When Fia next woke up, it was a decidedly calmer experience than the last two times. Sunlight filtered in through the cave mouth from the outside, and morning dew clung to the webs cross-crossing throughout the cave, like raindrops suspended in time. Best of all, no spiders were trying to force their way into her eyelid. She felt a tiny bit bad for the common spider. It was her first summon after all and it was following her orders, but its methods were questionable. Though she did wonder if it had tried waking her in other ways first and she just didn’t stir. I mean, the bear was already well into the cave and it had killed all four of her web weavers beforehand. She yawned and sat up, which meant the opposite for her than for a human. Where a human would rise forwards from laying on their back into a sitting position, she would rise backwards from laying on her stomach into a sitting position, her cephalothorax and abdomen laying on the cool, smooth stone floor, and her legs curled up around her. She felt a smooth, mildly wet and slimy limb on her human back and turned around to see the [Skith] standing on her spider half, still on guard, while its long slimy tail slowly slid down her back. It probably stood there all night. Good.
[Skith]
Level 30 Amphibious Monster
A stride-long crustacean that can survive both in and out of water, the Skith prefers to hide deep within the sand of the tides, thanks to its ability to burrow into sand, soil, and other soft substances. It uses its powerful tail to propel itself through the waters to pounce on prey with its dangerous claws and bite. When not hiding in tidepools, it scuttles along the coastline, preying on seals and fishermen alike in vicious packs. Though it is a common story to hear children being eaten by these for those who live along the coastline, people also hunt the skith and eat them, for the soft meat of their tail is often viewed as a delicacy.
She nodded to herself, content with the choice. A level 30 monster was not incredibly powerful, as it could still be killed by un-Awakened humans. The bear itself, though un-Awakened, was probably around the same strength as the skith. She wondered why she had summoned it at this level and not level 1, though. Now that she thought of it, monsters in dungeons were usually around average level for their species outside of dungeons. Maybe all dungeons summon monsters at their species’ average level. Did that mean almost every [Common Spider] and [Web Weaver] in the world was un-Awakened? Was it more common for [Skith] to be awakened? How did skith find so many Awakening Stones?
For some reason, this left her with more questions than answers. She was no scholar, she didn’t know everything about the world. She had common information, as she had just been a [Commoner] before becoming a [Bandit]. Though, of course, [Commoner] wasn’t an Awakened class she had, just what she would have identified as to an Awakened. There were un-Awakened [Bandits], too, after all…
Forcefully shoving the tangential thoughts aside, Fia stood up and stretched her arms above her head with another yawn. Her now-more-substantial mana pool had fully been restored during her sleep, and she decided to use 300 mana points right now to summon six [Web Weavers] back to back. She didn’t particularly have a need for another common spider, it was pretty useless. The weavers were needed to repair the curtain door to the cave, so she set them with that task as their first order. She ordered the skith to keep watch of the core in case of any more intruders.
With that done, she went about testing her new [Web Spinning] skill. She found that she could secrete individual threads, each as thin as a hair, and she could use her spinaretes to manipulate it as it came out. Her back four spider legs also had the range of motion to reach the threads, though with less mobility. It was like trying to tie a knot with your fingers or your feet, except you weren’t allowed to use any toes other than your big toes. It was also kind of embarrassing doing it. She also found that she could not make the threads come out with any kind of speed or force, so it would not be useful as an attack. Lastly, she identified a tiny bundle of it that she basically just rolled into a yarn ball, and was intrigued with the results.
[Arachne Silk]
Quality: Common, F (E)
Spidersilk spun by an Arachne, though of lower quality than usual. Arachne silk is a coveted material in most cities for use in making clothes for adventurers and nobles alike, due to its superior strength and protection combined with its soft, silky, velvety texture, giving it comfort to boot. This particular sample is less protective than normal, though none of the comfort related attributes are missing.
She had a sneaking suspicion that when she ranked up, so too would the threads she could spin. That would require reaching level 25, as the first rank up and class evolution happens at that level, something she never thought would happen to her in her lifetime. Now it looked like a distinct possibility. Assuming she had a decent experience source. If she had to wait for bears to wander into her cave every once in a while, it would take a long time indeed, and she would only survive til the rank up. After that, her invincibility was gone.
After a couple more hours of playing around with her new silk-spinning abilities and attempting to familiarize her with the foreign concept of knitting without looking, she had another stray thought enter her head. She hadn’t eaten at all today, nor had she eaten yesterday at all either. Was she able to live off of mana, too, just as her monsters were sustained by it? Could she even eat anymore? Questions for the lich, perhaps. Speaking of the lich, she was expecting him to show up again today, though she wasn’t quite sure when it would be. At least she didn’t plan on going anywhere.
Eventually, after checking up on her web weavers, she noticed the dead bodies of the four other web weavers laying around near the entrance. She had… Actually, she had expected them to disappear. Looking around the cave, the bear’s body had disappeared. Was it because it was absorbed by the core and unlocked as a new spawnable monster? From what she heard of, most monsters disappear after a while in dungeons. Sure, they stayed around for a couple of hours, and anything looted off of them stayed permanently as long as it was in storage or out of the dungeon, but unattended corpses always disappeared. Was it some kind of perk or skill she’d gain later on, then? Was she different? She didn’t know.
Fia herself had never been inside a dungeon before. She had heard of dungeons, tidbits here and there, throughout her life. The same way one could hear about another country now and then and get an incomplete picture of it through fragments of information, without having ever visited. She didn’t know all their secrets, and she didn’t even know all of the common-sense information for adventurers used to delving into them. She very much didn’t know about their inner workings.
Fia ordered one of the six web weavers to carry the four dead ones to another room of the cave. Maybe she’d have some use for their corpses later on. Or maybe she’d have to bury them outside eventually. Realizing another test was overdue, she also ordered a second weaver to go outside of the cave as far as it could.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Notice! One of your monsters has left the dungeon territory! [Web Weaver] is no longer being sustained off of dungeon core mana and will slowly begin losing cohesion.
Losing cohesion? She thought with a raised eyebrow. She yelled after it and ordered it to come back and continue helping with the curtain door, and it complied, having only gotten a few strides away. The curtain door was coming along nicely. The six web weavers working in tandem had allowed them to finish one half of it in just a couple of hours, with the other half having just started. The original curtains that the four dead ones made were ripped to shreds by the bear’s claws, and she opted to have it dragged away to some corner for web recycling or something. She had a feeling the spiders could eat their own webs to replenish silk, though they seemed to have a steady supply of the stuff due to being supplied on mana and not bugs. They still had enough material that strips could be cut off of them or something if needed.
Notice! Attempt to create room [Spider Graveyard] failed. Room does not meet minimum room requirements.
She was startled by the voice speaking in her head and looked down at the menu before dismissing it. Spider graveyard? The area where she had the corpses taken to had attempted to automatically turn into a new room? Interesting. She never officially named the room or floor “The Cave,” but that’s what it showed up as in her Dungeon Status. She wasn’t sure if that was a 1-time-thing for the first room, if she would have to manually create rooms, if the dungeon would, or if it just went by what she mentally thought of a room as. As for the failed new room, what were the minimum requirements for the room? She suspected it needed to be more closed off at the very least, as currently it couldn’t really be called its own room. It was closed off by three and a half sides but the opening into that area was larger than the mouth of the cave. Maybe a graveyard room would also need dirt and tombstones or something, though she highly doubted that would be the case for a spider graveyard.
Warning! An intruder has entered your dungeon territory!
Fia looked towards the cave entrance, startled, and noticed Lord Fellwood, the lich from yesterday, standing near the entrance. A black square slice of reality opening into a featureless, pure, empty void closed next to him.
“Lady Fia.” Greeted the lich, giving the slightest hint of a nod. “I come bearing gifts.”
“Lady?” Fia asked in surprise. “Sorry, Lord Fellwood. I am no [Noble].” She said, before bowing her human half towards him.
“What are Dungeon Masters if not nobles of their land, kings of their castles? Yours is barely established, yet already you own more of a claim to your land in the System’s eyes than most [Counts].”
She shook her head, a hint of amusement touching her lips. “Yesterday you called me a child.”
“You are, to me, and to other arachne. And yesterday you were scared and confused. Today I see vigilance, acceptance, and drive behind your eyes.”
Fia nodded at this. A lot had happened in a single day, but she had found that she had entirely accepted the situation.
“Now, straight to business.” The lich stated, before giving her a chance to respond. “I told you yesterday I would come bearing gifts, and then you personally asked for some extra items and offered extra debt for those items. First, the requested items.”
Fia nodded as the lich opened another pure-black square window out of reality. Though it seemed infinitely thin, he reached in and his hand did not come out the other side. Instead, he pulled it back out and placed a pickaxe on the floor. Followed by a hammer, and then an axe. All three seemed like ordinary, though fine quality items. They were not made of bone with human flesh leather handles like she had expected them to be.
[Sturdy Steel Pickaxe]
Quality: Common, E
A pickaxe with a head made out of quality steel. The wooden handle has a steel tang running through the center.
The hammer and axe both identified nearly identically, with literally only the word ‘pickaxe’ being swapped out. The axe didn’t look like a weapon, more like a wood-chopping tool, which was exactly what she was hoping for. The hammer, unlike the axe and pickaxe, was a one-handed tool and the head of it was basically just a cylinder of steel. All three were perfect, and she let the lich know as such.
The next item the lich pulled out caused Fia’s shock-widened eyes to immediately lock onto it.
“No. I cannot accept this.” She said, holding her hands out in front of her, palms forward, as if to push away.
The item the lich held in his skeletal grasp was a crystal, about the size of her dungeon core, which is to say about the size of her closed fist. Unlike the lime-green of her dungeon core, however, this crystal was shimmering slowly through the entire rainbow of colors like translucent stained glass that could change colors. Inside the center of this giant gemstone was a rainbow-colored flame, containing every color in the entire spectrum in different little fiery patches, each patch also shifting colors at random. If that were all, she’d think it was a chunk of mystarite. However, this crystal also had cracks snaking throughout it, filled with metal. Gold. She’d seen an identical crystal to this before, except with copper-filled cracks. Her first Awakening Stone. This was a gold-tier, or an A-rank Awakening Stone. This single crystal alone is worth more than some entire duchies.
“I cannot accept this.” She stated again, aghast that the lich had even pulled it out. Gold-rankers were high level nobles, royalty, champions, and extremely lucky adventurers. She was a nobody.
“You don’t even understand how powerful you will one day be, do you?” The lich asked, rhetorically. “The highest level dungeon master recorded was level 457. And there are plenty of ancient dungeons whose final boss has never been encountered. As far as anyone is aware, the Dungeon Master class, which is exclusively given by Dungeon Cores, is an SSS+ rank class. That’s a level cap of 499. It’s entirely possible it’s even higher, though.” The lich shook its skull, and held the hand out further. “I am ancient and powerful, undoubtedly, but even I have a level cap. You will one day reach and surpass me, if nurtured and not nipped at the bud. You will be a very powerful ally and a very important debtor. This is an investment, and it is not my last.”
Fia just stood there silently, mouth slightly agape, her sharp teeth visible to the lich. A level cap of 499, potentially higher? The E-rank copper Awakening Stone she had used to become an Awakened [Bandit] in her previous life had given her a level cap of 49. This A-rank gold Awakening Stone would give her a level cap of 199 in whatever class it unlocked. Combined, she could reach level 698, at minimum. Assuming the lich was right, but she had a hard time not believing an entity that had lived for potentially several millennia.
It was too much. Things were moving too fast. And even more importantly, she was scared of whatever potential class it would give her.
“What if it gives me another [Bandit] class?”
“They say that Awakening Stones give you a class best suited to your soul. Whatever class you get will be a class that best defines you and fits you.” The lich shook his head. “It’s commonly accepted, but it is not an undeniable truth. There are probably millions of people in this world as unhappy with their class as you were, forced on to paths they feel they must take just because of a class name. But you know yourself that many [Bandits] become adventurers, no? Why would they receive the bandit class if they would not choose a life of banditry, even with a class tailored to it?”
Fia brewed in thought at this. It made sense, sure. The System never actually tells you that the class you get is best suited to you or based off of your soul. It’s just commonly accepted. It was still hard to genuinely believe. Like being told the world was actually round when you could clearly see it was flat. That revelation had shocked her a few years ago, and she was still skeptical of it.
After a few more moments of thought, she sighed and slumped her shoulders.
“Fine. What’s the worst that could happen?”