Gellamine Mier stepped back into the domain of the Dungeon which had torn her soul and gasped. The pain in her chest flared as it felt as if she had just stepped through razor-sharp cobwebs that scraped against her heart. The Soul Burn had slowly faded since the days of the incident, for which she was grateful. Too many horror stories by the healers of Krimta had accustomed her to the idea that soul injuries do not heal. This one, however, was different in a way that none of the doctors truly understood. They posited and hypothesized, using big words and convoluted sentences, but at the end of the day, they didn’t know.
Somehow, the ablation in her soul was healing.
Gella thought that it had to do with the curse inflicted on her, but everyone else disagreed. They said curses are always negative. Dungeons are cruel, and always take, never give. But they didn’t feel the warm comfort of the Dungeon Presence enveloping her after Martin had fallen. An evil intelligence wouldn’t be able to provide such comfort. Shouldn’t be able to.
And so, Gella was back at the Dungeon of Chaos and Dark. She had joined the expedition of over thirty people to investigate the new dungeon which had formed so close to Krimta’s walls. Members of the Guard lead the enterprise, though Miranda — Gella’s mother and head of the Krimta White Lotus branch — had joined with her own group of White Lotus sympathizers.
Not that that was common knowledge.
“Are you quite alright Lady Gellamine?” said Christina, as she helped support the smaller rogue with a mail-covered forearm. The royal blue of her guard uniform stood in stark contrast to the greens and browns of the forest around them. Two golden stripes inlaid beneath a crossed sword and shield on her shoulder marked Christina as a tier two fighter, and a distinguished one, at that.
“Yes,” Gella gasped out, struggling to straighten as the others in the troop turned towards the commotion. “Just my injury flaring up.”
Christina frowned, but let Gella stand on her own.
“Or it could be the Stifling,” Christina said. “I’m not the best at telling, but this feels like a tier-two dungeon to me.”
“I thought Dungeon Stifling only made you tired.”
“Dungeon Stifling is hard to describe without having felt it yourself,” Christina shook her head. “Dungeons pull on the soul. At low differences in tier, it feels like a sapping lethargy, but as a dungeon tiers up it grows more capable of stealing your soul from Deia’s eternal halls. As you tier up, your natural defenses against dungeons grow, but with your injury, you are more susceptible than normal to a Dungeon’s powers. If your mother wasn’t so adamant, I wouldn’t let you anywhere near a dungeon of your level. Let alone one a tier higher than you.”
“Oh,” Gella said, trying to isolate the feeling of the Stifling from the pain in her chest. It took her a moment, but she noticed that everything was harder. Not physically, but mentally. As if lifting her arm wasn’t more difficult, but forming the desire to do so was harder. It was as if her mind had to push past molasses to even send the signal to move to her limbs.
“You can already see the effects,” Christina pointed at a copse of younger trees off to their right. “The dungeon is strangling the forest. They move less than they should when the wind blows, and their leaves are shifting to orange even though spring has only just begun.”
Before Gella could respond, a commotion at the head of the company drew her attention away. Captain Arcturus raised his armored fist and the entire company halted. His shrewd eyes scanned the young forest for a solid heartbeat before he signaled to a lanky scout at his side and turned to the company.
The scout vanished into the trees as the Captain spoke.
“Plan’s changed. The dungeon has expanded from reports. We adopt a time-phased approach. Set up camp. First squad on me!”
The company immediately burst into motion as various auxiliaries broke open tents, while others began felling trees to clear space and provide firewood. Even more, busted out shovels and began using their skill-enhanced strength to build an earthen breastwork with practiced efficiency.
Gella paused at the sudden influx of movement, but caught herself and jogged after Christina who — along with nine other Guards — saluted before the Captain.
“At ease. I want a HVAA (AN: pronounced HAVE-AH) in the air and a terrain and creature assessment. Identify those pillars. Ten minutes, go,” Arcturus barked, pointing at one of the thirteen stone pillars visible above the canopy. Two Guards at the end of the line saluted and set off. The first jumped into the air, a burst of wind carrying him through the canopy as the second vanished into the underbrush.
“Reports indicate Nothic. Target eyes and watch for physical, chaos, and shadow damage. Dungeon is tier two, call out secondary unknown creature.”
“Roger, wilco!” The eight remaining Guards barked out.
“We proceed in DOFF, set out in—Mage Mier, shouldn’t you be with the camp?”
“Why, heavens no,” Miranda Mier strolled past Gella, grabbed her by the elbow, and lead her up to the frowning Captain. “How else would I provide you an illustrious mage’s report on the state of the dungeon?”
“I see...” A vein pulsed underneath Arcturus’ right eye but he stoically nodded at the petite matron. “I thank you for your guidance, though I must ask you and the Lady to return to camp afterward.”
“Aww, you’re sweet. I will act as a second auxiliary Mage for this deployment, Captain,” Miranda patted the big man on the shoulder. “But returning to more interesting matters, the dungeon flows are thin in the air around us. Beneath our feet, I can distantly sense a much denser matrix twisting. By my estimation, this locale has been only recently assimilated into the dungeon’s domain. There is little power in the flows for a tier two, however, and I wouldn’t be disinclined to believe a creature of the double digits will hinder our advance.”
“Thank you, Mage Mier,” Arcturus nodded, then turned as the two scouts returned. They gave a brief report to the captain, who nodded and signaled for the group to set out. They fell into a tight diamond formation with Miranda and Gella in the center while the captain brought up the point.
The forest was quiet for this time of year, but loud for a dungeon. Birds chirped, and lizards skittered as the party stalked from one stone pillar to the next. Miranda insisted the group stop at each pillar as she read the dungeon flows, but remained quiet on her verdict when prompted. No monsters attacked them, but that was normal for a dungeon with tactically inclined creatures.
When the party had traversed two-thirds of the way to the cave entrance, a scout materialized from the underbrush and waved down the Captain.
“Six Nothic ahead,” Arcturus called, signaling the squad to be ready. Swords left sheathes, and shields were shrugged into position. “Level eight and nine. Get ready.”
A subsonic growl shook the air, and six spined humanoids burst from the trees.
“Shields!” Arcturus roared. A half dozen skills escaped his subordinates' lips, which manifested a thick golden barrier around the party. The Nothic crashed into it and bounced.
“Blades!”
As one, the front row of the Guards stepped forward and slashed out with their blades. Pale white blades of light arced out and chewed into the disoriented Nothic. Blood spattered across the undergrowth, but the hardy Nothic shrugged off the blows and regrouped. They slammed into the golden barrier with eyes wild and claws slashing. Their attacks dug deep, scoring the skill-manifestation with ear-piercing screeches.
“Shield down! Melee!”
The protective dome shattered into hundreds of triangle-shaped motes of light, and the front row of the Guard shoved forward. They shoulder-checked the surprised Nothic and unleashed a flurry of quick and dirty slashes that pierced the tough hide of the monsters. The Nothic tried to retaliate, but whenever they slashed out with their claws, a golden barrier manifested around a shield and completely blocked the blow.
“Target down!”
“Black on [Block]!”
“Switch!”
The Guard settled into an easy rhythm as the Nothic died. They called out to each other in quick but relaxed barks on their status, and in short order three of the six Nothic collapsed in bloody heaps from the Guard’s blades. The remaining Nothic disengaged, chittering rapidly as they dove back into the brush to escape certain doom.
“Taunts!”
Arcturus’ voice cut through the hubbub and instantly three waves of distorted air rippled out from the formation. The waves passed over the Nothic and each one adopted a bloodthirsty madness as it spun around and charged right back in.
“We got ‘em boys!” one of the guards called out with an eager grin as he leaned forward to catch the Nothics charge. Just as the Taunt-maddened Nothic were about to collide with the front, vines hidden innocently in the sod flexed, wrapping around the guard’s ankles and pulled.
Screams echoed off the branches as three menacing Taunt-maddened Treants creaked to life around the party. What once was a tree to put their backs to, suddenly became a dangerous foe who was way too close for comfort. The Treants leaned down and brought about their weighty branches in crushing blows as their vines destabilized the front line. The disoriented Guard could do nothing as the Nothic crashed into them from the front and tore through their life pools.
“Treants everywhere!”
“Black on all!”
“Guard down! Guard down!”
A whole different sort of tone fell over the party as party members were forced into a tight group. Tree limbs pummeled them from above and slavering Nothic hemmed them in from all sides. Skills fired out, but without the devastating coordination displayed earlier, the effect was minimal. Guards fell, and it became clear who was disciplined, and who was not. Three clusters of safety manifested around Arcturus, Christina and Miranda as they unleashed destructive skills and displayed impressive skills to drive back the monsters.
Before crippling damage could be dealt, Arcturus raised his sword and bellowed out a skill.
“[Bastion]!”
Golden light pushed back the monsters and ripped roots from the soil as the huge Treants were shoved back. In the moment of respite, Miranda flicked her wrist and a storm of fire rained down from above. The red embers splashed harmlessly over the [Bastion], but any tree or monster outside of it shriveled or screeched as fire overtook them in moments.
Silence, broken only by sobs and pained moans, descended over the group. Arcturus let his [Bastion] fall, though his sword did not. He stalked out of the ring of unburnt grass and succinctly destroyed any still-twitching monsters that had survived the [Firestorm].
“Wounded in the center! Scouts check perimeter. Available hands prepare for follow-up!” Arcturus said, returning to the group while scanning the squadron. A microscopic sigh escaped his lips as he noted that none of his recruits had perished in the ambush. Once he was confident that the danger had passed he settled into a parade rest and gestured to Christina to join him.
“Status report, Lieutenant Christina.”
“Yes, sir.” the young Guard bobbed her head, forcefully clenching her fists to stop post-adrenaline trembles. “Five injured, three past the red. Most cooldowns were blown. We could fight again once the injured heal up, but not at full power.”
“How do you assess the dungeon monsters?”
“Below our ability, sir. Our formation collapsed simply due to having enemies within our midst.”
Arcturus nodded along. “They had an unusual amount of life for dungeon creatures. It took me two blows to take them out, not one.”
“Perhaps they have gained resistance somehow?” Christina replied, looking a little lost.
“Hmm,” Arcturus hummed thoughtfully, then changed the subject. “How low did those in the red get to?”
“Uh,” Christina hesitated. “All to one, sir.”
“To one, Lieutenant?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Yessir, one life on all three. A single blow more and they would have risen to Deia’s halls. Bless her name.”
“One more indeed,” Arcturus said slowly. He pulled off his helmet and scratched at the five o’clock shadow on his cheek. “Thank you, lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Christina saluted smartly and left the captain to ponder the strange turn of events. Miranda ambled over and handed the bigger man a scented handkerchief held primly between two fingers. He took it and wiped down the gore splattered over his armor absentmindedly.
“Gah, fire spells are so satisfying, but the aftermath never smells pleasant,” Miranda remarked, holding a second scented handkerchief to her nose as she scanned the forest in distaste.
“Mhmm,” Arcturus rumbled. “Three of my men were saved from death today.”
“Oh?”
“Three injured who hit one life in a pitched battle and somehow didn’t die. If one of my men fell to one and survived I would be pleasantly surprised and celebrate the stroke of good luck. But three? There is some fel magic at work here.”
“Theo!” Miranda slapped the big captain on the shoulder with her handkerchief. “What did I tell you about calling things magic? Magic is the realm of charlatans and tricksters. We deal in reality and the System. There is no magic here.”
“This is serious, you old hag. What do the dungeon flows tell you?”
“The dungeon flows are thin and quiet. Something of far grander import has drawn the dungeon’s attention away, and your fine recruits are safe.”
“Something doesn’t add up here,” Arcturus grumbled, sheathing his sword with a huff.
“I did tell you this dungeon was special. Perhaps you could use it as a training ground for new recruits. Falling to one life and no further is a great personality builder, no?” Miranda chuckled at her joke despite the stone-faced captain at her side.
“Hey, uh. Mom?” Gella sidled up to Miranda. She fidgeted with nervous energy; tucking stray strands behind her ear and adjusting and readjusting her tunic as her eyes adopted the glazed look of checking with the System.
“Yes, dear? What is it?”
“Well, uhm, after the battle was over...” Gella trailed off. When Miranda’s eyebrow arched, she burst out with an excited smile. “I’m no longer cursed and I leveled!”
Both Miranda and Arcturus froze. They looked at the younger girl for a second as they processed what she said.
“You leveled?”
“Yes! I’m level eight!”
----------------------------------------
I was frankly irritated.
Sometimes, the dawn arrives and you just know that the day would suck. Today hadn’t started off so bad, but then the adventurers had come, dropping knowledge bombs left and right and ruining all my perfect plans. Then, for good measure, they had dropped a literal bomb right in the center of my forest and there was diddly squat I could personally do about the blackened scar marring my front yard.
Oh sure, I had leveled due to their presence but that wasn’t what drew my attention. Little Gella had returned and revealed to me that the infinite energy that I believed I could harvest from the life in my domain wasn’t all that infinite after all. Why would mana just...generate for free when life moved through my domain? It wasn’t as if it took extra calories since I gained the mana regardless of whether the living organism used its own motive force to move or not. My so-called infinite mana train proved that.
It all made perfect sense now. I harvested mana directly from the soul of living beings. The Stifling, as the natives called it, was merely the effort of will that living beings had to exert to pass through my domain. It was the energy that pushed aside my cilia and the same energy I tapped into and drained to level up. An apparently finite energy.
It also explained why the animals I trapped in my mana train died so fast. Sure I didn’t feed them, but they should have lasted at least a day or two without food. Instead, they had died in hours and had fallen into silent stupors before their hearts just...gave out. Maybe life was weird in this world, but it made far more sense that by moving them back and forth I was draining from them their...will to live?
That was...gruesome, but it didn’t bother me as much as the absolute shambles that was my grand plan of expanding into the forest. Now that I knew what to look for, I noticed that the forest wasn’t as lively as it used to be. It was a minute change, but my omniscient perspective guaranteed I saw it.
I was killing the forest as I drained mana from it.
It wasn’t universal. Only the smallest and weakest trees had visible signs of deterioration, but it meant that I couldn’t just coast forever on the forest as a passive source of income. Something had to be done because I would be damned if I got Treants only for the trees to eventually die.
Something else that the female guard had said to Gella jumped to my attention. She had said ‘differences in tier’ which implied that when I was tier five, basically all tier two and below souls would instantly die when entering my domain. But tier five souls would be just dandy in my domain, and tier seven probably wouldn’t even feel my presence.
That implied one of two things. Either there was a qualitative difference to the mana I needed to level and my cilia took deeper ‘sips’ as I tiered up to compensate, or the Stifling was just an accidental consequence of my cilia growing to the point where they became strong enough to damage low leveled individuals. Similar to how lifting heavy weights was possible but could lead to injury if done excessively. No matter the reason, I needed to come up with a solution because I wasn’t just giving up on my infinite mana forest just yet.
Fortunately, the solution was right before my eyes. The military group bustled out of my domain with an ecstatic Miranda as she paraded her daughter around and asked question after question. Apparently, Gella had tiered up without destroying a dungeon core or defeating a legendary beast, yet still managed to level past seven which was unheard of. I presumed that the change had to do with the craft I had instilled in her soul. The one that not only empowered her but allowed her soul to heal and grow. So, while I didn’t know how to stop harming the creatures in my domain, and I refused to stop collecting mana from them, I certainly knew how to tier them up to the point where they wouldn’t feel the drain at all.
Step one, stab a tree.
The first couple of trees I attempted the soul-enhancing craft on withered spectacularly. Their souls were tiny compared to Gella’s, and the amount required to complete the craft nearly bisected their souls. So while I did successfully enhance their souls. Within hours of completion, they withered into black husks as their ablated souls ruptured from the damage. I moved on to the thickest trees in the forest, but it still took me three attempts before the craft held.
I was getting faster and more efficient at weaving soulforce, but the fundamental way that the Dagger of Geas excised pieces of the soul meant that the process was traumatic. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the Dagger to gently take some soulforce. Instead, it acted in line with its nature and stabbed, ripped, and twisted the soulforce out in as brutal and damaging a manner as possible. The more I experimented, the more I realized how close I had been to killing Gella the first time I had attempted this craft.
Next, I summoned a Treant right beside a copse of five enhanced — but sickly — oak trees. Immediately, the Treant grumbled and creaked as it leaned forward and inspected the trees. It reached up, a gentle glow radiating from its leaves, and when it leaned back the tree looked a tiny bit healthier with darker bark and more vibrant leaves.
Satisfied that the Treant would care for the enhanced trees while I figured out some way to level them up, I settled back and pulled up the status of the Treant.
Treant
Level: 10
Level Acquired: 8
Life: 467/467
Resistances: 20% to all resistances; -20% fire resistance
Bash: 49-100 Physical Damage
Nurture Flora: 12-25 life restored
Vine Strike: 21-44 Physical Damage
The stats weren’t amazing, but they also weren’t abysmal. Compared to a level nine Nothic they had more life, but less damage on both of their damaging abilities. The extra resistances were nice and meant that they were tankier than their base life suggested, but the reduced fire resistance meant that against fire damage, they would likely fall faster than a base Nothic. I wasn’t disappointed though, because the true power of the minion fell on their [Nurture Flora] skill. With it, my forest would grow even if adventurers came in and burnt huge holes in it.
With an absent flick, I directed my single living Treant towards the black scar in my landscape and chuckled as it grumbled in distress while it knelt and coaxed a broken sapling upright. In time, Monstrous Generosity would return my fallen Treants to me, and I would summon more to accelerate the recovery process.
For now, I had other things to take my attention.
< Mana 1119/1119 >
< You have leveled up! >
< You are now level 10! >
< Mana 0/1,369 >
< Mana 873/1,369 >
The human invaders had been spectacular in terms of mana production. They had distorted my entire domain, including deep parts of my underground system when they had stood in the center. Most of the soldiers had induced a normal size distortion, but the captain and Gella’s mom had really twisted things up. It was such a strong distortion that I was pretty sure that some of my cilia had ripped when the Captain had rushed around when the Treants had awoken.
It was another reminder that a short battle with a dozen or so high-level people would produce orders of magnitude more mana than any amount of plant life. It wasn’t sustainable though, as even that short battle decimated my troops. Monstrous Generosity would help after a time, but level five Treants had two hundred less life than their leveled counterparts. Would they be enough to induce as much movement and strife the next time? Or would they keel over too fast to generate significant mana?
I didn’t know but I replaced one of the Nothic with a level ten Treant as I needed more of them on the first floor anyway to patch the burnt crater. On my second, more dangerous floor, I used up my Summon Nothic cooldown to bring up my boss to level ten. The process was annoyingly involved, but it was crucial that my final layer of defense was as powerful as it could be. If the humans returned there was a chance that I would level faster than I could resummon my creatures, but they shouldn’t ever be more than a level or two below me unless things got truly crazy.
With all the cooldown-dependent actions taken care of, I turned to the upgrade options.
Resistance Enchant:
Enchant an unenchanted item with resistance
50 minute cooldown
Damage Enchant:
Enchant an unenchanted item with damage
50 minute cooldown
Armored Core:
+1 to maximum gear slots
It appeared that I might finally gain access to enchanting in this world. The first and second options were basically identical, and the real choice was whether I should focus on defense or offense. Any enchanted item I made and equipped would naturally empower my creatures but also had the benefit that I could finally fill my dungeon with worthwhile loot.
I hadn’t been doing that up until now, because of the whole nearly dying thing, but the look on the Captain’s face when he realized I wouldn’t kill his people made me think that things were about to take a turn for the better. If I could sweeten the deal with amazing enchanted gear to outfit his army with, would he station troops around me to protect me from crazy people who want to eat me?
Then there was that slightly crazed look on Miranda’s face when she left. I couldn’t think of a way to use these upgrades to get her to relax, but I knew she would be back to figure out how I had done the thing to her daughter. Hopefully, that didn’t involve experimentation on my core, but I had my killing floor in case of that emergency. Best case, if I heap loads of loot on the Captain, he could reign her in and get her to maybe chill a little.
On the other side of the coin, there was the Armored Core upgrade. That was interesting. It would allow me to equip another piece of gear at the trade-off that I wouldn’t be able to enchant anything. That might not necessarily be bad, but stacking heaps of life might not be the optimal play.
At the current rate that gear was increasing in quality, it wouldn’t be long before I could craft something better than the Dagger of Geas. A quick check revealed that I could already craft items with up to forty-nine life, so in only a level or two, I would be able to surpass the Dagger. Also, since scaling was exponential, it wouldn’t be long at all before the life granted by the Dagger would be just a rounding error.
I needed to figure out how powerful items would get in the next few levels. I quickly crafted a level one item and a level ten item. The level one item granted nine life, while the level ten item granted forty-one. That was a nearly five-fold increase in power after ten levels. This meant that by level twenty I’d be looking at crafting gear that could grant upwards of two hundred life.
To be sure, I spent some time crafting ten of every item from level one to ten to ensure I had the full range of crafts represented. With that, I could create a table of life values.
Level:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Base life range on equipment:
7-9
9-11
12-15
14-18
17-22
21-27
24-31
28-36
33-42
38-49
I carved the list into the wall of my core room to help visualize the distribution. Then, when that didn’t immediately give me a sense of the slope, I carefully carved out a scatter plot and plotted the points on a graph.
The numbers were clearly exponential, though the slope was uneven in places. That made me think there was some rounding going on behind the scenes which also explained why some levels granted more relative power than others. As I analyzed the table further, three numbers, in particular, stood out to me. Levels one, four, and eight had seven, fourteen, and twenty-eight as the minimum life possible on gear at that level. If the trend continued in that fashion then I should expect fifty-six life at level sixteen.
Except...that wasn’t right because if I assumed I gained five additional life — which was the bare minimum expected increase — per level then I should have an item granting at least fifty-six life at level twelve or thirteen.
So maybe instead of doubling every power-of-two, it was doubling every fourth level? If that was the case then I should expect fifty-six life at level twelve, 112 life at level sixteen, and 224 life at level twenty. That seemed very steep, but it aligned with the rough napkin math I was following up until now. Until I got more levels I wouldn’t be able to verify this, so for now, I would assume that this was the ground truth scaling for items in this world.
My math was very rough, but it told an undeniable truth. I would want to eventually drop the Dagger regardless of its anti-killing feature. That, or figure out some way of upgrading it, but I was wary to fiddle with it due to my upgrade that prevented me from crafting artifacts. It would suck if I poked the Dagger and it fell apart and lost all its powers.
Presumably, resistance and damage enchants would scale similarly, so in a weird way, the choice wasn’t between one gear slot or enchanting. It was between life, resistance, and damage.
There were so many questions that I had no way of answering. Was the Dagger of Geas already enchanted, or could I enchant it with damage or resistance? If I could then I could bring it up to my level, but in the more likely chance that I couldn’t, could I abuse hot-swapping items to always have the correct resistance or damage type versus the adventurers?
Questions danced as I continued the many tiny repeating tasks of managing a dungeon. This time, adding crafting weapons, armor, and consumables to my list in preparation for what was to come.