor always ended with the Nothic appearing in an uninhabited section of my domain.

Level three Nothic weren’t that great compared to their level eight counterparts, but it was still better than nothing. Far better, especially if humans decided to park their asses within my domain overnight. Especially since the doubling of my creature count hadn’t done diddly to reduce the cooldown on either of my Summon abilities.

The second aspect of the skill was even more appreciated. As soon as a gear slot opened, I became aware of it, and was easily able to slide in the Dagger of Geas into the slot. All my minions instantly gained fifty life and 5% physical and mental resistance, which was downright incredible, but the best aspect of equipping the dagger was I suddenly was physically incapable of killing any creature that entered my domain.

It was a fascinating case study in the functionality of hitpoints in this world. Every time one of my Nothic struck a low life creature, their claws would stop before sinking in too deep, or their blows would miss entirely as if an unseen force was protecting the victim. It wasn’t perfect, as things could still bleed out from existing wounds, but it still baffled my mind that such a thing could exist in the first place.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Regardless of what was driving the unfathomable behavior. I was thrilled. I now had a reliable way of preventing the death of people who entered my domain. It enabled my initial strategy of attempting to form peaceful relations with the neighboring adventurers, and wasn’t inherently dangerous, as I could unequip the dagger at the drop of a hat and re-enable kills.

Just in case, I created a little shadow hat just in case I needed to switch out the dagger in the near future.

< You have crafted < Armor > >

Armor

Level: 8

+36 life

It was less life than the Dagger, but killing was required in my line of work.

The additional fifty life from the dagger brought up my Nothic’s life total to 401 and was a welcome addition. To the ever-growing list of things to research and do, I added experimenting with crafting in case I could imbue resistances, damage, or other odd effects to armor.

It was all a great relief. No mere level seven party could hope to break through my rearmed and requipped first floor with its new boss and that wasn’t even considering the six Nothic and three totems that guarded the outskirts. I basked in the relief of finally feeling safe from both people and hibernation, as I dozed to the gentle flow of mana pulsing from the forest and into my gem.

< Mana 902/902 >

< You have leveled up! >

< You are now level 9! >

< Mana 0/1119 >

I languidly pulled up the options of the first level up in several days and studied them intently.

Summon Treant:

+4 to maximum creatures

400 minute cooldown

Summon Remorhaz:

+5 to maximum creatures

200 minute cooldown

Summon Swarmling Spawning Pool:

+3 to maximum creatures

900 minute cooldown

I immediately noticed the same trend as I had during the first creature option. One, it appeared that every seven levels I would get a new creature to summon. I would gain creature types slowly, but that didn’t mean I had to stop my rampant experimentation on my creatures in as humane a fashion as was reasonable. I would be damned if I only had a small selection of creatures to field.

Second, there was the same three, four, and five addition to maximum creatures. Once again it implied that Summon Treant was the middle-of-the-road option while the other two were the extremes. Summon Nothic had worked out fine for me so far, but there had been points where I had wished for more numbers. In addition, now that I knew that my creature count was effectively multiplied by the number of floors I had, it meant that options that increased my creature count by a lot were steeply favored as such effects would cascade through my floors as I progressed.

That being said, I was done just tossing away the options as soon as they popped up. Sure, I didn’t have a choice, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t theorycraft and prepare for possible eventualities.

The first option was Summon Treant. I pulled out the handy monster manual left to me by Martin and flicked through the pages until I found the correct entry.

Treant:

Damage type(s): Physical

Creature type(s): Plant

Durability: B

Danger quotient: C

Special: Stealth

Treants are a form of sentient tree capable of locomotion and combat found in ancient verdant forests. They appear as normal trees indistinguishable from any other tree in a forest, up until the moment they strike. Their motions are deceptively quick for such large creatures and ancient variants can be capable of the natural magics of vines or earth. Their thick durable bark grants them resistance to most damage types barring fire, and make for a dangerous combination should a battle occur in their home domain.

Their thick bark can be harvested and crafted into serviceable armor, but better and cheaper alternatives exist. Treant vines are likewise an excellent source of rope but tends to be too dangerous to collect to be a viable source of the material. Lastly, slaying a Treant may result in a Treant Seed, which may be sold to the Mage’s Guild in perpetuum.

Despite their combat capabilities, Treants are peaceful creatures who will not attack unless provoked. Their domains flourish with life and maintaining peaceful relations with them has been shown to bolster the harvest in fields up to fifty clicks away. Because of this, it is recommended to avoid interaction with Treants as defeating or angering them is oftentimes more detrimental than beneficial.

Assume Treants found in dungeons to be hostile, and the above guidelines do not apply.

I read the information and closed the book with a solid thump. Treants seemed like a perfect choice. Not only did I just acquire a small forest, but having creatures that would bolster the life of said forest would dramatically increase my passive mana production. The forest so far wasn’t anything like an adventuring party in terms of mana generation — due to the size of the souls? — but I only controlled a small segment right now, and all the trees were small. I could just imagine a Treant accelerating the flora’s growth and increasing the mana production by leaps and bounds. Besides, investing in the forest had the distinct benefit of being more reliable than adventurers, as evidenced by their current dearth.

The second agreeable aspect was that it was the middle-of-the-road option in terms of creature count. It ensured that I wasn’t completely dropping the ball on my creature count even if Treant’s combat abilities weren’t stellar.

I also really liked being able to produce a harvest. If I could create farms that grew enormous quantities of food, I would draw in more adventurers and maybe even settlers who would invariably boost my mana generation to sky-high levels. Hopefully, adventurers wouldn’t be all trigger-happy the moment they saw the peaceful giants, but I was pretty sure I could convince people to chill. Especially if there was food on the line.

The second option was more obscure, but after a bit of searching, I found what a Remorhaz was in the insect section of all places.

Remorhaz:

Damage type(s): Physical, Fire, Cold

Creature type(s): Insect

Durability: B

Danger quotient: A

Special: Speed

Remorhazes are strange creatures resembling giant centipedes. They reside in cold, arctic climates, and radiate a powerful, steel-melting heat from their hide. Extreme care is advised when entering Remorhaz-occupied territory. As natural pack hunters, Remorhazes abuse their extreme speed to approach and surround unsuspecting groups in seconds. Targeting the underside has been shown to have the greatest effect on these hunters. Take special care to protect draft animals and large individuals as Remorhazes will preferentially target such individuals — oftentimes in suicidally dangerous charges. It is believed that they search for a location to lay their eggs, though this is unconfirmed.

Remorhaz hide is an excellent material for armor. Highly resistant to fire, ice, and force damage, any capable blacksmith would be capable of incorporating the armor into gear to add additional resistances. Blacksmiths also greatly appreciate the collection of the Remorhaz heat generation organ located midway along their spine. This organ is bright orange, oblong with white veins passing through it. Care is recommended while handling, as the organ can stay hot for up to three months post-mortem. In addition, Remorhaz heart is considered a delicacy by some, so it is recommended to avoid targeting the thick plates on their upper body as such action can damage the heart.

Remorhazes are class D pests. Proof of extermination is rewarded in the adventurers guild.

The Dungeon of Insects is the singular notable dungeon that spawns Remorhazes. Their behavior within the dungeon was identical to those without. Take special care of ice and lava traps.

Ahh, and there it is.

Remorhazes were basically monstrous fire and ice invasive centipedes and were treated as such. I could probably say goodbye to completely peaceful relations with these in my arsenal, as I doubted anyone would want to live with giant centipedes. Especially if said insects burned everything nearby. I guess my forest would also go poof if this option was chosen.

Hmm. A dilemma.

In exchange for sacrificing my passive mana generation, and the possibility of friendly relations, I would receive a large number of competent fighters. Was this the system’s way of telling me I needed more firepower for what was to come?

Hmm...If this option was chosen I would have to revisit the mana train idea, but my safety was more guaranteed.

Lastly, was Summon Swarmling Spawning Pool. I already had an inkling of what these little guys would do — as the name itself reminded me of a certain videogame — but I flipped open the book just to see what the locals thought of it.

Swarmling Spawning Pool:

Damage type(s): None

Creature type(s): Aberration

Durability: B

Danger quotient: F

Special: Spawner

Swarmling Spawning Pools are deep, flesh-tinted stationary pits that spawn swarmlings. A Damage Core — blue, green, or red spherical opal of, or around, fist size — often forms within, and is worth harvesting as it enables the crafting of flat damage reduction equipment.

Swarmling Spawning Pools are a class A pest. Destroy with extreme prejudice.

Contact the Dungeoneering Guild if a Swarmling Spawning Pool is found in a dungeon. Make every effort to prevent a Dungeon Break from occurring.

See Swarmling for more information.

Dungeon Breaks were something I was familiar with. From my knowledge, a Dungeon Break was when the monsters of a dungeon were able to leave the dungeon bounds to wreak havoc on the surrounding area. I didn’t particularly want to do that, but — similar to the uncontrollable boundary between floors — there was a chance I didn’t have a choice in the manner.

That said, I could imagine several possibilities where it would be beneficial to send my monsters out into the wild. A monster type that could spawn other monsters who could leave would be a good thing for me as it wouldn’t technically reduce my defense.

Curious, I flipped to Swarmlings to see what all the fuss was about.

Swarmling:

Damage type(s): Physical, Curse

Creature type(s): Aberration

Durability: low

Danger quotient: E

Special: Swarm

Swarmlings are a category of small 2 to 8 legged aberrations found in the aftermath of magical warfare. They range in size from knee to waist high with many limbs that are used for both locomotion and weaponry. Swarmlings are individually weak and primarily deal physical damage, though there have been reports of swarmlings applying a sapping curse to their victims. The curse is stacking, nonlethal, non-spreading, and non-escalating. Same-tier healing has been shown to cure the curse. Downtier healing may not be effective. Take special care to recover in between engagements to prevent escalation of the curse.

Swarmling meat is technically edible, though their hide is too thin to function as armor, and their claws are too malformed to form reliable weaponry. Avoid looting if possible.

Swarmlings gain their name from their pack dynamics. Large numbers — dozens if not hundreds — of swarmlings are common and can be extremely difficult to deal with. Area of effect abilities are strongly recommended. Take special care in culling all swarmlings as they tend to scatter and damage crops and villages if improperly culled.

The largest swarmling horde has been recorded at twenty-six million individual aberrations and was eradicated by The Living Flame in the year 177.

See Swarmling Juggernaut and Swarmling Queen for more information.

So to summarize, if the spawning pool got chosen, then I would have a method of acquiring hordes of little monsters to protect me. While not individually dangerous, Swarmlings were basically like the locusts of this world and if left unchecked could cause uncountable damage. It seemed like the perfect counter to a horde of undead as a constantly refreshing horde of minions would perfectly counter a horde of weak undead.

But if this option got chosen there was a chance the people of this place wouldn’t be all that jazzed with me.

Hmm...

Perhaps a better question was not which option got chosen, or how the locals would react, but rather what it is I wanted to achieve and how each option could facilitate that. In my old life, I hadn’t been political, and I hadn’t strived to enact wide-reaching change for the betterment of people, but I had endeavored to be locally good. Bringing a smile to the people around me felt good and was worth the effort even if it was hard and superficially unrewarding.

So what did I want?

I wanted to level and grow my dungeon into something great. There was something intrinsically satisfying about that, and I wouldn’t give that up for anything. That required people, or technically souls to move through my domain. A peaceful strategy would work, but so would a confrontational one where I urged armies to come to my doorstep with the implicit threat of mutual destruction.

I also wanted to make the world a better place. I had that capacity now. I wasn’t some weak girl. I was a dungeon for crying out loud. A force of nature. If I wanted equality, what could people do but comply? This was a dangerous slope of ideology, but as I considered my perception fell back to the spoils of my battle with Martin and settled on a silver collar that looked suspiciously like a slave collar. The words Martin had spoken rang through my mind and I was further convinced that this world not only had slaves, but also collars that would enable far crueler acts against said slaves than Earth ever had.

Making the world a better place was a nebulous goal, but eradicating slavery wasn’t. It also wasn’t morally ambiguous, and I would have no regrets if I succeeded. A horde-style monster that I could unleash during a dungeon break would help me reach out with my power to the rich slave owners who no doubt would hide behind endless excuses to maintain the status quo.

For the first time in my two lives, I felt a powerful urge to enact change. To use the incredible power vested in me to mold not just earth, but ideals and behaviors to create a better world.

A ripple of wind passed through my dungeon as I thought of all the things I could do with my power.

Then an option was chosen.