"Did you see Her?" Cecil's emotions were a tumult of terror, awe, and adoration. The capitalization came through clearly. "Why did She spare us?"
Stew ignored him.
In what now seemed like a routine occurrence, Stew's world had just turned upside down. He watched the delver party walk silently out of the dungeon, feeling the dungeon rage simmering inside. He controlled it. Just barely. If anything, it was worse than when the wolves had entered the dungeon, but he was more ready for it.
What he wasn't ready for was the cold horror Stat-o-matic™ revealed to him.
Unnamed Delver Party - 6 Members 10:08
Delver parties, essential for dungeon exploration, consist of diverse adventurers with unique skills and roles, combining their strengths in numbers to strategically navigate traps, defeat monsters, manage resources, and engage in social interactions, ensuring a well-balanced and specialized approach to overcome the multifaceted challenges presented in the depths of dungeons.
💀 ENEMIES BEYOND YOUR ABILITIES💀
Members of this party include:
💀 Point / Traps: Raek
Level 15 Rogue Shadowmaster
💀 Front Guard / Tank: Garrik
Level 10 Blademaster
💀 Ranged Damage: Lithel
Level 12 Silvan Ranger
💀💀💀 Ranged Damage (Magic) / Siege Weapon (Magic) Eira
Multisoul (Dominant: Level 4 Wizard Apprentice / Latent: ????? - ????????)
💀 Healer / Multi-role Damage (Magic)
Sella - Level 11 Nature Mage
💀 Rear Guard / Tank
Ba'Rush - Multiclass (Level 6 Gourmand, Level 13 Shieldbreaker)
What's the difference between multiclass and multisoul? Why were these high-level adventurers suddenly walking through my door?
"And why are they all speaking Latin?" Stew started with the question that confused him the most. "Where am I?"
Cecil stopped panicking long enough to say, "What?"
"Nevermind. What are we going to do! Maybe we should come clean?"
"Clean what?" Cecil looked down at the crown in his plate.
"It means. Maybe we should just tell them the truth? Maybe we can make a deal?"
Bossy spoke. "Eventually, that would be ideal, but for now, you are the most valuable thing in your dungeon. They will probably want to add you to some magic item or grind you down for potion ingredients along with all of our mana cores." Her voice in his mind, while still calm, held an edge of concern he hadn't felt before.
"That's out then. So what do we do?"
"I don't know." Bossy returned to cropping at the grass. "But I want to thank you for an entertaining incarnation. Brief though it might have been. I will remember you fondly."
"Really helpful, thanks." Stew tracked the delvers as they neared the door, painfully aware that he couldn't change anything until they left. His mind was a whirl of confusion. He had done everything the System asked, followed the advice of his supposed Level Boss, spared the wolves that had attacked him. It had all seemed to be working out. He had made progress. He had powerful protectors.
Now that he saw what he was really up against. He realized it had all been a big joke. Just like the System had tried to tell him. I should have just taken the rower job, or the courier, some job where there was somebody who could tell me what to do. It's all I've ever been good at. I'm not cut out to be in charge.
Cut out?
The delvers were almost through to the cave exit. He had just a few more seconds to feel sorry for himself, but he decided he was already finished. I may not be born for this, but I better learn fast. Thinking of cutting he felt something warm deep down in his dungeony self. He grabbed every specialized golem and sent them through the stairwell in the boss room to clear the rubble. He had been so busy listening to everyone else he hadn't done the most obvious thing.
He set the golems up as a digging team and got them started on a second level. It would take time but he only needed a couple of rooms to get started. If he dug them both at once he might have enough time.
"We're all going to the second level. We can give them this level and maybe they will still believe it's abandoned. Cecil, I'll need you and the 3Ms to stay since they've seen you."
"I can't go," Bossy said. "I'm the level boss."
"This is no time to worry about that. Let's just get you to safety."
"No, I mean it's not possible. I'm bound to this level."
"There has to be some way."
"Probably, but we don't have time to find it. Go ahead though. I'll be fine as long as you keep your core safe."
"Then the wolves and kittens and Sluice can come down to the second." He knew as he said it that they wouldn't budge, and he felt their resistance immediately. Even Sluice refused. He could theoretically force them to do it, but that seemed wrong, and, really, he didn't see the point. Bossy was right. As long as he protected his core he could fix this later.
He was pleased to see that the System let him start the second level even though there were delvers on level one. That had been a guess on his part, and it would have been all for nothing if it hadn't been true. Then, big dungeons had to be able to repair empty levels while delvers were still present on others or there wouldn't be any dungeons left. They would just be overwhelmed with wave after wave of delvers.
The party left through the crack, so Stew shifted his vision to Lassie, who happened to be standing next to Bossy and looking in the right direction. The wolf's mind was warm and calm, completely opposite from what he expected. She ignored him and remained watchful.
Stew considered the delvers through the bossroom wall and wondered if he should turn this off when they came back to make the dungeon seem more abandoned, or make it seem like a hoax as those elves, Fae, had suggested.
The golems worked steadily, but it was going to be a race to finish the room before the party returned. The wait wore on Stew and he tried to think of anything else he could do. Since everyone seemed determined to make a last stand, he could, at least, try to give them the best shot he could. He asked Sluice for some mucus and got the golems good and oiled up for the flex-off. It wouldn't make much difference against this crowd, but it was something.
While he was at it, he noticed that Sluce still had the mana core he had given it to lure the wolves. The slime seemed to really like it and carried it everywhere. Stew didn't see much use for it right now, but he'd keep it in mind.
When he saw the party turn and head back, his heart would have sunk if he had one. Not only was the delver party coming back, it looked like they had all of the skull bandits with them. At least they were dressed like bandits. Seeing the skull face paint, he finally made the connection to the overpowered foe warning in the System menu. That must be why they wore it, some sort of bandit meme. But everyone had been speaking Latin. Were they church bandits? Was he in some sort of alternate Medieval Europe and this was the inquisition? If I survive this. I have a lot of questions.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The golems finished the first room just as the delvers reached the entrance to the cavern.
He had seconds to clear out the golems and swap his core to the second level. Now it was just sitting at the bottom of the stairs, exposed to anyone who opened the door, but he couldn't swap with the second room until it was finished. A System Prompt appeared about the second level, but he didn't stop to read it. His attention was fixed on the approaching delvers.
The delvers were just entering the ruined temple room when the golems finally finished. He swapped again and put the golems at the foot of the stairs, closing off the core room to the right. Now only vents connected it to the rest of the dungeon as he had done on the first level. He felt a little safer, but not much. He immediately set the golems to digging straight back from the stairs. If he could get another two rooms in a row to work with, he could swap an entire block of stone between him and the delvers.
He switched to Might's eyes and watched the delvers pour through the passage. With so many, the room felt small and cramped. They gathered around the temple foundation, looking up at the golems. It gave Stew a kind of vicarious stage fright.
Were they going to go get the topaz and try the whole "the yellow light of the Sun may free the treasures of the Moon" thing? He had really hoped they would go talk to Cecil again first. Maybe Stew could reason with them using the mage as a spokes skeleton.
"You said that thing is cursed?" Sella asked.
"Slightly. It causes the bearer to snore." Raek smiled.
Several of the bandits chuckled behind their hands, but were all business when Sella turned to look.
"Fine then. We'll take it." Lithel pulled out the hide again.
"That didn't work last time," Garrik said.
Lithel didn't even look at him as he drew his ax and whirled neatly cleaving all three golems in a single motion.
Stew felt the whole thing and yanked his consciousness back in pain. The attack inflamed his dungeon rage. He had to restrain himself from sending everyone into the room to attack. Instead he felt the golems collapse to the floor of the temple, the small mana crystals in each one rolling free. He couldn't stand the thought of the greedy Lithel getting those also, so he absorbed them along with the rubble from the golems. Then he regretted doing it. This would surely prove to the delvers that they were in a functioning dungeon.
Lithel just took the vanishing crystals as more signs of a hoax. "Nothing but illusion! Pitifully weak magic." He stowed the sword away in his satchel without touching it.
"And yet." Sella had ignored the whole exchange. She wandered to the other side of the cavern, her hand raised as if feeling the air. "There is some magic here. I didn't pay attention earlier since it was nothing like a dungeon's pressure, but I feel something in there." She pointed to the store room. "And there." She pointed directly at his core.
Eira pulled out some device that looked like a necklace and moved it around. "Yes, the second one is what we came for."
Sella whirled and raised both her hands, beginning to sketch something in the air. "Enough, not another word from you!"
Eira raised her staff and narrowed her eyes, but otherwise didn't move.
Stew noticed Eira's heartbeat remained perfectly steady, while Sella's was beating fast. Hey, I can feel their heartbeats! He realized he could feel every heartbeat in the dungeon, then he tried not to think about it because it was overwhelming.
Lithel stepped between the two magic users. He turned his back to Eira. "It sounds like we should explore the first source you sensed."
It occurred to Stew that maybe Lithel couldn't see Eira's stats the way he could. They were treating her like she was just the Level 4 Wizard Apprentice and not, whatever the rest meant. He wondered what her stats looked like to herself. Did they have stats they could see?
The delvers headed to the treasure room ignoring the plates and the now useless topaz. Sella walked to the north wall and touched her hand to the stone.
At first Stew thought she was trying to find a secret door. She was obviously sensing the store room which was on the other side of that wall and behind three meters of raw stone, so she was out of luck. Or so he thought.
More pain ripped into Stew, and this time he couldn't escape it by moving his attention. Something like worms ate into his wall and it was just like they were eating into his body. He wished he had eyes in the room to see what she was doing to him.
He felt the long thin tendrils weakening the stone until they began to rip huge chunks from the wall. The tendrils were longer, and branching now. He realized they were roots, or vines. Along with water and wind, the natural enemy of stone. So this was what a Nature Mage could do.
In only a few, agonizing minutes she had broken a small hole through into the storage room. There was no light there, since Stew didn't need it, but she seemed to see just fine.
"There are storage bins full of stone and wooden shelves stacked with green glass." She closed her eyes and cocked her head. "The glass is where the mana is coming from, a good amount of it."
"Mana infused glass?" Raek peered over her shoulder. "I've never heard of that."
"Neither have I." Lithel looked back at Eira. "Care to explain?"
Eira smiled back. "How would I know?"
The smile seemed to give Lithel pause from the way his muscles tensed, or maybe he just didn't like backtalk from junior wizards.
Thankfully, Sella didn't try to widen the hole. Instead, she sent more of the vines or roots in to gather the mana glass.
Stew watched his mana capacity drop with each looted brick and that hurt almost as much as the hole in his wall. He was really starting to not like these people. Since he was in the menu, he remembered the notification from when he opened the Second Level and opened it.
Hidden Depths 12:15
You've reached down for comfort and found solace in stone. Now if only you had something to lure your foes away from you and, preferably, to their doom.
New Bait Unlocked - False Dungeon Core
A false dungeon core creates an alluring and convincing decoy which perfectly simulates a real dungeon core. Creating a false dungeon core requires a mana core of at least level 10. Decoys retain their integrity so long as they remain in the dungeon. Once removed, they quickly degrade and eventually dissolve. Create a more durable decoy by using higher level mana cores.
A level ten mana core. "Do delvers have mana cores too, or is it only creatures I create?"
Cecil responded before Bossy could answer. "Any sapient with a class has a mana core. That's where levels come from. Do you really not know these things?"
Stew didn't bother to answer. He wasn't sure what would happen if someone else found out how he came to be a dungeon core and now was not the time to find out. With grim resignation he looked at the stats for the eighteen members of the party. Did Cecil's explanation mean Ba'Rush had two cores? What about Eira? But the numbers only added up one way. I'm sorry Garrik. It's you or me.
Not that he was sure he could do it. Nevermind bringing himself to do it. Did he have any way to take out a Level 10 Blademaster. That sounded pretty ominous and the sword across Garrik's back looked formidable. Lithel had wiped out three golems in one swing with his tiny hatchet.
While he was thinking, the delvers finished looting the store room and entered the feast hall.
"Welcome back adventurers! Have you brought the mighty weap–"
"Silence." Lithel drew his bow and took aim between Cecil's eyes. "Tell us who raised you and what they commanded you to do, or I will pin you to a post and keep you for a cloak rack.
"I.." Cecil struggled. "I was raised by the necromancer, Tothsek in the third year of the reign of Berenice III Philopator…" In his mind he called. What shall I say?
Stew thought fast. "Tell them you built all of this, that it's a hoax to try to scare away intruders."
"They won't believe me!"
"Just try."
To the delvers, Cecil said. "I have roamed for many years and found this cave, a part of the ancient dungeon, now long dead. I built these distractions to frighten away the curious or, at least, convince them to leave. I…"
Lithel put an arrow through Cecil's empty eyesocket, pinning him to the chair.
"That was entirely unnecessary!" Cecil reached up to straighten his crown, which the arrow had knocked askew again. "You asked me a question and I answered."
"With lies!" Sella shouted. "This is no part of the Altar." She sniffed. "Every stone of the Altar of the Hungry Flame resonates with its faded presence still. There's none of that here."
"Then I was wrong, but I didn't… Oh now stop that!" Lithel had placed another arrow through Cecil's other eye socket. "I've worked in much better dungeons, I'll have you know. This sort of thing never happened in the Tomb Of The Blood Prince, I can tell you that."
"Leave it." Sella said. "We won't learn anything from this one."
Lithel lowered his bow. "So it seems." He nodded his head toward the big double doors to the next room. "It seems he's trying to keep us from seeing what is in that room."
"Cecil!" Stew said. "Remember the plan. Tell them about the hidden door to the Lunar Forge, maybe that will draw their interest."
"They won't believe me if I do." Cecil grumped back. "And at the moment, I don't feel particularly inclined to warn them away from getting a good dozen golem fists in their face."
Lithel sent two bandits to open the doors while the rest covered them with ranged weapons and magic, and whether Cecil was right or wrong became moot.
The doors opened, revealing Stew's final puzzle.