“He still hasn’t woken up, Jeeves.” Breck complained. “It’s already been a week. Do you think I killed him?”

Jeeves shook his golem head. “No, Sir. The subject is still alive. I can sense his aura. Perhaps you should focus on something else while you wait for him to wake?”

Breck sighed. “Fine. I guess your right. I should focus on the adventurers going through my dungeon at the moment and worry about the other guy from Earth later. It’s not like he's going anywhere.” He removed his focus from Zach, who still hadn’t woken up from his encounter with Sting, and turned it to a group of adventurers heading through his dungeon.

Over the course of the past week, several adventuring parties had started entering and exploring his depths. Of those groups, only one ever defeated Sting and proceeded to the second floor. That group didn’t make it past the first room of Boneless Tribe Kobolds. Since then, groups have stuck to the first floor and ignored the second completely. The group inside him now just cleared the first room of spiders and was roaming the halls looking for the next chamber.

“Where the hell is the next room?” A burly man wearing heavy plate armor asked. “I’m sick of walking around aimlessly.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll clear this floor soon and perhaps move to the next?” The group’s rogue looked at this party for affirmation. “We could be the first to clear the second floor. Imagine the reputation we’ll get for clearing it. Everyone will be talking about us.”

The group's mage sighed. “Let’s just focus on clearing out this floor first, Donny. Then we can worry about gaining popularity.”

Donny, the rogue, pointed to the room ahead. “Looks like a treasure room!” He eagerly ran toward the room.

Breck grinned. As Donny passed through the room’s threshold, bars slid down from atop the doorway and trapped him inside. “Finally, someone found the secret room. Time to test my new creations.”

Breck had made several changes to his dungeon over the past week. Mainly in the form of more traps, rooms and hallways. Running through his first floor was too straightforward before, and experienced groups were making it through in no-time at all. Adding to his layout not only made his dungeon more complex and interesting, it also slowed adventuring groups down significantly. That in itself boosted his defenses and lowered the probability that someone would make it all the way to him and crush his core.

As bars trapped him in, Donny spun on his heels to face his group. “Fuck. What do I do?”

The group looked around and the mage gestured at a chest in the small room's center. “Check the chest out. There might be a key in it, but try to check for traps this time.”

“Screw that. I’ll get him out.” The plate wearer stepped forward.

He was wielding a massive glowing warhammer as a weapon. The glowing convinced Breck that it had to be enchanted and he wanted to study it. The man pulled back and swung full force at the thin bars trapping the rogue inside. The weapon slammed into the barrier and the behemoth of a man’s entire body shook from the impact.

That won’t work. Breck thought. I reinforced everything with earth corruption. There’s nothing you can do to smash those bars or the walls. There will be no cheating my puzzles.

“I’m surrounded by idiots. Of course that wouldn’t work. Donny, go check the chest.” The mage gestured toward the lone object again.

Donny hesitantly approached the chest. He made sure to check the ground, walls and even the ceiling for anything out of the ordinary. Being suddenly trapped inside a small room had him on edge. When he reached the lone chest, he examined it. It appeared to be a normal wooden chest. There wasn’t a lock or keyhole, only two small metal hinges holding it closed. As far as chests went, it was boring looking.

“Doubt there's anything good in here.” Muttered Donny before he attempted to pull open the lid.

As his hand contacted the chest, he instantly knew something was off. The chest’s wood surface felt nothing like what wood should feel like. It felt cold and squishy. They didn’t have jello in this world, but if they had, Donny would describe it as jello like. As he pulled his hand back, streams of green goop lingered on his fingers.

“What the hell is this?” Donny flicked his hand and the slimy residue went flying to the ground.

While wiping the rest of the substance on his pant leg, the chest morphed and changed color. Its wooden appearance became green and slightly translucent. After all color faded to green, it bounced and attacked. The rogue was clearly well trained, evident by his quick reaction time to the new threat. In the blink of an eye, he swiped vertically with his short sword. The strike was fast and cut the slime clean in half.

“Ha! You won’t get the jump on me, fool. No trap is good enough to spring on the great Donny!” The rest of this group started laughing so violently that they actually fell to the ground. “What?”

The armored man spoke between laughs. “Says the guy whose trapped in a room.”

Donny deflated instantly. “I… I… Shut up!” He looked at the entrance to the room, shaken because the door was still blocked. “I don’t get it. I killed the monster. The door should open, right? Maybe I missed a lever or something back near the…”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The rogue was cut off when two, roughly equally sized, slimes jumped and attached themselves to his body. One wrapped around his right forearm and the other around his left thigh. He immediately started swatting at them until he noticed something. His leather armor was decaying.

“What the fuck?” Donny grabbed a fistful of the slime and pulled it from his forearm.

He flung roughly half of it flew across the room and watched it crash against the back wall. The remaining piece, and the entire other slime, were still eating away at his armor at an alarming rate. Donny felt a burning sensation on his leg in spots where his leather trousers were completely eaten away. The slime was now eating away at his bare skin.

The group looked on in horror as they witnessed their rogue getting eaten alive. Donny screamed out in pain and frantically smashed the slime attached to him, causing himself damage in the process.

“Behind you!” The mage screamed out and Donny cocked his head.

A much smaller slime, the leftovers from his previous toss, leapt in the air and landed on his chest. Another round of screaming echoed through the room as the mage collected essence in his staff. After a moment that felt like forever to Donny, the mage shot a gust of wind outward from the tip of his weapon. The harsh wind collided with both Donny and slime, the force of it being enough to dislodge the monster from his party member. Unfortunately, the wind also had an effect on Donny.

A few dozen minor cuts appeared across Donny’s body, the wind carrying the dripping blood with it as it traveled through the room. When the spell's effect ended, Donny had collapsed near the center of the room and it covered the back wall in bits of slime and blood. None of the slime pieces were bigger than a coin at this point, and the bars preventing entry into the room retracted back into hidden compartments.

The group rushed to their downed ally and their mouths dropped at what they saw. Donny’s armor on his arm and leg were completely gone. Large openings revealed red and eaten flesh, some spots being eaten down to the bone. The armor across of the rest of his body wasn’t in much better shape. Anywhere the slime touched was torn, broken, rusted, ripped or destroyed.

“Is he alive?” The mage questioned. Casting the spell must have taken a lot of him because he was putting all of his weight on his staff.

The armored man checked for signs of life and smiled when Donny groaned in pain. “He's alive! Help me wrap his wounds and lets get him to the surface. He needs a proper healer.” The man poured a few red vials over the most severe wounds and it seemed to stop the bleeding as wounds slowly knitted themselves closed.

“Wow, that one slime did so much damage. What do you think of its performance, Jeeves?” Breck was beaming.

“They had no idea it was a monster. They really thought it was a chest. And wow! The damage it did. What did you call that monster again, Sir? A slime?”

“It’s an acid slime. I made a venom slime also, but I still need to do some testing with it. Its made of venom but doesn’t have a way of getting the venom into its target. I might need to convert them into acid slimes.”

“Hmm…” Jeeves pondered a solution. “You could pair each venom slime with an acid slime. The acid slime would eat at the flesh of the target and that would allow the venom slime to infect it.”

Breck shook his head. “I thought about that, but that seems like the lazy way out. I rather do some more experimenting and see what I can come up with. I’m sure I can come up with something more interesting than just stacking them together.”

“Of course, Sir. I’m sorry if it sounded like I was doubting you.”

“It’s fine, Jeeves. I didn’t think that.” Breck returned his attention to the party. They finished bandaging their rogue and created a makeshift gurney to carry him on using one of their packs and some spare weapons. I should reward them with something special. I mean, they did help me test out a new creature, and they showed me some cool new magic. I guess giving the rogue something would be appropriate. Hmm… but what do I give him…

Breck pulled up his available patterns. He had several creatures and items in his available index, but nothing that screamed rogue. Remembering the equipment he gave the kobolds, he pulled up the pattern for a kobold sword. Since they were smaller than the average bipedal, their swords made great short swords for humans. Breck hollowed out a spot in the ground of the hallway the adventurers had to pass through. He placed the sword in a chest but hesitated.

Is that enough? I mean, it's a nice sword but it's not anything out of ordinary. What if I…

Breck created an empty space inside the blade and filled it with venom. Using his acid pattern, he etched in one of the few enchantments he knew from watching Kezdet enchant one of Breck’s wasps with a communication rune. He mimicked the runes exactly, but not the ones for communication. Instead, he etched the transfer runes that Kezdet created to transfer his communication through the wasp’s stinger.

If everything worked out properly, the rogue could use his essence to spill venom out of a channel Breck carved in the blade. Of course Breck weakened the venom significantly before adding it. He didn’t want someone out there to have such a potent form of his deadly concoction. The venom he left was still quite deadly though, and hopefully the rogue would be pleased.

After Breck ensured the new pattern was stable, he placed it in the chest and lifted it out of the ground for the party to see. They took one look at the chest and walked as far away from it as they could.

“They’re ignoring my treasure?” Breck wined. “I worked hard on that.”

“Do you really blame them, Sir? The last chest they touched turned out to be an acid slime.”

He has a point. Breck thought. I want him to have this, though. I also want to make sure I got the enchantment right and don’t really want to kill a Kobold testing it. Breck reabsorbed the short sword and then recreated it. This time he choose to place it in the open for the party to see. He went as far as creating a stone table for it to sit upon.

This time when the party passed the potential loot, they paused. They were still cautious of it but, unlike before, they choose to pick it up after examining the table and surroundings for traps.

“Hmm… It appears to be in great shape. And the blade is really sharp.” The armored man was turning the blade around to examine it at different angles.

“There! Look.” The mage pointed to the runes etched into the blade surface. “It appears to be enchanted. Has anyone reported receiving enchanted gear from the dungeon before?” The rest of this group shook their heads. “We could be the first. We’ll have to get it examined to see what it does, but this could be worth hundreds of gold.” Everyone’s eyes light up. “Or it could be worth only a few gold. We won’t know until we get it looked at properly. Let’s focus on getting out of here first before we think about getting rich, shall we?”

Breck pulled his attention away. The group was arguing about money and everything they could buy with a couple hundred gold. Frankly, they were boring him. “Maybe I gave them too nice of a gift? Do you know what the exchange rate of copper, silver and gold is, Jeeves?”

“I have no idea, Sir.”

Breck shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now. Time to experiment with my slimes.”