Back in the main room near the entrance, in the green glow of the fist-sized core, Fia took inventory of everything she had found. A wooden bucket, three backpacks, an iron chain, seven torches, two bundles of rope, five sacks, a bear trap, three coin purses each jingling with coins, a few weapons, a shield, and assorted clothes. The three backpacks, three coin purses, and two of the sacks all contained items inside them, though she’d worry about going through those later. Right now, her biggest interest was the torches. The sun outside was rapidly going below the horizon, which meant less and less sunlight entering the mouth of the cave. This was worsened by the trees outside in the forest. The core gave off a cursory glow, but it was only enough to see about ten feet away, or fifteen with her low-light vision eyes. Three strides. And she couldn’t move it. Most of the cave, other than the entrance room, was already pitch black, and she didn’t want to be stuck in the dark. Torches were a priority.
Examining the torches, they were pretty standard. They were thick, club-like carved wood, or straight, round carved cylinders of wood, depending on who made them. Both types had a chunk of coal fixed on top, wrapped in fabric drenched with some kind of resin. The coal, fabric, and resin were all alchemically treated to burn much slower and last much longer than they would be without an [Alchemist]’s intervention. A non-alchemical torch would burn for an hour or less. These would burn for a day. Of course, there existed much better torches, including semi-permanent torches with or without flame, but the types of people the Arachne could ambush and kill were not the types of people who could afford those, she reckoned.
The real issue would be lighting the torches. She could probably take one of the daggers in her little loot pile and strike the stone of the cave to create sparks, though there were a couple of issues with that. First, there is no guaranteeing a single or couple of sparks would light a torch, assuming she even gets the sparks to land on it. Secondly, the cave floor and walls are covered in webs. Light film in some places, thicker mats in others, and thin invisible strands criss-crossing through the air all throughout. A single spark probably would light some webs and burn all of the webs in the cave. Not particularly dangerous to her at the moment, but it would kill her [Common Spider] and [Web Weaver], and destroy her chest-wrap-in-the-making. There were no loose stones that she could see inside the cave, either, with the walls and floor being very, very smooth.
Perhaps she could go outside of the cave, gather some leaves and twigs as kindling, and smash some rocks together like a goblin… Not the most appealing thought, plus she isn’t sure what will happen to her spiders. The lich said they would “deactivate.” Does that mean that they will die? Fall into a sleep-like state? If they survive, will they retain their orders? Testing would be required, and now was as good a time as any. Actually, sooner than later would probably be ideal, as testing it later when she has more minions could be a major setback if worst comes to worst.
Shrugging to herself, she picked up a torch and a dagger, and calmly walked outside of the cave.
Notice! You have left your dungeon’s territory. All monsters and traps have been deactivated.
Notice! Your Dungeon Core is unguarded!
Notice! If killed outside of dungeon territory, your death will be permanent!
Immediately, she was beset by a feeling of wrongness. She felt fully exposed, and not just because she was naked. She felt like she was spreading her unmentionables at knife-point. It was a profoundly unsettling experience. She had forgotten that dying in her dungeon lets her body be “reformed” somehow, so she hadn’t taken into account that she was more exposed outside than she had realized. But the feeling and the notifications made it clear: She was meant to be inside her dungeon. Fortunately, the [Gestation Period] buff seems to still work out here, otherwise she might have ran back inside then and there.
After a moment to steel herself, she took in a deep breath, looking behind herself, she could see Mount Causafell, of which she was at the base of. She had a feeling, but hadn’t been able to confirm it until now. Her cave must be an ancient lava tube or something similar, because Mount Causafell is a volcano. One that already has a dungeon, up top inside its crater. It seems that she has another nearby neighbor to meet at some point. She briefly wonders if there would be some issues from the two of them being so close, but there’s no way even the biggest of dungeons would reach her from the top. She was a couple leagues away, after all.
Climbing up the mountain were mostly pine trees, though down here at the base there was a mix of pine and oak. Both were good firewood, and the dried pine needles and oak leaves would both make good fire-starting material. Setting the torch down, she quickly got to work cutting down smaller saplings, cutting branches off trees, and collecting dried twigs and leaves. She gathered rocks, though she was no dwarf, so she didn’t know what kinds they were, other than varying shades of light and dark gray. She created a small fire pit right next to the mouth of the cave, with a ring of stones and sticks and leaves on the inside. She wasn’t a [Survivalist] or [Ranger] either, so she didn’t know the proper shape to make it, but it would have to do. She did, however, keep it near the mouth of the cave so as to avoid causing a forest fire. There were lots of webs on the trees immediately surrounding the cave, but there was thankfully a barren stone patch of ground between the open mouth of the cave and the soil the plants were on.
Banging rocks together didn’t seem to be working. Either there was a technique she didn’t know about, or they were the wrong kind of rocks, but they were not producing sparks. Luckily, she seemed immune to self-inflicted damage due to the buff, so she didn’t scrape her hands up like she thought she would. Using the dagger to strike the stones as hard as she could succeeded, though it took many, many hits, and by then the dagger’s edge was pitted and jagged, the blade quite ruined.
The fire slowly grew into a small quaint campfire, and she dipped the torch into it, immediately lighting it, before walking back into the cave. There were a few smooth-ish stone pillars running from the floor to the ceiling of the cave, and she chose the closest one to affix the torch to, using some of the free-ly provided webbing courtesy of the cave’s previous occupants. She made sure the torch was at a decent angle so as to avoid the flame catching the webbing on fire, though she’d have to come up with a better solution in a few hours before the end of the torch burnt out and the shaft caught fire. The torch was supposed to last a full day, roughly 24 hours, though she would make sure to have a solution well before then.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
About an hour later, her two eight-legged minions came to her, dropping down from the cave ceiling each landing on a different part of her body. She took that to mean they had completed their first task, and she walked to the web where they had worked on her first piece of clothing. It was a very simple strap made of webbing, more of a belt really, but it was a few strides long, long enough to wrap around her chest several times. It identified as a [Mixed Spidersilk Wrap], using [Identify].
[Mixed Spidersilk Wrap]
Quality: Common, F
A long strap made of mixed spidersilk of two different species, made for wrapping around something.
Fair enough, pretty much exactly what she had expected, though it was much longer than before. When the [Common Spider] had made it, it was only long enough to wrap around her chest once. This time, it would cover a lot more, granting her slightly more modesty. It was, however, ten times thicker, about as thick as a normal piece of parchment, exactly as ordered. She wondered if they could divine some of her intent from her orders that she hadn’t spoken aloud, or if perhaps the [Web Weaver] was a bit smarter than the common spider? Regardless, it would do for now, so she wrapped it around her chest and found that it stuck to itself perfectly, requiring no loops, buckles, or tying-off.
Next, she checked her vitals, and found her mana fully replenished again. She hadn’t taken the time to see how fast it was replenishing yet, but it was at least a decent rate even without any perks modifying it, likely due to her being inside a decently sized leyline. Happy, she summoned a second [Web Weaver], and ordered the three of them to begin working on a new piece of clothing, basically a glorified loincloth. She still had another part of her body to cover, but trousers were not an option due to her new anatomy. She ordered this one to be about as wide as her waist, and four times as long, and the same thickness as the chest wrap. That should keep the three of them busy for a few hours.
By the time the sun had well and truly set, the torchlight and the glow of the core were the only lights in Fia’s world. She had summoned two more web weavers, bringing her total spider count up to five. They had also finished her loincloth.
[Weaversilk Breechcloth]
Quality: Common, F
A breechcloth made of mostly Web Weaver spidersilk, made for wearing between the legs.
Running her claws along the silken fabric, she found that it felt quite a bit stronger than she would have expected from something as fragile as spider webs. She could probably still tear it with her hands, and obviously any weapon would go right through it, but it was at least comparable to other types of silk fabric. At the very least, it was stronger than paper.
The next order of business would probably be getting a door of some kind covering the cave entrance, though she was quite limited by materials at the moment. Though, now that all five of her spiders were idle, she ordered the four web weavers to begin making a drape entrance, basically just two large sheets covering the entrance. It would keep some light from exiting the cave mouth, especially at night. Though now that she thought about it, most dungeons she had heard of had magical entrances of some kind. A thick wall of fog, a sheet of pure blackness like the lich’s portal, or straight up illusory walls. She had heard that passing this threshold would put you in a separate entrance from other dungeon-goers, unless you were part of a Fellowship or Raid Party. She idly wondered when she’d gain such an ability. Probably not until she was much higher level.
Which brought another question to her mind… How was she supposed to level up? Sure, killing things is the classic way, but crafter classes gained experience by engaging in their crafts. Would she have alternate experience sources? Or would she have to rely on adventurers finding the dungeon and killing them before they destroyed her core? That would require her to balance on a tricky line, especially at early levels. Though, she supposed, everything is quite vulnerable at early levels. As a level 7 [Bandit], which is what she was before this happened to her, she was basically still on par with un-Awakened individuals. You don’t even escape F tier, or Tin tier depending on the guild, until after level 25. There was also that experience backlog notification, indicating she’d probably jump back up to level 7 the second she gains any experience. Maybe she should go out and kill a goblin or something.
Idly thinking about levels, she decided to [Identify] her spider companions.
[Common Spider]
Un-Awakened Monster
A common spider found throughout most places in the world. Its venom is non-threatening to most things other than insects and their bite is unlikely to break the skin of an un-Awakened human. Commonly found in barns, houses, trees, grass, and other nooks and crannies, they build small funnel webs or sheet webs to catch flying insects. This particular specimen is a monster through unknown means, though they usually are not.
[Web Weaver]
Un-Awakened Monster
A hand-sized spider related to the much more common [Orb Weaver]. Its venom is non-threatening to most things other than insects. Commonly found in gardens, fields, and especially forests, they build large spiral wheel-shaped webs that are stronger than a normal spider’s web and will eat most insects. A web weaver’s weaversilk is a decent quality material and sells well in large quantities. This particular specimen is a monster through unknown means, though they usually are not.
Interesting. She had not expected that, though perhaps she should have. It seems that these two spiders are normal, regular, spiders and only classify as monsters through being summoned by her Skill [Spawn Monster]. She was quite interested in seeing their stats, though they’d be even lower than hers. Unfortunately, [Identify] only gives bare information, and usually information the user would or should already know. More important information was relegated to higher skills. She also suspected [Identify] was synergizing with her dungeon class somehow, because these descriptions were more than usually gained from identifying something like, say, a rock, sword, or tree. It was fortunate they didn’t need to eat and were being sustained by mana, because otherwise she would need to secure a supply of bugs the more of these she got.
Eventually, Fia grew bored. It was dark out and though she still had a lot to do, she knew tomorrow would be a busy day. She wasn’t particularly tired, but decided to try to take a nap anyways. She let the four web weavers continue working on the curtain entrance, but she ordered the common spider to wake her up if anything tried entering the cave, before laying down on the smooth stone floor. She debated putting out the torch, as she had a limited supply of them, but perhaps being blind would not be a wise choice if the common spider did wake her up for an emergency.
After about ten minutes of more idle thoughts, Fia drifted into a light, uncomfortable sleep.