Red had gripped his head for nearly two hours, hoping that the pain would stop by any metric as the ‘world’ shifted around him. He was still shaking, even though the dungeon had long ago calmed in its tremors. He slowly cracked open his eyes and looked around the room, finding that his crawdads were around him in a circle. They seemed concerned by the fact that he was in such pain. A small sigh escaped his crystal lips as he reached down and pet Snips on the back, a single finger being all he needed.

“Thanks for your concern guys… You can go back to your business.” Red said with a tired smile, watching the crawdads scuttle off towards the fountain in the center of the bathroom. Red blinked as he looked at the fountain, realizing that it was much different. A cursory glance around the room showed that everything had changed because of this new theme. The fountain was now four pools fed by a central pillar, his core sitting upon the top of it. Two of the pools were now occupied, one by his crawdads while the other was by his singular demonic slime.

All around him the wood and paneling was replaced by smooth white stone. It wasn’t pure white marble, or even a grayish variant of it. It was more just a dirty yellow-white stone that now took up the walls and floors of his dungeon. The sink now looked like it belonged, along with the fountain. The toilet had changed from a modest wood affair to that of a stone seat with the appropriate hole for ‘business’ to be done in.

The ceiling was now gabled, seemingly in the style of a church or temple. Red approached one of the windows and found it a large arched feature with fractals of glass stained with no apparent pattern. “Okay… so a theme changes everything on a floor to fit with it. Good to know.” He muttered as he glanced towards the hooded lantern that was a little fancier now. Shaking his head, he went into the hallway, still featureless for the moment as Red didn’t have the mana to spare on décor.

He entered back into the main entrance of the dungeon, finding that it was just as changed. Before he could acknowledge the large stone oven or the marble table and bench, he noticed Addison. She was hugging her knees on the now slightly different bed. It seemed the bed didn’t change much, though Addison had to have been sitting on it when it changed.

“Boss… What the hell happened? This place was a nice little shack a few hours ago, and now we are in some kind of temple. What gives?” Ivy asked from the marble bench, hopping down and looking up at him.

Addison looked confused for a moment as she followed the fairy’s eyeline before realizing that Red must have some sort of appearance to his creatures. She couldn’t see anything, but she kept quiet about that feeling. “I-It shook a lot. I thought the house was coming down.” Addison said softly, hoping that Red could give them some answers.

Red gave a sigh, Lotus floating up and giving a flick to his crystalline nose. It didn’t garner a reaction, since his projection didn’t have any kind of pain receptors. “I am sorry everyone. Apparently I activated a theme when getting a new monster. It changed everything, and I apologize for that.” Red said honestly as he looked at them, hoping that they could forgive him.

“Well give us a warnin next time, boss! I was in the middle of carving shingles for the roof. Now we don’t have shingles and I have tons of wood scraps.” Ivy said with a sigh as she threw some of the aforementioned shingles into a pile by the bed. A pile that should have been where the pools of stagnant water had previously been.

“Wait.. you went outside and gathered materials? You can do that?” Red asked with a bit of shock as he looked at her, having not realized that his minions could go outside and harvest things for him. If that was the case then he would have been able to halve the cost of any wood upgrades when the shack was still here.

“Well, yeah. How else are you supposed to get materials and things? A dungeon sends monsters out to attract adventurers. A dungeon sends minions out to get goods, and a dungeon sends out creatures to attract intruders. Ain’t rocket science, Boss. You sound like you don’t know whatcha doing with this place.” She said with a chuckle and a shake of the head, before Addison piped up.

“M-mr. Red, you wouldn’t happen to be a reincarnation dungeon, would you?” Addison asked softly as she followed the eyeline of Lotus and Ivy, hoping that they would be able to help give her some semblance of where his consciousness was. Addy didn’t know a lot about dungeons, since she was not supposed to go near them unless she became an adventurer. That was still years away, and the Heavenly Father said she needed to grow her skills before she could do anything of the sort. She had taken an interest though, and read as much as she could in the cathedral’s library.

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“If reincarnation dungeon means that I was previously a person… then yes. I was not originally a dungeon. Why, does that happen often?” Red asked, a bit hopeful that there could be more people from his world in this strange place. He had never thought that there was a chance to meet someone else who had willingly become a dungeon. He was filled with a bit of hope, and smugness at the fact that saving Addison’s life from the ghoul was already paying dividends. He never would have been able to figure out what other dungeons are like without a dedicated source.

“It is still uncommon, but particularly powerful creatures have the ability to coalesce their soul into a dungeon core. That core then is able to make a dungeon around itself wherever the person or thing died. I think the list was… dragons, arch-demons, arch-angels, lich, and generally things of incredible power. The Gilded Guidance is the most well know RD-um Reincarnation Dungeon. The Arch-Angel Susafel gave their life so that the clergy would have refuge from a great danger, if the scripture is correct.” She said with a smile as she began to release a deluge of info, the well read girl a wellspring of useful information. She was almost going so fast that Red was having trouble keeping up with all of it.

Red considered it for a long second, thinking about the fact that there were actually other dungeons out in the world like him. It was a mixed bag, as strange as that seemed. On the one hand it meant he wasn’t special, and that he could just say he was an RD would make people wave off the strange behavior of his dungeon. The other half was the more human aspect of things, it wasn’t fun learning that you weren’t the most special person in the world. That didn’t stop the positivity train from rolling though, since it seemed that he had a very scholarly young girl on his side.

“Thank you very much for the information, Addison. You have no idea how much this helps. Yes, I used to be a person, but i don’t remember who that person was.” He messaged to her, not technically lying since the oldest life was still escaping him. He needed to find a way to solidify those memories that continued to pop in and out of his head. That was going to have to wait until at least his second floor, he needed more defenses. If he wanted to make sure he was safe as well as eventually send out monsters and critters, he needed to deal with the underpopulation of his dungeon.

“I am sorry to hear that, Red. I hope that you get your memory back one day.” She said with a slight pout, the look making Red’s lacking heart met. He focused on his mana and produced a piece of candy for her. It was just a little chocolate, but the girl’s eyes brightened excitedly at the sweet. She grabbed it up and quickly shoved it into her mouth. “Thank you so much!” She mused around the candy gnashing between her teeth.

“You’re welcome… and thank you Addison. You’re a big help.” He said happily as he opened up a menu and looking towards the build section. It took a few minutes of scrolling through all the structures until his finger finally came across the Spawner menu.

Spawners

Fairy Hive: A delightful hive where fairies breed. It is unknown what goes on within without ruining their privacy.

Requirements: Two unnamed fairies, an unused room

Slime pool: A pool of water where slimes divide. Try not to poke it too much.

Requirements: 1 pool of water, 1 unused slime

Bonus: Evolutions recognized, able to randomly spawn more commonly or be upgraded to spawn said evolution.

Crawdad Pool: A muddy pool of water where crawdads can be found. Just don’t try to turn the temperature up without the right spices.

Requirements: 1 Pool of water, 5 crawdads

Red smiled at the fact that everything was actually starting to make sense. “I need to get back to work, I will warn you if anything strange happens.” He said to all of them before he went back to the bathroom and looked at the fountain. He selected one of the pools at the bottom and selected it to be a Crawdad pool. Five of the crawdads that were already sitting at the bottom vanished, before a massive wad of mud appeared at the bottom of the pool. Sitting on the mud was the missing crawdads, seeming to be scuttling around and caring for eggs submerged in the mud.

“There! Now we will have an endless supply of Crawdads. May have cost me most of the little bugs, but it works out in the end. Not like I am in danger with my fairies around.” He commented happily, tempting all the chaos and fate in the world to accept the challenge. Just as he registered what he said, the nearest window to where he was standing shattered in a grand display of glittering pieces of stained glass raining across the bathroom.