“Shit! Cock! God dammit!” Red screamed as he saw his beautiful window be reduced to fragments after something came crashing through it. He couldn’t believe the bad luck he was having as some new emaciated horror came into his dungeon, shredding its flesh against the falling bits of glass. “Demonic slime! Protect the core!” He ordered, turning on his heel to look as the purple slime was already pushing its entire body over the core at the top of the fountain. It was not about to let him get eaten within its first day of life.

Alert! New Intruder Detected: Vampiric Raven (Starved)

“Oh of course, another undead piece of shit trying to eat the things within my dungeon.” Red growled as he looked at the beast, it being much larger than a regular raven. It was the size of a medium dog, and its beak was serrated to give the appearance of fangs for it to bleed out opponents. Red could tell that it was going mad from a lack of food though, the way that its body seemed gaunt and without any real meat to its weakened bones. It flapped around wildly, cawing and squawking in such an awful way as the obnoxious creature made itself known.

It was flopping around on the ground, trying to deal with the pain of the glass as the remaining few crawdads led by Snips approached the creature. It let out a nasty screech as it got to its clawed feet, talons clacking against the stone floor. Instead of immediately trying to fly at the demonic slime, it instead tilted its head down at the crawdads. It gave a shriek before pecking down at one of the mudbugs. Its sharp beak pierced the back of the crawdad, making the creature flail in agony as its insides were exposed. It snapped up the agonized bug in its beak, holding it there for a long moment before the dried carcass was dropped back onto the ground. The bird hopped around as Snips and the remaining crawdads attempted to cut at its legs, far too fast for the weak little creatures.

“Wait… did it just come in because it was starving?” Red muttered as he squatted down to watch the bird, seeing it snap up another of the remaining crawdads. A glance back to the spawner surprised him, showing an icon above the mound with the picture of the dead crawdads. It seemed that dungeon creatures didn’t actually die so long as there was a spawner to give them shape the moment their physical forms were destroyed. That was a relief on Red’s mind, though it meant that he would need to get the fairy spawner up and running as soon as possible.

The raven looked at another of the crawdads, the last ordinary one besides Snips, and pecked down at it, taking the creature into its beak before crunching down. The bird’s frame began to fatten, seeming to get more vital with the essence it exsanguinated from the crawdads it had consumed. It continued to bob and dance around Snips, avoiding the sharp metallic claws so that he wouldn’t be able to land a hit. The raven tried to land a hit down on Snips, only for it to find the metallic claw blocking the serrated beak. The two seemed to be locked in combat until a third party intervened. Instead of a third party, the two began to slowly stop the fight as a new energy began to surround the vampiric bird.

Monster Tamed!

Vampiric Raven; Archimedes

Requirements:

Feed light meals 3/3

Aggressive Play 1/1

“Oh, well I guess I got a new monster.” He muttered as the two of the creatures stopped their fighting so that their new shared status could be properly appreciated. Red squatted down next to the raven and gave him a pet down the back of its head. “Hey there little fella, you used to have an owner didn’t you? You’ve got a name and everything.” Red said with a frown as he wondered how Archimedes could have been separated from his owner. Then again, he considered the fact that the owner of a vampiric raven was most likely a vampire themselves.

If there was a holy order that had been traveling with Addison, then there was most likely a plethora of evil creatures that had been killed as they cut a swathe through the evil swamps. The bird trilled some as the petting continued, seeming pleased that its new master was the affectionate sort of person. Archimedes looked up at him, tilting his head back and forth to try and judge the character of the new owner. He could immediately tell that the dungeon was not an evil creature, which was a negative. Archimedes was a discerning agent of evil, but even he could not deny that being owned by a good dungeon was going to be a bad thing.

“Info.” Red said as he looked at the bird, raising a brow when he saw the bird actually react to the information being displayed. It seemed that creatures not of the dungeon would notice whenever he tried to observe the deeper information. He would have to make a note of that when the adventurers finally started to show up at the dungeon. Archimedes seemed to resist for a minute before finally allowing the information to flow into the box. The bird definitely seemed to be far smarter than the creatures or monsters of a low level dungeon like himself.

Monster Character Sheet

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Name: Archimedes

Title: N/A

Age: 5 years

Species: Vampiric Raven

Special: Pierce, Fly, Blood Magic, Vampiric Drain, Claw Frenzy

Height: 2’8” inches

Weight: 25 lbs

Mood: Curious

Level: 9/10

Ascension: Rank 3

Description: Archimedes was once the familiar of a minor vampire within the Evil Swamps. After a run-in with a holy caravan trying to cross through the swamps, Archimedes’ master’s corporeal form was destroyed. When it was destroyed the holy order attempted to kill Archimedes as well, only for the raven to fly off in an attempt to protect himself. He spent the following year avoiding direct sunlight and feeding on any living creatures it could find. In a fit of desperation after weeks of starving, Archimedes threw himself into the stained glass window of the Red Dungeon in the middle of the day. Where he was fed and tamed by the dungeon consciousness Red.

“Aww, you poor thing. You have been suffering for a year just starving! Well you don’t have to worry about that while you’re in my dungeon. I will make sure that you are fed and don’t have to constantly fight for survival.” Red said as he gave the raven another pet. Archimedes bobbed his head up and down before turning and beginning to preen his feathers some. It seemed that the raven wanted to look good now that it was finally able to rest and recuperate.

“Alright, you just get yourself cleaned up, and I will see about this window.” He said as he looked at the now empty lattice of his window, it needed to be refilled with the missing glass. As the menu appeared to repair it, Red made sure to see if there was any way to change the pattern on the window. He enjoyed the random colors of the basic window, but he wouldn’t mind having fun scenes like those seen in churches or cartoons.

After a moment the option appeared to place a scene from memory into the window, which made Red believe it would be something from one of his past lives. Instead as the glass melted into the floor where it shattered, it reappeared making the scene of Addison rushing into the shack being chased by a ghoul. If he had to guess, it meant that there would only be memories from the dungeon itself that would be implanted into the windows.

“Guess I am already starting to make memories. Maybe I'll get a long hallway and fill it with stained glass windows one day, and then when it's full I’ll make another to keep the memories preserved.” He mused with a smile, turning away from the window to appreciate the way that Archimedes was bathing happily in one of the unoccupied fountain basins. The slime had already deposited his core back on the top of the fountain, finding its way back to the pool that would soon be its slime spawner.

Snips, on the other hand, was dragging his claws back towards the spawning pool of the crawdads, where several of the lost soldiers were already beginning to reappear. “Snips? What’s wrong buddy?” Red asked as he squatted as low as he possibly could to watch the crawdad. He didn’t know if he could properly speak to the little crustacean, but there was at least the hope that the mudbug conveyed what was going on. The little critter stopped its melancholic march and turned towards Red.

Snips pointed at Archimedes and then at himself, before giving his own head a smack with the metallic claw to show that he had been beaten. Once that was conveyed, Snips returned his claws to the stone floor so they could be dragged all the way back to his new home. He was a brave warrior, and it meant that a defeat would be considered a stain on his legacy. He was, after all, the crustacean that had turned the tides on the battle of the ghoul. He had never tasted defeat until now, and was taking it a bit too personally.

“Snips, don’t beat yourself up about this! So Archimedes was a more dangerous threat than the ghoul was, so what? You were brave and put your life on the line just so that you could protect your home and family. You’re my little warrior, and nothing will ever change that.” Red said with a smile as he reached down and gave Snips a playful poke on the back. He hadn’t considered that even those without the ability to speak could have such big emotions. He would need to keep an eye on all those that called his dungeon home, so that none of them could develop disorders or mental health issues. He was distractedly thinking about naming a fairy worker as a therapist, and seeing if that would do anything.

With Red’s mind wandering, he didn’t even notice that the glow of a title began to surround Snips. The crawdad raised his arms in excitement and clicked the metallic claws together as the light began to bathe over his body. Red didn’t know it, but with this change Snips felt a new confidence begin to overwhelm him. He was not just one of the first crawdads to have been made in the dungeon, nor was he simply a fighter meant to live and die needlessly. He was a warrior, and this dungeon was his home.

Title Given:

Warrior!

Title Evolution:

Snips has met the requirements to upgrade his title through will of the heart.

New Title:

Brave Warrior!

Evolution requirements met!

Metal-Clawed Crawdad; Snips

Evolving into new species!

Metal Lobster

Alert! New monster family unlocked!

Rock Lobster

Red blinked in shock as Snips glowed gold, then red, and finally a calming blue before what remained after the light show clacked its claws together with far greater volume. What had once been the small metal crawdad was now a hefty looking lobster covered in gleaming gold plating. Red was astonished, the gilded lobster was a far different evolutionary chain than what he had seen when he had titled Ivy. He had not only become bigger, but mutated into a completely new kind of creature.

“Snips… Is that you?” Red asked softly as he tried to understand what was happening, the lobster giving a confident clack of claw in confirmation.