Dominik considered what would happen if someone was too strong for the troglodytes, and if he failed to kill them, or to at least drive them away with his second avatar, he wondered if the earth elementals would be enough to stop them. Ideally, he would’ve filled these floors, and all the floors before them, but things hadn’t gone that way. Filling the dungeon was going to be much more time consuming than he’d thought. And he spent a lot of mana creating the earth elementals, along with everything else.
He might’ve been able to make a few simple earth elementals, but they wouldn’t have been that difficult to defeat for any group that was able to beat his second avatar, and they wouldn’t buy the casters much time.
So he decided to move his second avatar to the seventh floor with the earth elementals. They were the last line of defense. He opened up a path from the third floor to the seventh, allowing them to get through the maze easily. He wouldn’t want them getting tired of going through the maze, going up to the surface, and telling everyone that the rest of the floors were empty.
Soon, after a few weaker parties tried and failed to get past the troglodytes, a party he’d had his eye on approached. The warrior’s armor was mostly plate, and he was protected by a long barrier spell from the priest near the dungeon, as well as some sort of fire spell surrounding him, cast by their party’s wizard.
They all had barriers, before he could even command the spiders to retreat, the wizard cast a fire spell, like a dragon’s breath, it poured into the cave and killed dozens of spiders even as they retreated. Most of the spiders were likely too ruined to even turn into the guild for a reward, though only the poorest parties tended to try collecting the bodies of the spiders.
One spider managed to live, even when caught in the middle of the spell. Or rather, her soul held on to her body, which had barely even remained. The little soul clung to it, and he felt her there, still trying to live, yearning to kill them herself. Dominik healed her body through the flame, and fully restored her after the spell ended. Then, after her body was fully healed, he used his power to help her soul back into its mortal shell. The connection felt more tenuous to him, as her soul was still reconnecting itself to its body, but she was truly alive again.
He cast spells to increase its ability and had it quickly retreat to the small entrance to the inner part of the first floor, then he sealed it shut and hardened the stone.
This wasn’t necromancy, commanding a soulless husk. He had just performed a true resurrection. Though he wasn’t sure how long he would’ve had to revive the spider before its soul left its body, he had still done it. Something thought to be impossible by the academics writing their books and theorems on the subject. It was possible, at least as a dungeon lord, with something he’d made a contract with, it was possible to fully revive something, or someone.
Though it was only with certain souls able to hold on clearly, at least so far. He wasn’t sure if it was possible to do this with the others yet. For now, this spider would be one of his most important residents, and he marked it to keep track of it, and to protect it at all costs until its soul had fully settled in its body again.
For now, he commanded the troglodytes to retreat as the next party made its way to the second floor. He returned to his second avatar on the seventh floor and watched them. Dominik opened a path almost straight through the third floor, not bothering to test his traps on these adventurers. After they reached the third floor, the forest elf, some kind of rogue, began to get nervous. The human warrior and wizard, as well as the man in the strange garb, seemed unbothered, or rather emboldened by their easy descent. Dominik could’ve sworn he recognized the garb the fourth man wore, but he couldn’t quite recall what it was.
On the fourth floor, on through the fifth and sixth, the forest elf began protesting, softly at first, but more strongly by the fifth and sixth floor.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
“Doesn’t this seem strange? No monsters, no maze? It’s almost like the dungeon wants us to go further.” He said, as his teammates laughed and shrugged it off.
“I think we should turn back. The previous reports said something seemed strange on the seventh floor, so they never went in. He thought it wanted him to go there. We should go back.”
But his teammates refused, saying he was paranoid, saying they might be able to clear the dungeon if it was empty. Soon they reached the seventh floor, the floor filled with dirt and stones, gravel and sand.
They came upon a large monster, ten feet tall, standing in the center of the floor, with two small creatures standing behind him. The mage cast a fireball at the monster, but a large earthen wall rose to protect him. The creatures in the back had surrounded themselves in earthen spheres as well. They protected themselves in layers of earth and hardened it.
The warrior charged to one side, and the rogue, as well as the man in the strange garb, charged to the other side. As soon as the warrior passed the other side of the wall, a huge hammer covered in stone smashed into his chest, breaking through the barrier, and his platemail. The warrior went flying back as his chest caved in. Fire had shot out of his chest in retaliation, but did little to his avatar’s flesh.
The two others stepped onto sunken earth, and were surrounded by earthen spikes, going straight toward them. The man in the strange garb channeled mana, stopping and taking the hit head on, and the spikes failed to break through his skin. Dominik recognized the technique, he was an eastern monk. They focused on physical cultivation and enhancement through magic. Something more effective than simply casting a buff, though the masters tended to be capable of that too. They were focused on perfecting their own bodies and spirits rather than supporting allies, or focusing on elemental magic.
The rogue performed such dexterous feats, he avoided all of the spikes, even when he could barely move his legs out of the earth. At that point Dominik brought his hammer down on the monk’s skull, but somehow the monk remained standing. As the earth elementals released the rogue, they focused on crushing the monk, surrounding him with earth, squeezing it tighter, crushing and grinding it against his body, leaving only his shoulders and head exposed as Dominik kept smashing his hammer down.
Soon another stream of fire came from the wizard, enveloping Dominik. The flames did little damage to his flesh, but before he could bring his hammer down again, the warrior charged in and grabbed his arm, wrestling him away even in his ruined armor. There was no way a healing potion could have healed him that fast, but he fought through the pain and the damage.
The monk’s power finally failed, and there was a sickening crunch as his bones began to break. The earth came in and crushed his body, and his screams rang out through the empty room.
Dominik grabbed the warrior by the neck, crushing it through the chainmail coif. He ripped the man off of his other arm and continued crushing his neck. The warrior pulled out a large knife, and began tearing at Dominik’s arm. He was strong enough to pierce through Dominik’s barrier and his flesh, and the warrior’s fire armor burned him with the close proximity, but before his grip could loosen, the warrior’s neck snapped.
At that moment the rogue was on his back, stabbing into his neck with large daggers of his own. They bore some sort of enchantment, and Dominik could feel poison coursing through his avatar’s veins. The poison had little effect, though he could tell it was strong, it wasn’t intended for such a thing as what Dominik had created. But the rogue kept stabbing and cutting at Dominik’s neck, as the wizard pelted him with a barrage of small fireballs from the front.
The wizard had started doing some major damage with this spell, combining the earth and fire elements, tearing into Dominik’s torso and burning his flesh. But the wizard had overstepped his bounds, and soon he was impaled by several spikes of earth jutting out from the ground.
The wizard’s torrent of fire and earth had ended, and Dominik reached for the rogue with his good arm, but the man leapt off and rushed toward the entrance of the seventh floor.
Dominik healed his neck and his injured arm, but he knew neither his avatar or the earth elementals’ magic would be able to catch him. He’d hoped this would be enough to warn others about the dangers of this dungeon.
He considered using the traps, but he decided there was no reason. He’d rather have the rogue warn others of the dangers and let stories build up, rather than just wondering what happened, and wondering how deep they got.
For now though, he’d let his troglodytes rest, they could take a nap while the rogue informed the guild about the new record, and the traps could take care of any weaker enemies. Probably.