Red ignored the flood of notifications that were waiting for him, preferring to watch over Lotus and make sure that she got to a safe place. “Lotus, I know that you are blaming yourself for what was happening there at the end. But you can’t blame yourself for it. Everyone was thinking the same thing as you, the only difference being that you put it into words that something or someone heard.” Red said softly as he gently petted her hair, trying to calm her down as they floated above the ruined front end of the gardens.
She was still crying, the tears passing through Red’s form as the projection could not interact with anything not directly part of his creatures. She finally sniffled a little and looked up into his eyes, meeting his crystalline gaze for the first time since he returned. “B-but you trusted me to be their leader. You gave me the charge at the start of the raid. Then I went and had to open my big mouth when it wasn’t needed.” She whined softly, the words catching in her throat the more she put her thoughts to sound. She buried her face back into his shoulder to release more tears and sob deeply with her pain.
“That may be, but all I wanted you to do was make sure that they had a home to come back to. I didn’t get the chance to give you directions, so you were on your own. Hell, I probably would have said the same thing in your situation.” He said softly as he tried to console her as best he could. “Besides, not everyone died, you still have a few of the fairies left! Not to mention they’ll all come back.” He said softly as he ran his hand down her back, having trouble avoiding the wings while he did so.
She did not seem convinced by his words, instead electing to continue her crying into his form. Red gently leaned down, pulling her into a princess carry that seemed to surprise her some. “Alright. You are going to the Oak and you’re going to calm down. I need to clean some things up and change a few things. This has really taught me a lesson when it comes to how this dungeon needs to be run.” He said as he floated towards the Alchemical Oak, bringing her to the throne room. He then brought her to the room she had carved out with her influence, the royal bedchamber. It was not exactly a resplendent thing at the moment, but the four banister bed would do.
He gently laid her down onto the plush mattress, letting her rest some as she avoided his gaze. Her sobs had quelled, but there was no telling if that was because of her calming or running out of tears to cry. “I’ll be back soon, just try to relax.” He said softly as he gave her one more pet to the hair before he turned and left. He made sure to look back at her as he was at the door, only to find that she had turned over and pulled the covers up over her head. A small sigh escaped his nose as he stepped through the door to find Archimedes perched upon the throne’s back.
“Oh thank goodness, you were the first thing I was going to check on. So you managed to escape the necrosis wave? Good. Pick out a branch on the oak, you’re getting a spawner today.” He said firmly as he began to walk towards the exit. Archimedes flapped and landed on Red’s shoulder, having the dungeon avatar carry him to the outside of the massive tree. The bird looked at him and cocked its head, trying to get a feeling for Red’s emotions.
“Didn’t you hear me, fucker? Go pick out a damn branch. I’ve got things to do.” He snapped slightly at the bird who waved its wings in surprise before flying off of him. Archimedes gave a defiant squawk before flying up into the tree to find a place for the vampiric raven spawner. The sun of the garden only seemed to agitate the bird, not actively damage him.
With the raven off, Red pushed his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes, though no stars or blotches of color appeared from the pressure he exerted on his face. There was no way to change or deform his eyeballs when they were nothing but projections. He had no way to release the stress built within himself, just having to live with the memories. It was hard to experience so many gruesome deaths. He had seen how every single person had died for the sake of his dungeon. They all gave their lives and even died brutally just so that he could continue living. Sure they would come back, and there probably was something in the system to keep the trauma from getting to them mentally. That didn’t matter when he knew his people had suffered due to his lack of a proper dungeon.
He would rearrange everything, change around the dungeon and make sure that no one with foul intentions could get to his core without the most brutal fighting of their lives. First, however, he needed to deal with the wreckage that was his entrance. He floated back above the pools of flesh and bone that were once both armies in the war for his life. He looked to his notifications, noting the amount before speaking to the system.
“Please dissolve all organic materials left after the [Raid] event. Convert all but extremely valuable remains into mana.” He said before the system began to do its work. He could imagine a small loop infinitely turing as he waited for the process to be done. He watched the world below, seeing as the goo and bones began to dissolve into flecks of red mana and join into his form. It was subtle at first, resembling fireflies on a pleasant summer’s night. Then the lights began to become more numerous, the disgusting scene slowly being replaced by a rather sad sight. The grass under where the necrotizing poison had been was gone, rotted away leaving dry cracked ground where nothing could ever grow again.
He was about to speak to the system again before the mana from the fight flowed into him, as well as the compiled pieces of loot that his system was now storing in his inventory. He felt like he had just devoured an entire Thanksgiving dinner by himself. A groan escaped his mouth as a few notifications appeared in front of him, making themselves known.
Raid Event Conquered!
Double mana awarded
Improved Raid Event Conquered
[Epic] tier item awarded
[Rare] tier creature, minion, or monster awarded.
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Double mana awarded
Soul Absorbed!
2 Undead Souls have been absorbed:
Rare tier Possessive Spirit
Rare tier Necromantic Spirit
Red almost felt like he was choking on the massive amount of mana that he was dealing with, floating to the arid ground and laying down as he tried to process all of it. He was giving deep breaths before realizing that he had a way to burn some of it. “System… buy… buy three awareness expansions.” He groaned as he began to try and force himself to sit up, doing everything he could to not fall apart at the very seams. He felt the system process the requests, his awareness expanding to the exterior of the dungeon. His eyes cast upwards as he watched the sky begin to appear above him. First it was the lower branches of the Alchemical Oak, then it was clouds high above, finally he saw the sun for the first time in his entire life as a dungeon.
He felt the pressure alleviate slightly, making it to where he could stand, despite the bloated feeling in his projection. He looked down at himself and found that he was indeed far more detailed, his t-shirt no longer just part of his body, but actually something he could actively take off if he so chose. He decided against the idea of removing his shirt, since there was no way of knowing if it would reappear when his mana went down.
“Fuck me… Build the remaining three rooms. Ivy has freedom of choice on the starting point and the arrangement.” He said before giving a gasp as the over two-thousand mana that was gained from the fight fell to just a more manageable thousand. “Note to self… young dungeons are probably not supposed to have over a thousand mana.” He muttered as he finally could think without his head pounding in his non-existent skull
Awareness (3)
I can see… I. Can. FIGHT!
Full view directly above the dungeon
¼ of a mile around the dungeon
“Alright. That’s handled. Restore the dungeon to state it was in before the [Raid].” He burped as the last bit of mana flowed from the battlefield. The grass grew back up from the ground under his feet, as if it had never been disturbed in the first place. Gouges in the dirt from the golem’s claws refilled like water only to solidify once again. Within a matter of minutes the calamity and carnage of the battle was just a memory, like a painful wound only vaguely recalled. What remaining fairies sat in the flowerbeds, watching the entire scene, only to be surprised as the flowers amongst them glowed and regained the poison that Lotus had extracted.
“Like taking off a bandage.” He muttered, rubbing his head as he felt the need to lay down and not think for a minute. That unfortunately would have to wait, needing an explanation for some of the things that had appeared during the throes of agony. He checked his inventory, only to find that it had the robe and staff of the necromancer, necromancer dust, a bone scythe, and a pile of items that the undead adventurers must have been carrying. Nothing worthy of the title of an [Epic] tier weapon that had supposedly dropped from defeating the raid event.
“System? Where is the item that I was supposed to get with the raid?” He motioned towards the lack of anything special in his inventory. The bone scythe was only a [Super Rare] item that had come from the Flesh Golem’s death. He would have assumed that the item would have just been deposited into his inventory, rather than it appearing within the dungeon.
Test your Luck!
Big Winner or Big Whiner?
Roll on [Epic] item table?
Yes No
“Really? I have to gamble on if the item I get is good or not? What if I get a diamond encrusted golden turd that was given to some king as a joke?!” Red shouted at the screen, actually angry with the system now that it was teasing him about this. He felt like he was going to explode a minute ago, and that was after helping his traumatized minion from the fucked day that they were having. The only pleasant thing that had happened so far was seeing the sky begin to change color to that of a setting sun.
“Fuck it. Fine. Fine! This world doesn’t give a shit about traumatic stress, so I shouldn’t either. Roll the fucking dice.” He ordered the box as he felt like a blood vessel would have burst in his eye. He hadn’t been this stressed since… it had been so long ago he could barely remember. Who was sh-He was cut from that thought as a new notification appeared in his vision.
The Gods of Chance Sing and Dance!
Gambling is not about money; it is about the thrill of the risk
.00001% chance odds pulled. [Legendary] tier item awarded.
Item Description
Ishen nil rigòth; The Dauntless Hammer of Creation
A Platinum hammer encrusted with bands of Star Opal. On one face of the double sided hammer is the image of Odom Lion-Tongs, first king of Igdolith, he is smiling. The second face of the hammer is an image of Whispering Stone’s avatar, the first dungeon of Igdolith, she is laughing. The handle is made of gold in a swirling pattern resembling strangle-roots, the first trap of the Whispering Stone dungeon.
A dwarven hammer created deep within the Mountain Home of the Igdolith dwarves. The hammer was crafted from the union of a dungeon core and dwarven engineering. It is said that the hammer was made by a dungeon core providing all of the materials, including a fragment of itself to the dwarves. Who then shaped it into the glittering platinum hammer that became the symbol of their civilization.
Legend has it that this item was last seen when Urist Lion-Tongs gave his life in the battle over the Sea of Courage against Dark-Tongue the Deceitful. The hammer fell into the brackish waters on that stormy night, never to be seen again. Thousands of dwarves have dedicated millions in gold and their own lives in an effort to find this lost artifact and return it to the current king; Melbil Lion-Tongs
Tags: [Sacred], [Ethereal], [Dungeon Usable], [Lost], [Sought After], [Powerful], [Crushing], [Secret Powers], [Legendary]
Warning!
You have seized a [Lost] tagged object! If those that have been searching for it discover you have it, they will stop at nothing to take it back!
“God fucking dammit.”