—Luneil—
Luneil laughed as he manifested a cascade of small gold coins in front of Bas. The human's jaw hung open at the sight, unable to comprehend the shower of wealth piling up at his feet.
While he couldn't truly understand the fascination with gold, Luneil couldn't help but admit that the dull clink of gold coins clattering against each other was somewhat satisfying. Of course, there was nothing particularly special about it. In fact it seemed to be a borderline useless metal, heavier than steel and far softer. Gold wouldn't stop a blade and Dungeons couldn't be bribed... most Dungeons anyway.
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had forgotten something about the metal, an echo from a past life. The fragment of memory didn't feel particularly important though, so he set it aside for later. After all, he had a human to impress, and humans could certainly be bribed.
He transmitted an exaggerated gasp of exhaustion down the shared connection between Bas and himself. It wasn't strictly necessary but it lent credence to the small lie he had told Bas about the 'absurdly large amount' of mana it took to create gold. In truth there was nothing difficult or strenuous about creating gold. It was simply another metal, albeit slightly heavier than normal with a minor associated increase in mana cost. His motive behind the lie was twofold. Firstly to prevent Bas from pestering him for favors too often, and secondly to make Bas feel more indebted to him for the service.
The pile of gold was certainly making an impression. If Luneil had to guess it was easily over ten thousand of gold coins and weighed just under half a ton, if slightly smaller than expected. It was a fraction of what Bas needed but, from his wide-eyed stare, the young human evidently considered it the answer to all his problems. Which it very well might be.
Bas jumped, looking around himself for a second before replying, "Thank you, but how am I meant to carry this, let alone explain why there's suddenly a giant mound of gold."
Luneil laughed
Seeing Bas' questioning expression, he continued
Bas' brow unfurrowed as he nodded slowly. "How do you benefit from me allegedly controlling you."
"What do you mean." Bas leaned forward.
Bas frowned, "You're not going to kill everyone are you?"
Luneil laughed to himself, after all, you could only kill a small population once, but you could skim the top off a large city almost indefinitely, as long as they kept on having children. The luxuries of Bas' world would serve as additional bait for his trap.
Bas spoke again, "And I won't have to murder anyone for you."
Bas hesitated, conflicting emotions warring openly on his face.
Luneil pushed his advantage,
Bas rubbed his forehead, then let his hand drop in a defeated sigh, "Only as many deaths as is absolutely necessary."
Bas nodded, the corners of his lip curling upwards in an expression of acknowledgement and gratitude. He knelt down and ran a hand through the mound of gold coins, testing their weight as they scattered between his fingers.
"How am I meant to get this down?"
Bas' hand paused, half buried in coin, an unreadable expression crossed his face before he nodded.
"Well, to begin with..."
***
Luneil struggled to suppress the worry gnawing at the center of his being as he watched Bas' retreating form. Plasma mana was well-suited to destroying Dungeons, so much so that Luneil had considered obliterating Bas right then and and there. Fortunately for the unsuspecting human it soon became clear after careful questioning that the knowledge of plasma wasn't something unique to him, while specialized it was hardly one of the universe's greatest mysteries to one born and raised on Earth.
Another human would figure out the secrets of plasma mana with enough time and resources. The cat was out of the bag regardless of whether Bas lived or died, so a strategy based around directly combating the threat as opposed to containing it was preferable. The biggest issue would be the aura of interference around most adventurers stopping him from immediately counteracting an infection of plasma mana, allowing it to grow out of control.
Another concern was what would happen if the plasma mana was allowed to come in contact with his mana-rich core. On that front, he had no idea and no drive to find out. Which meant he needed countermeasures.
He set to work creating a series of interconnected air vents between rooms, high up enough that the aura of interference emitted by living creatures wouldn't effect the chambers. They would allow him to maintain his connection to other rooms, even if a plasma mana outbreak burnt his presence out of one chamber entirely. The narrow vents would also make it easier to stem the spread of the virulent mana. To finish he created a set of heavy slabs above the connections between rooms, reinforcing the stone with a weave of steel. If necessary, he could drop the slabs, putting each room into a state of lockdown.
Luneil grumbled to himself, he was far from satisfied with his new defenses, given their passive nature. However, until he had the means to obliterate an offending party in one fell swoop, passive defenses would have to do.
He switched his attention to outside his Dungeon, suspecting that the adventurers would be on their way. Sure enough, they were jogging up the hill, dragging Bas along behind them. He was somewhat reassured to see that they were carrying empty packs, presumably to transport the gold in, although, he didn't fail to notice that they held their weapons in equally white-knuckled grips.
He quickly shifted the pile of coins to the tunnel entrance, just out of sight of the approaching dwarves. Then, worried about the possible outcome, he burrowed his core further into the wall, deepening the fissure. If worse came to worst it would provide him with some additional time to reel in his mana and make good his escape.
With that done he focused on the adventurers as they arrived outside.
"The lad wasn't joking, there is a pile of fucking gold right there. Ten thousand, at the very least."
"You've got to be—Well, fuck me with a fire iron." Grimheld broke off, swearing softly.
"Told you." Bas shrugged.
"What else can ya get the Dungeon to make?" Kort set aside his pack and picked up a coin.
"I'm not sure, I only tried making gold."
"How about a buxom dwarven lass?" Kort grinned, dark eyebrows dancing suggestively.
Bas edged closer to the entrance of the Dungeon, moving within communication range.
Bas relayed the words to the adventurers.
"Ack, that's a pity." Kort's jaw flickered blue as he bit into the gold coin he had been playing with. He held up the now-crescent-shaped coin and spat out the remainder, grinning all the while, "At least the gold's real. Which means we're all rich." He grinned.
Grimheld coughed pointedly.
"Ah. Once Bas' debt is paid off, of course." Kort let out an awkward laugh. "How often can ya do this?"
Bas paused.
Luneil answered,
Bas once again conveyed the information, paraphrasing slightly in order to avoid giving away the secret of Luneil's existence.
Luneil, let slip a snort of amusement as all eyes snapped toward Bas, staring at him in shock.
"Ya want t' feed people t' the Dungeon for gold?"
The adventurers' eyes softened as Bas explained. Eventually, Kort nodded, "That's nae too big a task. Anyway there's plenty t' be done outside the Dungeon—we still need t' scout up and downstream, make sure there aren't any major threats lurking there. Also, waiting for merchants with some proper gear might nae be the worst of ideas. Grimheld told me about the acid spitting flowers, ya do nae want t' play around with that stuff."
In agreement, they began shoveling fistfuls of coins into their packs until the straining fabric could hold no more. A small pile of coins remained.
"Lad, can ya get yer Dungeon to make a few more packs for the coins?"
Once Bas had ordered the dwarves away, Luneil annihilated one of the packs, letting the coins spill out. A few seconds later three identical, slightly tattered backpacks lay stacked on each other.
The coins were fully stowed away, bulging against the bottom of the bags as the dwarves traipsed cheerfully back to the camp. Luneil watched as Bas inclined his head toward him, a look of gratitude on his face, before the human followed Kort and his team back down the valley slope.
Luneil took a moment to savor the warm glow of accomplishment that filled him, then, turning his gaze inward, he began to create his second floor. Ever since he’d making his Acid Lilies, he’d known how he wanted to proceed.
Unlike his first floor, which was comprised of only two rooms—the main entrance room and the Boss room—his second floor was far more sprawling, a tangle of interconnecting tunnels that meandered in every direction rather than a linear arrangement of rooms. The passageways were by no means narrow, but the rough curved walls imparted a sense of oppressiveness and a reminder of the vast mass of stone perpetually suspended above the seemingly fragile ceiling.
At the intersections of the tunnels, Luneil expanded the open space, creating nodes joining the tunnels together like raindrops beading on spider-silk. In these open nodes he sunk deep pits into the ground, taking up the majority of the floor space.
He then began filling the pits up to the halfway mark—some with water, others with acid—before placing the gold coins at the bottom as a glinting prize that was sure to catch the eyes of a greedy adventurer or two. There were only a handful of acid pools, but it was better that way. It made it more likely that an idiot adventurer would assume all the pools were safe and just dive in, after all, swan diving into acid wasn't an experience a person could warn against once they'd already done it.
Of course, he didn't want the adventurers just scooping gold out from the bottom of his water pools either, so he began creating some monsters to ruin their day. He had obtained fish and even an eel on his last excursion into the valley outside, so he decided to put them to good use.
As he funneled Lifeforce into the fish their scales took on a dark crimson tint and their teeth became razor sharp and elongated. However, their jaws didn't enlarge significantly, making it seem as if their mouths were bristling with bony spikes. Their fins and tails likewise gained luminescent streaks that ran along their length, creating hypnotic blurs as they raced through the darkened water. After a moment's deliberation, he called his newly created fish Red Snappers.
Remembering how he could imbue his walls with mana, he attempted the same with the water and acid pools—immediately gratified to discover that it worked, bathing his consciousness in a cool and flowing sensation. With a minor flex of will, small waves appeared in the liquid, sloshing against the sides of the pits that contained them. He had no current use for it, but it was a good thing to be aware of.
He hummed to himself as he manifested the pattern of the eel. As he worked on it, the creature's tail lengthened and its slimy skin gained small bumps and grooves with an iridescent blue sheen that shifted subtly as it moved. However, nothing else changed. With a defeated sigh he named it a Blue Eel and dropped it into one of his pools.
Only too late did he realize that the pool he had chosen for it to inhabit contained potent acid. As the eel hit the liquid a sharp crack echoed around the walls as a blinding discharge of lightning skittered across the water like an electric spider, grounding itself in the walls of the pit.
Luneil watched as it slowly dissolved, body writhing and flailing desperately in a futile attempt to hold itself above the surface of the liquid. To his disappointment there was no subsequent burst of electricity, even if the occasional spark ran along its slimy skin. It seemed as if the Blue Eel needed time to build up a charge.
As its flesh began to melt off its body, exposing a backbone of hundreds of tightly packed vertebrae he absorbed the monster, not wanting to risk the acid damaging its pattern too seriously. He recreated the Eels, in the correct pools this time, adding in a few schools of Red Snappers as well.
Since he didn't want the presence of life in the water-filled pools to give away their nature prematurely he added small underwater niches and hollows that would house them whenever adventurers were nearby. That way, at first glance, it was impossible to tell the pools apart.
With his aquatic monsters created he decided to try something new for the tunnels. He created a small piece of stomach lining and channeled Lifeforce into it. The goal was to create an acidic floor trap that would enclose a victim's leg.
However, things didn't go as planned. The stomach lining curled up into a shriveled ball resembling crumpled fabric and rapidly began secreting a thick sticky mucus around itself with the stomach tissue suspended inside.
Luneil watched, intrigued, as the glob of mucus wobbled slightly then lurched forward like a surging wave of jelly. It globbed its way up a wall and onto the ceiling, dripping downward in slow motion and pulling itself back up before repeating the process.
Hesitantly he added more Lifeforce to the gelatinous creature and was gratified to see it expand in size. It grew larger and larger until it hung from the ceiling like an upside-down mushroom. Then, unable to support its weight, it splattered against the ground, sending small globules of itself flying through the air as it impacted the dry stone floor. It shook itself stupidly, then rose up and began to gather up the shed droplets of itself with a series of rapid lunges.
Luneil dropped a fish into his new creation and, on a whim, the steel dagger that Bas had had on his person when he died. As he suspected, his new monster had acidic properties and the fish was quickly digested by the blob of slime, leaving only bones behind. Likewise the dagger began to rapidly corrode, bits of itself flaking free and moving slowly through the creature's translucent body.
Happy with the result, Luneil beckoned Zeph over,
"Oh. That? That's a Slime, one of the Dungeons I used to be a companion to had lots of them. They can take on the properties of what they digest, which makes them really useful once you get some Arcane Foci, since your Slimes can sometimes gain elemental affinities."
"Sure."
Without any further dithering, he absorbed the Slime for its pattern and then recreated it, filling it with small beads of iron and steel. A small tremor shook the Slime, its body becoming gray and opaque. With an audible screech of metal on stone, it squelched against the floor under its own weight, then, with the slow deliberacy of a mountain rising it drew itself up and rumbled slowly forward, leaving a trail of scratched and scarred rock behind it.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
He commanded it to hold still as he dropped a fish on it, to his surprise it bounced off. Disappointed, he released it from its immobility and watched as the fish was easily absorbed. He dropped another fish into it, then commanded it to stop moving. The fish was entombed within the monster's metallic body, unable to sink any further. When it moved again, the fish slid smoothly in the rest of the way.
Pleased with his new Slimes he populated his tunnels with them—mostly regular Slimes of varying sizes, but some Iron Slimes as well. Finally, he created a few nooks and crannies for some of them to launch an ambush from.
With his monsters sorted, he decided to work on traps. He created the obligatory Slime-filled pitfall; however, he was getting bored of simple traps and wanted to create something more complex.
As such, he began to create a complex mechanism that connected a pitfall filled with one inch barbed-spikes to a large rock in the ceiling. He quickly tested the mechanism, laughing as the boulder came smashing down with several tons of force. It had worked even better that he'd anticipated. He couldn't wait to see it in action on live test subjects.
Next, he created a tall and narrow cylinder of acid, embedded in the wall, with a heavy weight above it. When a pressure plate was triggered, the stone would drop, pushing the acid down. Normally a U-bend would stop the acid from dribbling out prematurely, but the high pressure created by the falling stone would force it around the bend, causing acid to spray across the tunnel and, hopefully, the victim.
After completing several more traps he began filling the tunnels with rich veins of ore, and even the occasional gold nugget. After all, exploring a Dungeon with no riches inside was, to an adventurer, just an elaborate form of suicide. The walls were soon a covered with glittering lodes of iron pyrite and galena, with the occasional glint of yellow gold. The faint light of his gaseous mana created ghostly reflections, looking like the spirits of the damned were trapped within the walls. Which, Luneil reflected, given his consciousness within them, might be more accurate than it first sounded.
All that was left to do was to create some proper stairs and move his Core down to the second level. He hid his Core in an innocuous side-tunnel, when inspiration struck. He examined all the patterns he had at his disposal, finding the one for Dungeon Core crystal among them—all that remained as proof of the repairs he had carried out on himself during his earliest days.
After a few minutes of sculpting the crystal properly he had a convincing counterfeit Core that would serve as a passable decoy. Laughing at his own cleverness, he embedded it in the wall of an intersection, brazenly on display to the world. Then, because he felt like it, he surrounded it with a series of lethal traps that would trigger if the decoy Core was fiddled with.
"Are you done? You've been working on the floor for days."
Luneil never finished the sentence. He felt the numb tingle of a living creature at his entrance and as he shifted his focus he heard the first voice.
—Elai—
"You sure we made it in unseen?" Lodr grunted.
"Relax. I'm a Rank IV Cloaker, remember. No one's spotting us unless I want them to." Elai's hands moved in a blur, constantly bending light around himself and the group within his mana cloud. The hand movements weren't strictly necessary but they helped him visualize the process.
"It'd better. One floor, two rooms, weak monsters, quick in and out. Take the Core, easy payday." Lodr cracked his knuckles, pulling his flail free from his belt. "You know the drill, no fighting unless necessary, save your strength in case we need to fight our way out."
Elai watched Bala out of the corner of his eye, taking note of her almost imperceptible nod. He didn't trust the Arborling, not one bit. She had lost her hand long ago, but that was no reason for her to plant the symbiotic Arbor seeds in the still-raw stump. He understood it had been an act born of desperation—it had to be, since Arbor majorly impacted the ability to manipulate mana—but she should have waited. Anything but having that blood-drinking plant integrate with her flesh. Regeneration potions were expensive, but he would have saved up to buy one for her. Anything for her. At least when she was still her.
It was such a pity, he would be a liar if he were to say that he hadn't been attracted to her. At least up until the moment she let the seeds burrow into her flesh. Now every time she waved that bark-covered hand around he couldn't help but feel the revulsion writhing in his gut. The first time he saw her feed he'd been audibly sick.
He had thought the green sap flowing through her veins was disturbing, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of a monster's blood filling her bulging vessels. And the sound was beyond comparison, the wet squelch of the Arbor tendrils as they threaded their way through cooling flesh to gorge on the creature's—
He gagged, drawing concerned looks from the other eight members of the team, including Bala. He looked away quickly.
"I'm fine." he choked out.
"You'd better be. Keep your Cloak up. The Dungeon might not have noticed us." Lodr turned to face the rest of them. "Be ready for anything. The Dwarven ambassador and Pardoner Filias are not far behind us. Hopefully we'll be gone by the time they arrive, but nothing's certain."
The Dungeon's walls seemed to shudder for a second and Elai glanced around nervously. All of a sudden he felt a lot less certain about this Core robbery. The hair on the nape of his neck stood on end. Something had its eyes on him.
He whirled, glaring at Bala, whose cheeks grew green as she looked away.
"What now?" Lodr growled, swinging his flail in a lazy arc.
"Nothing, just thought I sensed a monster." He shot another look at the Arborling's back.
"Get moving then, you Jord-elva bastard." Lodr gestured forward with his weapon. "No stopping. Slow us down and we leave you behind. That goes for all of you."
The group's two gnome Brawler sisters, Thimble and Gimbal, moved to the front of the team staying just behind the leading edge of Elai's Cloak in case of a sudden halt. With a synchronization that could only come from many hours of long practice they stepped into the first room in perfect unison.
Elai didn't bother to take in the scenery, his frantic gesticulations accelerated as he molded his Cloak to conform the party as well as possible, leaving a minimal amount of wasted space. Absentmindedly he hopped over the small brook that ran through the middle of room. He began to turn to avoid running into an antlered squirrel clinging to a stalactite. The squirrel seemed to be staring straight at him, baring its teeth in an unnatural grin.
He shook his head, clearing the absurd thoughts from his mind. When his gaze returned to the monster, the squirrel was once again minding its own business. He looked down, dodging a trap that even a blind tree could spot. His gaze wandered to a nearby bush and the eyeballs that hung from it like bloodstained berries.
A raven with white-tipped rings gusted by, mere inches above his Cloak, sending minor ripples through the image he maintained. The raven didn't notice, but Elai brought his Cloak down a little lower, just to be safe.
Eyeballs!?
His gaze darted back to the bush, but he saw nothing except ripe red berries and green lea—
There was a splash behind him as Bala waded through the water behind him. He shook his head. Unprofessional. She had probably done that on purpose to get back at h—
Then the screaming started. All his thoughts flew out the window, his Cloak dropping as he spotted Bala spasming in the water.
Not water. Acid.
Her bark-covered hand grew, hooking at the bank of the stream, clawing her melting flesh onto dry land as golden-green sap oozed out of her.
Elai's heart lurched in his chest. This couldn't be happening. He took a step toward her before he was stopped by four feet of Dwarven fury.
"Get your Cloak back up and turn back around, Jord-elva." Lodr growled.
He tore his gaze away, burning with guilt. It was then that he noticed the monsters drifting toward the group, chittering and cawing in menacing tones. He could feel their eyes on him. His Cloak flashed back up and the monsters stopped advancing."
"The rest of you, keep on moving. Acid takes too long to heal. We can save her on the way back if we have time." Lodr turned to Elai. "I hope your slip up doesn't cost us."
Elai barely heard the last part. 'We can save on the way back'. That was a death sentence if he had ever heard one. No one deserved that sort of death. Not even... But...
He almost looked back at the whimpering Arborling, then shook his head and kept on walking. She had been so beautiful once upon a time. She still was, even with...
Elai pinched himself, he wouldn't let Lodr down. The dwarf had saved him more times than he could count.
With leaden feet he made his way into what must be the Boss room. The entire party looked around for the Core, but to their surprise saw another set of stairs instead.
Lodr cursed, "The bastard told me there was only one floor. So be it. Keep moving."
They made their way over to the central circle of grass without the Boss—an insect-jawed deer covered from tines to toes in a formidable looking carapace—noticing them. As they set foot on the grass it burst into flames, but the fire was quickly quenched as Var, one of their Mitigators, pulled all of the air away from their feet, preventing the grass from burning.
They walked down the stairs, completely ignoring, and ignored by, the Boss.
At last they reached the bottom of the stairs and Elai had just enough time to hear the click of a pressure plate depressing.
Thimble, instinctively looked down at her foot, then up, as a trapdoor above her exploded open.
Sei, their second Mitigator, strengthened a shield of mana above the gnome's head. However, her mana was no match for the gray blob that descended like a gelatinous anvil from heaven.
Elai gasped as he recognized the creature, just as it enveloped Thimble's head—an Iron Slime. The monster could harden while immobile, creating a rock hard casing around anything unfortunate enough to be caught inside it when it stilled. The creature would suffocate or starve its prey before it moved again, regaining its jelly-like structure and dissolving the corpse.
The weight of the Slime drove the gnome to her knees, despite her mana-enhanced strength. The Slime was draped fully over her head and shoulders like a gluttonous blanket, oozing slowly to the ground, already starting to hardened. Gimbal rushed forward, hands glowing with the liquid mana rushing through them, tearing chunks out of the solidifying Slime. It was to no avail, the monster's gelatinous mass filled in the gouges instantly.
Sighing, Lodr spoke, "Leave her, it's too late."
"No. I almost have her." Gimbal's hands plunged deeper and deeper, pulverizing the Iron Slime. The monster's iron hard substance seemed to liquefy under the force of her blows.
Elai felt his blood drain from his face. The only reason the Slime hadn't hardened already was because it was still hunting its prey.
Gimbal's hands plunged in further. Elai could wait no longer.
"Get her away." he shouted. "It's goi—"
"I can feel her, just a m—" Gimbal drew her hand back, straining with all her considerable might. It was futile. Her muscles glowed blue as she levered herself backward with her legs, grunting with the exertion.
"Help." she gasped. But no help came, the group stood in silent shock at the unfolding events.
Gimbal's expression changed from hope and determination to one of dawning horror at her predicament. With a strangled scream she rocked her body backward, no longer trying to free her sister but herself.
The solidified Slime teetered, one edge pivoting on the ground. Then, with a heavy thunk, it collapsed on top of her, sending her sprawling to the ground. Gimbal fell silent, her eyes widening as she realized what she'd done. There was a shluck as the Iron Slime once again turned gelatinous for long enough to engulf her, then hardened again.
Elai turned away as Gimbal's legs beat impotently against the dry stone floor. He spoke before Lodr had a chance to.
"Let's go."
The dwarf stared at him, then nodded.
Elai kept his Cloak up, there had been nine of them in total when they had first entered. Somehow, a Dungeon that wasn't even meant to be aware of them had killed a third of their team. At least he thought it wasn't aware of them.
He cast his mind back to the grinning squirrels and the bleeding eyeballs on the bushes. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that the Dungeon was acutely aware of their exact location. But that made no sense. If that were the case they would have been swarmed by monsters, instead the only one they had encountered had been because of a trap. It felt almost as if the Dungeon was letting them proceed unimpeded drawing them farther in.
It made sense, except for the fact that it was absurd. Everyone knew that Dungeons were incapable of thought, replicating and adapting only what they came into contact with. A Dungeon might create traps, but they did not set them—a crucial difference.
It felt like the Dungeon was playing mind games with them. Drawing them in deeper could be explained away by cunning—which Dungeons had in abundance. Mind games, however, implied intelligence, forethought, perhaps even a degree of maliciousness.
Elai tried to clear the fog in his brain, dispelling the errant thoughts. Nothing good would come of anthropomorphizing the Dungeon. Dungeons weren't capable of thought. Period. The mind games were just an illusion, a product of his shocked and panicked thoughts.
Unless that's what the Dungeon wanted him to think.
Elai swore. He didn't know what to expect anymore. Dungeons weren't meant to be sentient. Then again, new Dungeons weren't meant to suddenly gain a whole new floor and kill three members of an experienced team with barely a single monster encounter.
Lodr turned to him, "Dungeon getting to you too, eh?"
He nodded, "It's almost as if it's mocking us."
Lodr shared an understanding look with him, "Best not to think too deeply on it. Let's just get this job over with."
"But what if—"
"Best not to think too deeply. There's time for examination later." Lodr trailed a finger against a crystal on the wall. "Losing focus will get us all killed."
They continued down the tunnel, before they reached a small open space connecting another series of tunnels. Roots hung from the walls and a fluid-filled pit dominated the center, leaving precious little space to circumvent it. The faint flicker of gold at the bottom was barely visible in the gloom.
Lodr spoke to him again, "Keep your Cloak clear of those roots, they might be part of a trap. There shouldn't be roots that thick this deep. Not normal roots anyway."
Elai drew his Cloak in closer, hands moving in complex patterns as he calculated how to bend the light. As they approached the final root, Elai saw it twitch. He braced himself, getting ready to move out of the way. However, the root only rotated slightly, revealing the words engraved in it.
I see you.
Elai's eyes widened, as his eyes roved over the writing. He tried to stop, to verify that what he read was actually there. Var jostled him from behind and by the time he got a good glimpse of the root again it had twisted back around. The Dungeon. It was...
He stumbled forward. He felt eyes on the back of his neck, cold breath tickling the soft flesh of his throat. Eyes. Written. Words. Watching. Sap and bark. Root and tree. Screaming. Stumbling. Shadows danced in the darkened corners, gesturing toward him, beckoning. He stumbled again, hands faltering in their motions. The roots twitched and writhed. Just like Bala had. Before...
A strong hand grasped his shoulder, shaking him out of the grip of delirium, "Pull yourself together. You're slipping." Lodr gazed into his eyes. "We can't afford any more mistakes."
Elai nodded, ignoring the coaxing shadows. They pulled at him like the lure of the Fae, inviting him to their eternal waltz. He shook his head, resisting the darkness' call. He knew how that story ended. Legs worn down to stumps and the masquerade never-ending just as in the song.
He hummed the familiar song under his breath, taking solace in the dark inevitability and familiar verses of The Dance Of The Fae.
Lie fallow, six feet shallow,
Dance barefoot on the storm.
Your end is not ice bound,
Death's touch is warm.
Suffer in silence,
Lay aside your endeavour.
Immortality your partner
Dance now and forever.
"Will you stop that damn racket." Lodr grumbled. "It's making my teeth itch."
Elai stopped humming and went back to watching shadows. Or being watched by them. He wasn't sure. However, despite the feeling of being watched, there was a suspicious lack of monsters. And it put him even more on edge.
He would have been relieved to encounter a single slime, anything to vent his frustration upon, a real, living enemy. Currently, he felt as if he was fighting a far more nebulous but far more dangerous enemy. The Dungeon itself. He hadn't signed up to fight Dungeons, he had signed up to fight monsters. Still, the irony wasn't lost on him, given his history as a Core robber. A Dungeon was finally fighting back.
He heard a gasp behind him, followed by a yell and a screeching thump. He whirled, seeing the elf splayed out at the bottom of a pit filled with multiple short, barbed spikes. Fortunately, the spikes were relatively short and puncture wounds were easy to heal.
Elai threw down a rope from his backpack, instructing Var to grab on. He heaved on the rope, the barbed spikes providing relatively little resistance. He gave another tug and heard a click at the bottom of the pit.
The spikes were not fixed to the ground, instead they fit flush with small holes that allowed them to slide up and down. They had been tugged upward, still lodged in Var's body. And now they had reached their maximum extension, activating a hidden mechanism. A grating rasp seemed to emanate from a nearby wall and, acting purely on instinct, Elai jerked his head back.
A stone that must have weighed several tons slipped free from the ceiling, descending on Var's body, still impaled on the spikes. The stone impacted with a sickening crunch, fortunately blocking the entire pit from sight. To add insult to injury, the stone fit perfectly into the hole, not even creating a small bump in the floor to mark where Var's life had been suddenly cut short.
Elai shuddered, if he hadn't jerked his head backward would be dead. His Cloak had deteriorated during his attempt to rescue Var, so he brought it back into its proper configuration.
Lodr spoke up, "This is why we need to tread carefully, we cannot get complacent simply because we're not encountering any monsters. Do you all understand me? There's only five of us now, which means a larger share of the profit, but it also means that we die if we don't work together. We must move quickly, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't move sensibly."
They continued around the next corner.
And stopped dead.
Inscribed on the wall were words. Unfamiliar to everyone except Elai. Written hundred of times in varying neatness and size.
I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
Elai pressed his head into his hands. How did the Dungeon know where they were?
Lodr swore, "Forget the Core. We need to get out here."
No sooner did he say the fateful words than a huge slab slammed down behind them.
For the first time in the dive Lodr used his gaseous mana, imbuing his flail with power, increasing it's durability and destructive power. He slammed it against the stone barrier, pulverizing it to rubble in several swift strikes. Then with a metallic clang, the flail hit steel, denting it but not breaking through.
"This will take too long. We need to go forward. Be careful of traps." Lodr shouted.
Elai stopped maintaining his Cloak, instead dedicating his energy to keeping up with the frantic pace that Lodr set.
They rounded one corner then another, until they found themselves face to face with a crystal embedded in the wall. Lodr smashed the wall, wrenching out the crystal before resuming his run.
And drew to a halt.
Before them stood a sea of bleeding eyeballs and a single sentence on the wall.
No more traps, no more monsters, no more games, just you and me.
They had no choice but to wade through the eyeballs until they reached a clear tunnel. Barriers slammed down all around them forcing them in the Dungeon's chosen direction until finally they reached the corridor to the the stairway, the Iron Slime was still there, the two gnomes' lower bodies still protruding from it like some twisted sculpture.
They ascended the stairs four at a time, climbing higher and higher. They barreled through the Boss room, barely even noticing that the Boss failed to follow them, even without Elai's Cloak. They had just entered the first room, able to see the sunlight streaming in from outside when a barrier at the entrance slammed down, cutting off their window to hope. Burning suspended in the air were fiery letters.
You came to steal my Core. You thought you could hide from me. But you broke the rules by coming here to kill me. It's my turn now.
Part of the ceiling disappeared letting loose a tidal wave of what Elai instinctively knew was acid. It frothed toward the team like an unstoppable liquid juggernaut, and not a single one of them mustered the strength to run or resist. Regrets about how he had treated Bala filled Elai's mind as the wave bowled him over into blackness and burning noise. Several agonizing seconds later, his consciousness joined the Dungeon.
—Luneil—
Luneil laughed. That had been the most fun he had had in ages. He was still slightly drunk on the euphoria of absorbing the Lifeforce and patterns of nine powerful adventurers. Not only had he killed them but he had driven one of them to the very edge of a mental breakdown.
Not that it would stop him from making them suffer. For the past several hours he had been recycling the Core robbers in his acid pools or occasionally electrocuting them. All of them except the Arborling, he felt a strange kinship with her, a fellow monster. He left her to her death in peace.
The rest, however, deserved everything coming to them. He laughed again as he created a Blue Eel inside Lodr's intestines. Such was the fate of those who wished him dead.
Taking a moment's break from his entertainment he looked outside at the setting sun. The ones Lodr had described as the ambassador and the Pardoner would be arriving any day now. For some reason the idea filled him with foreboding and fire.
His entire Dungeon shook at the thought of a Pardoner desecrating his valley, triggering a rockfall nearby. He didn't know what a Pardoner was but for some reason the thought only amplified the fire within him.
"Luneil? Are you okay?" Zeph asked.
He collected himself,
He had no idea who these Pardoners were, but of one thing he was certain. The fire he felt was rage.
He turned his attention back to Lodr and resumed the punishment. This time, however, he wasn't laughing.