Chapter 7

As soon as the necromancer returned to his hideout, he began preparing for something. Pan had no idea what it was, but it was obviously some dark ritual, although not as complex as the one that had created him. The man was again drawing glyphs on the ground, and brewing something. He had also placed spell components in various locations on the glyph, as well as on the stone altar he had used before with Pan.

Now that he could study the glyph, Pan could gain some insight into how it worked. It was made up of a few dozen smaller runes, and connected in a very specific pattern. During his time as an apprentice in training, he had studied some of the runic script, but the brevity of his research could not be understated. However, as a dungeon, he was now able to gain some true insight into the formation of the runes, although it was quite limited since he was seeing through his spies. He felt that if the area was included in his dungeon he would easily be able to understand it.

Even with his limited understanding, he could see that the runes were all geared towards raising a powerful undead. At the outside were five mana gathering runes, and rather inefficient ones at that, which was probably the reason for the spell components. They were linked by straight lines, in a large pentagram. Inside there were runes to control the mana and pull it into a focal point. In the very center was a rune to inject all of the mana in one burst, and Pan assumed the necromancer was going to take care of the soul binding.

The glyph seemed to only be for gathering and concentrating large amounts of mana to animate the body. He knew necromancy took large amounts of mana, and this man had found a way to alleviate the personal drain. The alchemical concoction was not necessary, but it would make the mana more attuned to darkness, which would greatly improve the efficiency of the spell.

Pan felt a sort of grudging respect form for the necromancer. He may be evil, but he was a truly talented mage. It was a shame his affinity had been towards darkness, and he had fallen prey to the seductive and easy power of the dark arts. He hoped whatever undead the man created would not be too strong, else he'd have to replan his revolt.

After hours of preparations, the man seemed close to completing the setup. The lines of the glyph were filled with a perfectly crystallized concoction poured from the cauldron, and a few gems were set in the runes. Gems couldn’t hold mana, but they could hold spells and enchantments, and were excellent conductors for mana. The final preparations were complete, and with a flick of his wrist, the necromancer started ordering minions around.

Pan was shocked to see them drag Gerald’s body into the room. Now he knew why the preparations were so meticulous. When the body was raised, he wanted it to retain as much of its original level as possible. There would certainly be a loss of at least half, and probably more based on the necromancer’s skill, but a level twenty undead would be a powerful enemy.

Pan could only watch with fear as the necromancer began the ritual. Again the man was reading from his grimoire, in that ancient guttural tongue, but now Pan could make out the words. The spell pulled vast amounts of mana into a point, and impressed the castors will onto it, creating a consciousness. A very basic one. It would understand orders, and fight, but not much more. This synthetic soul would be forced into the body, which would be animated by a vast amount of mana. The pseudo-soul could control the body with mana, much like a marionette, but controlled from the inside. This would cause the loss in levels, but as the soul grew stronger, so would its control of the body.

The man was burning through mana at an incredible rate, but he did not waver. He was draining stones and burning through spell components. Once Pan even saw him swallow a mana potion without breaking his chant. The necromancer was going through more mana in one ritual than Pan could hope to store. The residual mana was even pouring over into the dungeon.

As the ritual drew to a close, a massive amount of mana was injected into the body. The mana forced the created soul to connect to the body, and after a few seconds, the body groaned and stood up. As it did the excess flesh and organs sloughed off revealing a black skeleton underneath. The flies told him he was looking at a Dread Skeleton Captain. A level nineteen Dread Skeleton Captain.

The man smiled tiredly and gave it a few orders. Obey and protect me was the gist of it. Pan knew a Dread Skeleton was dangerous. Their bones were reinforced more than a regular skeleton, hence the shiny blackened appearance. They were stronger and more agile due to an enhanced controller, and slightly smarter as well. They could also command other skeletons effectively, and the tactics they used improved their combat effectiveness.

Pan was worried by the new development, but the regular skeletons were just fodder to his minions. They could probably make a rush for the captain when the battle started and disable him enough to make cleaning up of the survivors a simple task. When the fighting started, the Dread Skelton would be the focal point of the enemy's resistance. As long as his plan to remove the wizard worked that is.

The mage finished delivering his commands, put the Captain in command under him, and thankfully headed off to his room. Pan was relieved to see him fall asleep almost immediately, but he wanted to wait until the man had fallen much deeper into unconsciousness before initiating his plan. With the man unaware, he ordered his assassins to begin their advance. Almost an hour after he started his rest, the spiders were in position.

The man's eyes were moving rapidly as he experienced his dreams, and the spider applied its anesthetic to the skin right over his jugular. The other was waiting in position on the ceiling above the man in case something went wrong. The man did not notice the clear drops of liquid that were spread on his skin, and when the volatile fluid evaporated, the spider struck.

It sunk its fangs into the vein, and began pumping its venom into the man. In three seconds, it was done, and with its task completed, it climbed back up the thread to the ceiling before scurrying back to its hiding space along with its comrade.

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Meric jumped from his bed screaming for his minions to attend to him. There was an enemy in the catacombs, and he needed to destroy it. He had no idea how, but he could feel that something was amiss. When the guards outside his door rushed in he commanded them to alert the captain of the enemy and to attack at once. He cast his buffs on the minions, but he did not feel the familiar tingling rush of mana. No matter, he was sure it worked. It always had before.

As he left his room, he couldn’t remember if he should go right or left, but the swarm of skeletons was going out towards the entrance to the catacombs. At least he thought it was the entrance. He wasn’t sure, but any incoming enemy would certainly attack from the entrance.

Just as he was running down the hall towards it, caught up in the flowing river of skeletons, he felt a familiar pressure build in the hall. He couldn’t place it but he felt an instinctive fear, and a distant part of his mind was overcome by terror. Panic grew within him, as any ability to think fled with his mind, as he ran back to his room with some skeletons and locked the door. 

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Once Pan saw the effects of the venom on the necromancer, and was sure stage one had succeeded, he sprung into action and ordered phase two to commence. He immediately pushed his mana into the catacombs as he opened the doors to his hordes of minions. His horde of seven centipedes and hundreds of ants, led by the original centipede himself, charged through the opening. Even his ant queen was joining, but she was escorted by the ten strongest ant warriors, and they were crawling across the ceiling to accomplish their own very important mission.

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Pan expanded his domain throughout the temple ruins, right up to the entrance. He needed to be able to sense everything, and he also wanted the mana he would get from the deaths of his enemies. Despite the mage having no clue as to what was going on, the skeletal Captain turned immediately when he sensed Pan’s influence wash over him. He ordered the army to turn, form up, and advance back into the heart of the temple.

When the armies met, it was a brutal fight. For the skeletons. They could not damage the vanguard of stone centipedes, and only slowed them down with the pressing weight of nearly a hundred bony bodies. As more and more skeletons poured into the crush, the centipedes were having trouble holding their ground. They weren’t being damaged, but their ability to deal damage wasn’t enough to maintain their forward momentum.

Both sides knew the battle would drag on without a clear superior unless something changed, but it was the captain who acted first, since Pan only needed to keep the skeletons out of his chamber and away from his heart. 

The front line of skeletons placed the tips of their weapons against the ground wedging them under the centipedes as they attacked. They used the weapons as a lever to pull the front of the centipedes up off the ground, opening them up to attacks on their softer bellies.

Their attacks weren't much more effective, since Pan had made sure to armor them well, but a few piercing attacks got through joints in the carapace. The strikes were damaging, but did not kill the centipedes, and they remained combat effective. For a time.

They were weakened greatly by the shock, and were much easier to move. Having never felt pain before, the heavily armored centipedes ended up on their backs, and with the breaks in their lines, the skeletons were easily able to continue to attack their weak spots. Those three died quickly after that, and Pan called for the rest to back up and close ranks while the army was distracted by killing the three that had been rolled. The centipedes were still able to block the hallway, but even one more loss would make that difficult, and two would make it impossible.

The ants, which had been completely useless before this swarmed from behind the centipedes and across the walls. They climbed across until they were halfway along the skeletons formation before jumping down and attacking. As individuals, they weren't much of a threat, but their jaws could cut through stone. Bone was softer. The ants attacked the skeletons at their weak points. Snapping foot and hand bones with ease. Many ants died, but there were thousands of worker ants by now, and over a dozen warriors.

The skeletons dropped their weapons or fell over as bones were shattered. The split in the formation took the pressure off the centipedes, and they were able to fight back against the skeletons, now also biting through anything attempting to lever them off the ground. The ants had killed very few skeletons, but the tangle of lamed skeletons was an obstacle to the ranks of minions behind them. The warrior ants made short works of any skeletons they could reach with a crushing bite to the skulls.

With the skeletons split into two smaller groups, the rear ranks of the group attacking the centipedes was facing damage from the front and rear. They fell quickly, and the centipedes rushed back to the front to shield the ants who were starting to get picked off by the now wary skeletons in the rear half of the army. Nearly one hundred and twenty skeletons had been destroyed, but there were still another hundred to go, and they were now aware of the danger the ants represented. Not to mention the Dread Skeleton.

The following melee continued slowly, with neither side able to greatly damage the other. The strikes on the centipedes were slowly adding up, but the reduced number of skeletons couldn’t push strongly enough against them to lift them anymore. The centipedes were getting the upper hand in the battle, but barely.

The skeletons suddenly retreated to a much wider room, once the captain realized they would have no way of breaking through the lines to attack the dungeon heart. But in the room, the centipedes could not attack them without opening up the lines enough for the skeletons to rush past through the inevitable holes. Of course, Pan saw this and held them back in a line across the doorway. There was a stalemate in the room. A real Klavian standoff. Luckily, Pan already had plans in motion to break it. 

The Queen and her royal guard had made it to the necromancer's room. He had locked himself behind the door and was sobbing to himself in fear. There were a few guards posted outside the room, and a couple more in it, but it would be no challenge for the warriors.

Two were lost to the four skeletons outside the room, and the remaining eight started chewing through the door. A warrior's jaws weren’t designed to chew through walls, and workers would have been faster, but they managed. The leading two ants severed the ankles of the two skeletons flanking the inside of the door. They fell to the ground and had their skulls crushed by the warriors. As the four remaining skeletons charged the eight ants, they retreated from the room.

Two skeletons reached the door, and were executed the same way as the first two. Seeing this, the final two retreated back to guard the necromancer. They were rushed by the ants and were dispatched easily. The queen entered the room and crawled over to the babbling necromancer. Pan was glad the venom had worked so well, if the necromancer had been able to give him orders the fight would surely have been lost.

Unlike the necromancer, Pan had no desire to monolog to his captive, and he ordered his queen to execute the man. She did. Happily. A quick snap of her jaws split his throat. Just the same as he had killed both Pan and Gerald. He bled out quickly after that, and the queen doubled in size from his death. She was now almost two feet long, and Pan knew he would be able to do something special with her.

When the necromancer died, the skeletons went wild, and charged the lines of centipedes. The captain pulled an axe from his belt and joined the charge. He struck a centipede in the head, and split its carapace. It was dead instantly. Seeing this, the original centipede charged the captain, furious about the death of his comrade. The final two centipedes held off the skeletons as best they could, and any that slipped past were swarmed by the ants.  

Pan had called a few of his ants back to move his heart into his main cave, since the glyph binding him and holding him in place was now broken by the necromancers death. It was a race to move his heart before the skeletons could slip one past his defenders and attack him directly.

He had hoped that with the death of the necromancer, all ties holding them to the world would be severed, but that didn’t seem to be the case. They were now unbound, just like him, but they still saw him as the enemy and continued the fight. He couldn’t even regain control of the skeletons he created, since there was no longer any connection to hijack.

The original centipede was in a deadly brawl with the skeleton captain. The skeleton was swinging his axe wildly, but without a solid charge, he couldn’t muster enough force to split the centipede’s carapace. There were deep score marks all over it, however, and its armor weakened with every chip blown off. The centipede was struggling to get its mandibles around some part of the skeleton, but it had already taken its left arm off at the elbow.

When the skeleton delivered a powerful horizontal slash that ricocheted off the top of the centipede and drew its arm around in a wide arc, the centipede reared up with a screech and clamped down on the skeletons femur. It bit down hard and the bone gave with an enormous crack, shattering in the middle. Shards of bone scored deep cuts across the centipede's face and belly, but it wasn't even damaging. The captain went down, but managed one more hit on the centipede, a glancing blow that took off one of its legs that had been exposed when it reared up.

The centipede screeched again and removed the other leg, and then the arm, before severing its spine and killing it. Like the queen had, it grew from the kill. Its armor reformed and it lengthened by another foot, as well as regrowing the lost leg. Pan could feel the mana in the centipede had grown much denser than before, and he was excited to try to upgrade it as well after the battle.

His gem had been moved to safety already, and all that remained was the last of the skeletons. They were dispatched quickly when the now gigantic centipede turned its attention back to the rear of the skeleton survivors.

With the battle over, Pan was bursting with mana. He had had to expand his mana stone to be able to store over three thousand mana in order to avoid wasting any mana. He immediately leveled up so he could move all of his mana into his main storage. When he checked the messages describing his new level, he also saw another for a new achievement.

Level 8

Unlock skill: Name Bestowal

Need 5000 mana for level 9

+25 Dungeon Points

Name Bestowal

Can name any monster that is deserving of a name. Named monsters will become unique, based off of their name and accomplishments that earned them the name. Named monsters can be re-summoned if they die, and will retain memories and levels. Monster must have accomplished something deserving of a name.

New Achievement: Boundless

Your dungeon has broken through many bindings. You have broken through the bindings that held other dungeons back from creating their own monsters, as well as severing the bindings placed on you by a necromancer. You will not be held back by anything.

Maximum affinity for pure mana.

+500 Dungeon Points

Pan was elated by the effects he gained with his new achievement. An affinity for pure mana was an affinity for all mana, even the combination types. It would be harder to refine and use, but it opened up limitless possibilities. He knew which monsters would be receiving names in his dungeon. The dungeon would have its first boss monsters.

Dungeon Menu

Level: 8

Type: Sentient Dungeon

Name: N/A

Titles: N/A

Mana: 2945/5000  (+0)

Rooms: 12

Levels: 1

Animals: 55242

Plants: 16122

Monsters: 16

Skills: [Dungeon Menu], [Dungeon Manipulation], [Dungeon Absorption], [Dungeon Creation: Level 8], [Dungeon Expansion], [Dungeon Summon], [Targeted Evolution], [Monster Imbuement], [Dungeon Map], [Name Bestowal]

Dungeon Points: 850

Achievements: Evolver, Legend Slayer, Boundless