The next morning…

Waking up the next morning was just as bad as the first couple of times… one of these days he was going to have to ask one of the adventurers that were sure to come in here how they were so chipper in the morning.

He semi-contentedly made his way back to the second floor determined to finish up with that floor so he could begin on the next. Ah, the life a Dungeon Lord constant building projects and fun thinking up new ways to tor—uh help the adventurers as they made their way through his halls.

Halfway through the afternoon, he paused as he felt a group of three powerful people walk into his dungeon and with barely a pause quickly make their way through the whole thing crushing the boss in just a couple of hits before just as quickly teleporting out. They probably weren’t even in the dungeon for more than a mark.

Then again so far everything except the boss was only novice level and those three felt like they were at least Masters.

‘Probably just here to evaluate the dungeon as it stands so far.” He thought with a shrug before he got back to work.

Seamus POV

‘Hopefully, this doesn’t last for too much longer.’ He thought as he watched the three-man team the Captain had sent going down the ladder by turns.

He didn’t have long to wait before the three popped back out of the ladder looking slightly satisfied. “Any news?”

The leader, a gruff man that had been one of his trainers when he had first joined, “You shouldn’t be out here too much longer most likely before the end of the afternoon you’ll be able to stand down we just need to go report what we’ve learned. Whatever the higher-ups want to do I’ll ask if they would send relief for your team at the very least.”

Seamus shook his head, “That not needed we have been taking turns to sleep so we are all fresh as can be at the moment. We can hold out here as long as necessary though the citizens are getting mighty curious and I’ve heard some wild rumors since we’ve been standing here.”

“Oh?” The older man said making sure to sound like he wasn’t very interested in the subject.

The Lieutenant nodded, “Craziest one at the moment is that this hatchway is leading to a newly established dungeon.”

“I see.” The old trainer said. “Just tell anyone that asks that the sewers are closed for maintenance and they have no business going down there without permission from either the Captain or the Lord. Don’t let anyone down there for any reason with seeing the magical seal of one of those two on the orders, hear me?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living!” The trainer shouted in his parade-ground voice.

The young man just smiled as the man walked away towards the barracks where the Captain maintained his office.

Captain Josef POV

“Come in!” He shouted in response to a knock on his office door. He nodded in response as the team that he had sent in to evaluate the level of the dungeon. The three came in and stood at attention in front of his desk. He barked “Report!” at the three after exchanging greetings.

“Sir!” The team leader began. “The dungeon is only one floor so far rated at the upper novice level. There are four rooms the first one contains a nest of ten rats. The following rooms all contain undead in the form of skeletons with the fourth room containing a boss and 2 skeletons. The boss is a lich with the two skeletons being damage classes. There are runes at the entrance and in the boss room to allow teleportation out of the dungeon including one for a second floor that I am assuming is under construction.”

“The loot tables?”

“Coppers and silvers, for the most part, mixed in with low-level equipment that drops by what classes are in the group and who does the most damage to the mob.”

“Really? Interesting very few dungeons bother with keeping track of damage on mobs I wonder if we might be able to get the dungeon to display the damage tables.”

The team tilted their heads to the side before the healer in the group replied. “Someone could always ask as they were running the floor. If the Dungeon Lord is paying attention he might do it if it suits him.”

The captain nodded his head at the team before thanking them for their service and sending them to get their reward from the quartermasters. He quickly had a messenger sent to the Lord and the Guild Master with the results of the evaluation of the first floor before getting back to the bane of his existence. Paperwork.

Stefan POV

Finally finishing with the digging for the second floor, Stefan sighed and cracked his back as he looked around at the rough dirt walls. Again, sitting in the center of the floor he watched in awe as the spell started to take effect. He watched in awe as a circle of dark grey stone quickly spread away from him in a circle covering the slightly rounded walls before spreading up over the ceiling.

Once the stone was finished spreading throughout the floor torches popped into existence in intervals on the wall in sconces. Blue flames crackled on the end of the torches in an intricate metal cage spreading their light and brightening up the floor with the slightly creepy ambiance he was going for in this section of the dungeon.

Nodding to himself in satisfaction he checked how much magic he had left and blinked in shock. It seems that he finally found a good part of being a dungeon core with a humanoid form. Dungeon crystals are not capable of regenerating their mana without draining it from sources around them which takes concentration, but mortal forms can so while he had been sitting here watching the stone his mana had managed to refill completely.

Thanking the gods that at least something was going in his way in this messed-up situation he remained where he was reaching out with his senses to encompass the entire floor rather than walking around the whole floor he began conjuring the creatures he would have wandering the floor which consisted of semi-intelligent zombies in groups of varying size. He also used some of the traps that he had been able to find the schematics for in his mindscape. Once done with this he made his way to the end of the dungeon to personally conjure the boss and install the rune plaque.

Nodding to himself he made his way back to his room which he had furnished with something that the adventurers he had gotten it from called a bedroll which would make his sleep that night a lot more comfortable. He had forgotten he had it but found it in his mindscape one of the things that had been dropped when and adventurer died in his last dungeon though it had been tossed in with the other junk that he couldn’t use for loot.

Though now that he had experienced sleeping on the floor like he had seen some of the adventurers do he might just find a way to enchant one to be more comfortable and offer it as one of his best drops.

He settled on the bedroll sighing appreciatively nodding to himself. Yes, the second floor was done and now he had something to offer the novice dungeon divers. He would start working on journeyman level work after he finished the third level and change the level of the dungeon on each fourth level.

He was woken from his rest the next morning by the entrance of a team of adventurers and extended his senses to watch as they traveled through his halls.

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With the adventurers…

Leon climbed down the ladder into the new dungeon looking forward to the time he had to run it. As he waited for his team he took the time to look around himself as the tank he considered it his duty to make sure he knew as much as possible about his surroundings at all times.

He glanced over as Kammy his Ranger came up alongside him in the alcove that contained the ladder they had come down. “Is everybody ready?” He asked the lady.

“Yes, we are ready just waiting on you.” She replied.

Nodding to himself he gestured to her to pull the first two rats that they could see from where they were standing. It was a medium-sized room so she didn’t even have to go running off to grab them just shot her bow two arrows flying through the air to slam into the first two creatures. He waited until they were close enough before he triggered one of his skills his hammer slamming into the ground hard enough to cause stones to fly up and slap into the two creatures catching their attention and distracting them from the ranger that had retreated behind them.

He slammed forward his shield to intercept the attack of the rat on the left before trying to use his hammer to block the one on his right side only to miss and end up with a bite from the creature on his thigh.

“Poison on right thigh.” He reported to the healer standing in the group behind him before he swung his hammer up and back down again slamming it into the back of the rat that had just released him from its bite.

He felt the cooling fire of the cleric’s spell wash over him not long after as that particular rat was squashed into the ground leaving him with only the one that was still trying to chew on the wood of his tower shield.

Not long after he saw a bolt of fire lance out from behind him setting the rat on fire and ending its threat as another arrow pinned it to the ground. “Not bad.” He said as he looked back to check on those behind him. “Thanks for the heal, John.”

The cleric of the Divine Fire smiled and nodded at him. His temple was one of the best with poison finding it an easy prospect to burn it out of the system for most species. Before this dungeon popped up it was unlikely that any of them would have seen anyone other than another human this county was after all deep into the human kingdoms where the other races rarely came. With the dungeon, though as it grew they would start to see more and more people coming from all around. Dungeons were rare in this world and the establishment of a new one always caused great celebration… and sometimes great tragedy.

“Ready?” The ranger asked them, receiving nods in reply. This time she was forced to run forward a few feet before again sending her arrows forward nodding in satisfaction as they both tagged their targets. Running back to the group she was happy to watch as the tank moved forward and quickly had the attention of the rats on himself without her even getting one hit from them. It was good to see that he was so skilled sometimes it took a few levels before they got good enough and in the meantime, the ranger sometimes suffers.

This dungeon so far had been classified as Novice level meaning it was meant for those from level 1-10. It went from Novice at level 1-10, Journeyman from 11-20, Apprentice at 21-30, Master at 31-40, and Adept at 41-50. It was very rare for humans to pass level fifty as it took a very long time, actually the strongest person in the town would be the Guild Master at level 45 and from rumors that she had heard around town he hadn’t advanced at all in the past several years with nowhere nearby for him to get any experience.

They quickly finished off the room before walking to the corridor and she took her time leading them through making sure that she inspected everything for traps before she allowed the group to follow behind her to the next room.

Looking into the second room she had to blink a little in shock at the sight of the skeletons having expected to find the only rat on this floor. She grumbled as she waited for the others to get ready behind her she knew that a group of guards had come through here to evaluate it but nothing of what they found had been released to the public except to tell them that it was novice level.

Getting the go-ahead she quickly had her bow out and three arrows flying through the air to slam into the first group. She quickly retreated behind the tank as a bolt of fire flew at her. She was impressed as she watched the tank use a skill to intercept the fire and reflect it back at the mage which allowed him to take its aggro without having to chase it down.

The fight went fairly well with the tank soaking up all the damage though he did receive several injuries that gave John some healing practice and she finally got to see their new mage, Susan make some damage. Mage’s were a powerful damage and support class but in quicker fights, they always suffered their spells took a while to cast even if they were powerful once they flew.

They made their way through the room quickly. Before entering the next hallway, she turned to her group and told them to wait for her just far enough into the hallway that they wouldn’t be caught if the mobs respawn while they were waiting for her.

“Augh, why the hell are we always waiting around for you to check the hallways, there was nothing wrong with the last one there is probably nothing here either.” Susan the mage yelled in exasperation before starting forward as if to storm towards the next room.

Kammy raised an eyebrow at the mage before she turned to raise her bow and loosed an arrow at the pitfall she had noticed before the mage distracted her. The whole group froze as a five-foot section of the floor collapsed revealing a pit that they couldn’t see the bottom of from where they were standing.

Moving closer John let out a whistle as he stared down at the sharp stakes planted at the bottom of the hole. They may not have an antagonistic relationship with most dungeons but down to the last one if you were not careful where you stepped you were very likely to die. Usually screaming while you were doing it.

In her mind, Kammy was jumping up and down like a fool at how awesome that had looked while on the outside she kept up a stoic face as she watched the Mage shake in fear of what could have happened if she had kept walking just a few more feet forward.

Leon cleared his throat gathering their attention to himself. “This is one of the reasons that she is in the group, Susan, Kammy is the best I have ever met at finding traps and we don’t move forward without her telling us it is safe… not waiting for her word is why we had to go looking for a new Mage. She will mark any traps she finds and then come back and lead us through them. Without the dungeon changing them around to mess with us, I hope.”

The mage nodded shakily as she watched the ranger go further into the tunnel hopping deftly over the pitfall with only a small wind up run to clear it. It was a good half a Mark before she made her way back to the group, “There are three more pitfalls one more with spikes and two that have some type of liquid at the bottom not sure what it is.”

“Hmm, not sure that I actually want to know. You can get us past those, right?” Leon asked her not because he didn’t believe that she could but he thought that it would make the mage who was still shaking in fear feel a little bit better.

“Yep, no problem.” The ranger replied casually. Having said that she quickly made her way back to the first of the pits and gestured to the mage to come so she could help her over it. She got all of them over the next two traps with no problems.

As they approached the last trap Kammy asked the group for a brief stop as her personal communicator flashed a message at her. Seeing it was a message from her mother she stopped to see what she could possibly want when she had warned her that she would be in the dungeon around this time. She made sure that the group knew what her markings looked like for the edge of the trap once she was finished. It was as the last of the group was making his way over the trap that disaster almost struck as the wizard landed too close to the edge of the pit and began to fall backward.

Leon quickly lunged just barely managing to grab the outstretched hand of the magic-user as he went over the lip of the hole. It took all of his strength and the magic of the mage giving him something to hold onto on the smooth floor before he managed to pull the other man back up and he just lay there for a second staring up at the ceiling trying not to think about the rock he had seen fall into the pit… it had been about the size of both of his fists put together before it hit the substance at the bottom of the put and let’s just say that it no longer had quite the same mass now, or you know any mass at all after it had dissolved. That would have been a terrible way to go and wouldn’t have left enough of either of them to fill a flint box.

After a pause for the five of them to recover from the shock, they all took the time to look around the room. They couldn’t see anything different from the last room that they were in and Leon indicated to Kammy that she could pull before the group pulled back a little into the tunnel to wait for the pull.

The ranger nodded running a little bit into the room before she shot the enemy tank and ran back to the group to hide behind Leon. They had learned soon into the second room that he found it a lot easier to take aggro from her if she hadn’t already hit all of them. It was soon after the fight started that they were shocked as a skeleton that she hadn’t noticed popped up behind the tank two daggers seeming to materialize in the man’s back without any warning.

Jerry quickly had a gout of Flame flying into its back in an attempt to distract it as John summoned a Quick Heal in an attempt to bring the plunging health of the tank back into the green. Seeing that it had little effect he quickly moved onto the chant of the Complete Heal hoping against hope that the tank could hold out through the five-second cast time because it didn’t look like any of his other heals would be able to save the man who looked like he was on his last legs.

Jerry succeeded in drawing the attention of the rogue skeleton watching as it turned to him and started to charge at him with daggers ready. Turning the man ran making sure to cast a few instant cast Fireball’s back at the rogue to keep it interested he quickly made his way to the trap that he had almost fallen in earlier and jumped it making it to the other side easily this time before turning to watch as it rounded the corner still charging.

Seeing the rogue gather itself like it would jump the trap the wizard chanted a longer spell which went off just as the skeleton was over the pit knocking it out of the air and down into the pit itself. He looked down into the hole watching as the thing seemingly disappeared upon touching the bottom. With a sigh of relief, he gave himself a running start and ran back to meet up with the group finding that they had managed to kill off the rest of the group while he had been away. “Everyone good?” he asked as he walked up seeing that the tank was lying in front of the healer that was chanting a long-winded spell as he glowed with the power of his God’s power.