After Uraraka and Toga returned from Aeonia’s graveyard, they did manage to unlock [Muraekai Burial Site]. They’ve also immediately confirmed that yes, doing so unlocked a completely new form of a [Level Change Room] and it was a stairwell.
Lovely.
One more thing that they couldn’t use right now, but would greatly help them once they’d start growing deeper… a bit faster.
That was for the future, though. For now, they’ve decided to quickly wait until they’d amass enough Residual Mana to help Tomura get a significant percentage of the 2nd Level done in one go.
And, unfortunately, they wanted both Ochako and Himiko to be around while that expansion would happen. Why? Well, they still remembered Luna mentioning that they could - theoretically - find some small pockets of materialized and potentially hostile biomes underground.
They didn’t want to expand the level that their Core was at just to unleash something potentially dangerous and have no one to defend them. That would be terminally stupid. And so, they wait.
Once Tomura prepared the design of the first half of the 2nd Level and showed it to Izuku, his answer to it was very simple and concise.
Are you insane?!
Yes.
Is that a problem
Yes
I mean no
I mean
What?
What brought this abominable design?
This isn’t a Dungeon Level, this is materialized murder.
Yes, that was the point.
The segment of the Dungeon was composed almost entirely of long, straight corridors that were exactly 2m wide and 2m tall. Each and every one of them was slightly inclined, the ground going lower and lower the further you came from an entrance.
Why? So that Tomura could send massive, perfectly round boulders after everyone who - in their horrid mistake - would wander into the Dungeon. While using a number of well-placed Dungeon Slimes as a mechanism for it to be unleashed.
And that wasn’t all. No, that would be way too easy. Any sufficiently speedy intruder (like, say, a wolfman using Predator’s Advance) could easily outrun such a boulder. So what did Tomura do to deal with that problem?
Other traps.
Slightly uneven ground (randomly) to force people to constantly look under their feet and stop them from using straight-line accelerating footwork techniques. Aside from the narrow line in the middle used by the boulder to roll and gather up momentum unimpeded.
Small, square basins in the floor filled by Dungeon Slimes, made to ‘freeze’ in the form and shape almost identical to the smooth floor, allowing them to instantly grab the leg of anyone who stepped into them, such as a person landing after a lengthy jump with help of some footwork.
Astral Shards placed in the walls vertically at the end of every straight corridor, set to open fire towards people fleeing down said corridor… all of them aligned perfectly with the smooth central route used by the boulder, forcing anyone who would try to run down it to avoid other traps to dodge right and left, often into the remaining traps.
There were exactly three such long and straight corridors, each of them ending with a small alcove where the boulder would stop, filling it perfectly… just for the adventurers/invaders to immediately become a target of another boulder.
He eventually planned to expand this network of traps from hell. Make it longer. Had additional ideas on how to make it worse and wanted to test them in practice before making any additional changes official.
No, seriously.
Who hurt you, Shigaraki?
Sen’s Fortress did.
The one and only location in Dark Souls that made me watch some shitty ancient let’s play’s on youtube to get through it.
In the entire DARK SOULS SERIES and I include Daemon’s Souls and Elden Ring here
This is going to kill a lot of people.
That’s the point of it ffs
We need a defensive perimeter around the Core
This is our defensive perimeter
If some shitty Bloom’s goons show up, we’ll go play bowling with them as bowling pins
Simple as that
And if some total randoms wander in?
We do the same thing and roll them over?
…
Okay, so we might also not roll them over, as we can remotely unleash the boulders or not by ordering Slimes around
better?
Wait
Are you actually agreeing to downscale the lethality of your trap so that I don’t feel bad about it?
First of all, no. I agree to downscale the lethality of the trap so that you agree to it, you know, existing
Second of all, yes, but I’ll never admit that aloud.
What?
Ugh
Look
Your ceaseless complaints and general yadda yadda yadda made me come to a realization concerning my past actions and beliefs
I was, to be frank, a very bad person
Most of your critique about my behavior was, regretfully, correct
So, be happy
Your words managed to reach my cold heart
And thus
That’s… great?
I will focus on becoming an even better villain and the only person that you can blame for that is yourself.
What?!
No, you weren’t supposed to become a better villain, you were supposed to stop being a villain!
Instructions unclear, dick stuck in a microwave.
What?!
An ancient meme.
The point is, I’m going to take your lessons about caring for your followers and compatriots and apply it to my followers and compatriots, all to make our Dungeon the worst death trap that you can possibly imagine and kill as many people as I can
And I’m going to drink your emotional turmoil like Dabi did Kurogiri’s vodka
Real fucking fast and hard
… All Might forgive me.
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/03/20/image.png]
1. Entrance. 2. Boulder Start. 3. Boulders End.
In the end, Izuku accepts Tomura’s design and then they black out for a moment when they move their Core to the deepest part of the newly expanded 2nd Level.
***
Uraraka and Toga ended up having some brief free time afterward, which they spent on either training combat together or trying to kill each other (Izuku genuinely can’t tell and he’s a bit too worried to ask).
That’s why they were in the Dungeon (and in their Floor Guardian’s Room) when it happened. Namely, they had guests.
It was a group led by a certain very familiar elder foxwoman and the wolfman warrior that was shadowing her the last time.
But it was a pretty large group. Tomura and Izuku both observe them as the beastkin were bringing items into the first room of their Dungeon, ordered around by the elder at her most intimidating self.
What are they… are they bringing us gifts?
Obviously
They want to make us consider them beneficial enough to strike a deal in the future and ensure that the loot we might be handing out even before that will be what they need right now.
What’s that by the way?
Dunno, can’t assimilate it yet, they’re too close.
But those two metal bars look like tin and copper to me, so they’ve given us something to be usable relatively soon.
And those things look like some ore chunks, but… I have no idea what they are exactly, I’d need Ochako’s expertise to tell.
I guess it’ll be faster to just assimilate it and let the system tell us what they are.
That looks like sheep wool to me, and there are some additional types of textiles.
Oh my God.
Big oof.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Those are definitely corpses. And fresh ones, too.
Had their throats slit, all of them.
Did they… did they bring some captives and then killed them right in front of the Dungeon to let us eat them?
I feel sick.
Chill, there’s a non-zero chance that those were more criminals like Ekana.
Do we even know what crime Ekana did?
Knowing the locals she might have looked the wrong way on some religious statue.
She literally tried to kill us
That’s enough for me to be alright with her being sentenced to death
Anyway… what the hell is that
Why are they bringing in a goddamn statue
I… genuinely don’t know.
We’ll know more when we assimilate it.
I wonder if that’s al
I asked at the wrong time.
The Elder decided to further surprise them by having her sidekicks bring in a few small cages - if you can call it that way when they’re almost completely sealed, and what’s inside seems to be… what is that even?
I think those might be local version of the elementals
The elementals?
Yes, beings of four prime elements, you know, fire, water, air and earth?
There is something on fire in one of them, the other seems to have water inside judging from the sounds when they were putting it down, and the third one has something solid
We’ll know if it’s something ‘alive’ if she puts them down before leaving
And she did. Right after the four cages were put down on the cave floor, she touched each and every one of them, casting some offensive spell into the small open crevice at the top of it.
Huh.
“We’re leaving.” She then orders and walks out of the cave right after the few beastkin that came with her.
I’m starting to realize that you had a point when you acted like pacifist route was a legit way of playing this game
We’ve literally killed one of them, this is no longer a pacifist route.
Close enough for me
Let’s assimilate what they brought and see what we can do with that to improve our situation
***
Quick inspection of [Entities] confirmed that whatever the beastkin brought in the cages was, in fact, elementals.
Or, to be exact, [Lesser Air Elemental], [Lesser Fire Elemental], [Lesser Water Elemental] and [Lesser Earth Elemental]. All of them classed as not-spirits, making them locally born entities and allowing them to produce them en masse.
All of them were marked as ETL 5, making them at least potentially summonable literally anywhere. In exchange, they likely weren’t really strong. They were going to check out how they looked and worked later.
They were all a part of [Elementals] category. No big name of their metaphysical faction? Shame that it all didn’t happen before their visit to Aeonia, they’d ask her some additional questions.
Then, there were the people that the beastkin killed. The people that Izuku genuinely hoped were irredeemable criminals, but he knew that he couldn’t be sure about it.
They unlocked the following species: two new beastkin morphs (lizard and fox ones), and two different species, one of them being ogres and one being the already vaguely known to them white elves.
Both of those species were named with the same prefix. [Xylmade, White Elf] and [Xylmade, Ogre]. They had more questions to ask, but nothing that was really pressing so it could wait. They weren’t going to run to Aeonia with everything .
The real chaos happened in the [Skills and Abilities]. There were so many unlocks that it was near impossible to tell who was responsible for what exactly.
First, the [Combat Skills].
In [Weapon Proficiencies] they’ve got [Staff Proficiency I], [Heavy Blunt Weapons Proficiency II], [Dagger Proficiency I] and [Bow Proficiency II]. They assume the ‘heavy blunt weapons’ to mean two-handed hammers.
In [Martial Arts] they’ve unlocked [Hammer of the Wilds School I] and [Tail Splitter School I]. Right under it, a completely new subcategory of [Combat Skills] appeared, called [Magic Schools]. Here they found [White Magic I] and [Wrath Magic I].
Then, the [Crafting Skills].
In [Raw Resources] they’ve unlocked [Woodcutting I] and [Butchery I], none of them of any use to them right now. What could be useful, however, was [Herbalism [Vestiria] II], which should aid them in finding interesting things for their future [Growing Area]s’.
In [Processing] they’ve obtained [Basic Smelting II], which seemed to be about the process of smelting ore. No idea how they could use it right now, as they lacked the infrastructure to do it.
In [Shaping], a newly opened subcategory right after [Processing], they’ve unlocked [Basic Smithing I], [Basic Alchemy I] and [Basic Enchanting I].
Then, the [Magic Skills].
In [Mana Circulation] they’ve obtained [White Core I] and [Red Core I]. No, they had no idea what it meant, but hey, they’ll eventually figure it out, right?
Then, the [Other Skills].
In [Communication] they’ve obtained [North Vestirian Language, Spoken VII] and, finally, [North Vestirian Language, Written VI]. What they’ve also obtained was [Western Elven [Vestirian Dialect, Modern], Spoken VII] and [Western Elven [Vestirian Dialect, Modern], Written VII], which seemed to be the local elven speech.
In [Survival] they’ve obtained [Hunting III] and [Tracking III] - one of the slain people really must have been a hunter by trade.
In [Crime and Trickery] there was nothing new. Which really didn’t improve Izuku’s mood concerning the group execution that just occurred in front of their Dungeon.
And then, aside from their bountiful harvest of [Skills], they’ve also obtained [Abilities]. After all, what were the [Skills] without [Abilities]? Well, still a great bounty, but definitely a less flashy one.
First, [Martial Arts].
Here they’ve obtained [Close Wounds I], [Hard Scales I] and [Lacerating Claws I], all three of which required the [Tail Splitter School I], making them suspect that they used to belong to the lizard guy. There was also [Shockwave I], [Fortify Flesh I] and [Heavy Blow I], all three requiring the [Hammer of the Wilds School I].
In the [Footwork] category, they’ve obtained [Vertical Movement I] and [Dash I], requiring [Tail Splitter School I] and [Hammer of the Wilds School] respectively.
Then, [Spells]. Yes, they finally obtained some. A lot of them, in fact.
[White Magic I] allowed them to use following spells: [Lesser Firebolt I], [Burst of Flames I], [Flametouch I], [Mist I], [Ball of Water I], [Waterbreath I], [Float I], [Move I], [Suppress Smell I], [Earthen Shield I], [Dirt Pellet I] and [Remove Footprints I].
[Wrath Magic I] in the meantime allowed them to use [Rage I], [Enraged Blow I] and [Ignore Injury I].
It didn’t take them a long time to more or less sort it out, but mostly thanks to the associated [Classes]. They’ve gained two more variants of [Tribal Warrior] (titled [Ogre] and [Lizardkin]), but also [Mage] and a [Shaman]. Which they believed used to be carried by the elf and the foxkin respectively.
Mage seemed to require a [White Core] and could use all types of magic. Shaman required [Red Core] and could only use Wrath Magic.
No way that mages can use Wrath Magic without any issues
True.
Perhaps ‘Red Core’ is what happens to a mage that overuses Wrath Magic?
They can no longer cast other types of magic?
Maybe
They’ve unlocked more.
A lot of various clutter and other [Decorations], some of them looking even more tribal and primitive (which might have been belonging to the ogre) some significantly more civilized (the white elf mage, as they were signed as [Modern Vestiria]).
[Low Quality Iron II] that they’ve now fully unlocked. As for the other metals that the beastkin brought, that was likely [Copper I] and [Tin I] which they have already unlocked from Aeonia’s graveyard.
[Malachite] and [Cassiterite] ores for copper and tin mining respectively.
[Sheep Wool II] in [Fabrics], the other fabrics likely being [Linen II] that they have already unlocked in the past.
They’ve also discovered what the statue was for. As they’ve discovered a completely new [Room], titled [Shrine of the Hierarch of Conquest], making them realize that it had to be some sort of religious symbol, likely just a sculpture of the Hierarch of Conquest..
Are we planning to put it anywhere in the Dungeon?
Yes
I don’t think that I like that very idea.
It doesn’t sound, what was the word for that, very peaceful.
I’m curious about it, they wouldn’t bring it in for no reason
Strange religious beliefs are a reason in itself
Do you still remember what Luna said?
There is an option to get gods and their domains involved in the Dungeon’s creation
That might be the start of the way towards it
Hmm.
You might have a point, guess that we’ll at least try.
Besides, we won’t be the ones to worship that deity, we’re just…
…facilitating religious diversity and tolerance?
I’m going to stay rabidly intolerant in a world were almost every single local religion is various degree of fucked-up
You do you
I, errr, I guess that’s also valid.
What they’ve also obtained were the clothes that the dead offerings carried. Aside from [Hedge Mage Robe] that the elf seemed to wear and maybe the [Novice Shaman Gear] from the foxkin, nothing here seemed particularly useful.
The ogre, for example, seemed to be wearing nothing but a loincloth.
There was also a staff. It seemed extremely basic. Literally just a stock with a small, white-ish crystal at the end, one that wasn’t even any wider than the staff itself. It must have belonged to the mage.
It took them a while to notice that they’ve also unlocked a completely new [Lair], titled [Elemental Overflow]. It seemed to have additional options inside, so it was relatively easy to guess that they could set it to one element in particular.
It was, probably, the weakest of their currently possessed [Lairs], though. With just one creature that it spawned, and of such a small ETL, it seemed intrinsically weaker to the [Spider Breeding Chamber] (with its three creatures) and [Hamadryad’s Grove] which might have only one, but stronger and with a [Hamadryad] settled inside.
Still, it might have other perks, so they’ll investigate that subject more in the future.
Alright, so I think that it’s the time to bring more people we know back to life.
Yeah
I’m bringing back Spinner as that lizardkin, not debatable
Yeah, I have no problems with that.
Unless we want to have skillwise doubles running around, that leaves us with the ogre, the foxkin and the white elf.
Yes, and I’m immediately setting up one rule
I’m going to veto any attempt to bring any adult pro-hero to life anytime soon, unless we’d get some really critically helpful skills and species and they were the only good pick
What, why?!
Because the moment you bring any of them to life, they’ll try to take charge of this whole situation from you due to you being a minor, and while you’re insufferable, they’ll be insufferable more
You want to be forced to run your every decision through one more person?
Or perhaps an entire council of annoying pro-heroes, as once one is around they’ll likely press for more?
You think that any of them will be fine with bringing Aeonia to the Dungeon?
That’s
That’s an actually valid point, although if they (in the future) ask, you forced me to agree to it.
I’d say that announcing my non-negotiable veto to that counts as forcing you, so yeah, if someone asks me in the future, I’ll say that it was all your idea
…
So, the ogre, the foxkin and the white elf
For white elf (who will obviously be the mage) I recommend Momo Yaoyorozu
Makes sense
And no, you can’t do anything about the size of her… body.
Boohoo
Anyway, you have more classmates than I had people I could call upon and consider close to me, so go on, do another pick
I think that the ogre fits Kirishima. It’s big, muscular and the Fortify Flesh martial art sounds like his thing. He’d make for a killer double-boss fight with Tetsutetsu in the future.
Okay
I just have to find a way to play Pillar Men Theme the moment someone enters their bossroom, especially if we give them both loincloths
Huh?
The party we send to pillage shit for us needs a tank either way
What about the shaman? Wrath Magic doesn’t sound very heroic
We could run with the theme and give it to a foxkin, but we still need a person for that and I don’t know any fitting choices
Who from your side would fit as a foxkin to begin with?
Well, is there anything that foxes are known for?
Being too loud?
Neito Monoma then.
… really?
Check this out.
Ochako, I need you to give me the first name that comes to your mind when you hear the phrase ‘being too loud’, from our year’s Hero Course.
“Bakugou Katsuki.” Uraraka replies immediately, she and Toga still in their boss room.
lol
…
Two first names, please.
“Bakugou Katsuki and Monoma Neito.” She then replies, clearly wondering what it was all about.
See?
So we’re going to ignore the walking ball of wrath in the form of your childhood friend?
Oh, right
Shaman feels like a support class
He doesn’t know what the word ‘support’ means, aside from ‘support engineering’ which only supports him
Shut it.
Let’s do Yaoyorozu-san, Spinner and Kirishima-kun first, then we’ll consider one more time if we truly want Neito Monoma to have an ability to make others stronger by making them angry.
…
On second thought, that sounds absolutely broken.
***
The AI has given me something somewhat palatable, just ignore the 'weapons'. That's more or less how I imagine the ogres to look like.
image [https://images.squidge.org/images/2024/03/20/image8cb2c6687753c851.png]