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The Dungeon, Medea Island, Kalenic Sea
Moments after the Delve.
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I...
I may have gone a little overboard.
After seeing them mow through the crabs, even when they were full-on trying their best to murder the party, I'd kind of just assumed they'd do the same with the fish. they were smaller, weaker and needed numbers to make up the difference.
I completely disregarded the fact they were at a huge disadvantage.
They were underwater, which severely restricted their movement.
Lieza couldn't use her most devastating spells, which removed the easiest method to clear the monsters.
Lione couldn't effectively fight dozens of fish with just his daggers, given his bow wouldn't really work well underwater.
Ferai was a healer, and couldn't exactly fight with his Morningstar underwater. It just wasn't designed for it.
Isid and Jerrad were similar, being unable to move or fight normally.
They put up a decent fight, as much as they could have at least. A sword swing there by Jerrad cut a Bloodfish in twain. Dual mana-blades from Isid shredded a couple of the Arrowfish swarming her. Lieza bore a small dagger, obviously her fallback weapon. She skewered a Sharpscale that attempted to shock her and failed to do any damage past her lightning resistance.
Lione, slashing with his twin daggers, increased flexibility and reaction time had racked up the most kills.
Ferai, as explained, had much less luck. In the minute they were fighting he had failed to smash a single fish with his large, bulky spiked ball-on-a-chain.
One by one, they succumbed to the fish.
Lieza was first. Given how the Sharpscales couldn't do much to her I sent a school of Arrowfish at her. With disturbing ease they cut through her robes and sliced her to ribbons. She didn't have time to reach for her teleport crystal; within seconds the blade-headed fish had cut her throat and tendons. She either drowned on her own blood or bled to death. I couldn't tell.
Not having actually meant to kill them, I hastily ordered the other fish to back off a bit, but the order came seconds too late to save Ferai. He had gotten surrounded by a dozen Sharpscales, who's combined Spark spells and conductive scales hid him in a cloud of lightning. now dead weight, he drifted down out of the cloud to the corridor floor.
Lione had lost a leg to the Bloodfish. His leather armor had been cut clean off there, and the fish were feasting on the severed leg.
Jerrad and Isid escaped to the surface, cut bruised and burned but without major injuries. Lione managed to get to the surface while the Bloodfish were distracted with his leg, giving Jerrad time to pull him out of the water. They disappeared in a flash of light, leaving me with some enhanced monsters and two floating corpses.
Well... At least some good will come from this fiasco.
While the guilder's mana drifted into the manastream and started on it's journey to my core, I had a group of Kobolds collect the corpses. They stripped them of their armor and weapons, collected their manacores, then threw the bodies to the fish. The bones would make good decorations.
Yes. I'm distracting myself from my lack of reaction by focusing on something positive. Let me have a quiet breakdown later.
The manacores were interesting. Shaped like a ellipse, the little gems were tucked away between the heart and spine. A similar location to my monster's but a different shape; my monsters all had perfectly spherical cores. They were... fascinating.
Lieza's core discharged electricity when mana was pushed into it. Ferai's core radiated a gentle yellow light that I assume is some kind of healing magic. What made their cores different from each other? I had no idea.
A quick bit of biological manipulation gave me two Shaman Kobold mini-bosses with gnarled wooden staves, with the ellipsoid cores clenched at one end by a wooden Kobold hand. My Fire Shaman looked disappointed, so I gave her wooden stave holding an obsidian orb. While the Fire Shaman would remain a mini-boss, my new healer and lightning mage expy quickly took up leadership roles in the two Kobold tree-top villages.
Hopefully they could learn how to produce the spells on their own, or I'd learn from the mana even now traversing the third floor, but my new Staff of Healing and Staff of Sparks are good enough substitutes for now.
Their robes and metal weapons were distributed between the mini-bosses, each getting at least one bit of the under armor the two mages had worn. My 'Floor Guardian' Mushu was given Ferai's Morningstar. It was a bit of a departure from his pincer-sword, but a far stronger weapon. He seemed to like it, given how he was swinging it about and smashing it into rocks.
The Teleport crystals were... strange. I had absolutely no idea how the mana in the tiny crystal warped space-time to transport the person holding it. I also felt like I wouldn't figure it out for a while.
The bones I spread about the second floor.
Alright.
No avoiding it now.
What the hell is going on with my morals?!
I feel no guilt from killing the humans. That at least, I sort of understand. I wouldn't be able to properly defend myself from their grubby little hands if I wasn't willing to kill them. Wait. That seems... Wrong. The new lord of the island, Medean, told the Guilders I wasn't to be conquered. I mean, they could just disregard it and enslave me anyhow... I could at least give them the benefit of the doubt? But they couldn't be trusted...
Fucking damn it! Dungeon Instincts. That's what it is. Has to be.
It's time to face the facts. I'm not a human anymore, if I ever was one. I'm a dungeon core with the full, unadulterated mind, memories and sapience of a human. I don't know if my old life was real, or if it was all a dream, but that doesn't matter.
I'm a Dungeon Core, with the soul of a human.
When thinking of the humans entering my dungeon my first instinct is to protect myself and kill them, to shield myself from all and sundry who would shackle or destroy me. That's the dungeon's instincts. It's not a bad thing, these instincts have likely kept many dungeons alive and free over however long we've existed.
After the initial murderous instincts comes the curiosity. This is an entirely different world. The names and language, the political entities and the fact mana is real. Who are these people, how have they survived if the world is covered by dungeons like me? The answer is that no dungeon is like me, but that's obvious. I want to learn more of these people. This desire doesn't really conflict with the instincts, given killing invaders would give me memories and knowledge.
Beyond the curiosity is the desire to interact with these people, this fully coming from my human side. It's... probably a bad idea to actually talk to them. They would try to conquer me even harder, in order to study what made me different. My dungeon instincts abhor that outcome. The thought of being conquered feels like death to me. So, a second option is needed.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
In the end, I decide that since they'll be delving me anyway, I might as well craft beautiful landscapes and intricate designs, all for the goal of eliciting an awed breath, or a whispered comment of beauty from those who manage to delve deep enough. It's not a conversation, but in it's own way... I feel like that will be enough for me.
In order for that to occur though, they have to actually make it to these floors.
With a new goal, I make plans for a staged retreat. Keeping at least two floors between myself and the humans at minimum feels doable, though more is preferable. Concepts for floor themes and transitions fly through my mind. Idly, I started hollowing out space for the fifth floor. This wasn't going to be a true floor, with all the monsters, traps and puzzles that entails... more of a transitional one.
In short, I want to show off, but I'm deathly afraid of letting people too close...
Do I have social anxiety?
Oh look, the guilder's mana has reached my core! A distraction from introspection! Time for some tasty knowledge. I wanna know how to make my monsters throw lightning!
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Layla's Office, The Guild Hall, Medea Island
Four Days Later
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Layla was collapsed forward on her desk, her face buried on her crossed arms. She'd just spent the night trying to figure out what she was going to do. The dungeon was dangerous, incredibly so. It was willing to let people run the first floor and leave, but enter with the intention of going deeper and it threw everything it had at you. With deadly intent.
Somehow, it knew when you were intending to go deeper. The round-the-clock guard hadn't reported any monsters leaving the dungeon, so foreknowledge was out. It couldn't be reading their minds... could it? No. Dungeons lost control of their mana around humans. It would need to make a connection somehow, and there's no evidence of that. Their party and Isid's hadn't said anything out loud about attempting to go deeper. As far as she was aware the sibling's party hadn't either... but the girl was so distraught, she might have said something off-hand but forgotten.
Was it... reading their intentions through body language? It's the only possibility left. That implies a heavy familiarity with humans, which is expected, but even picking up their intention to go deeper from the moment you walk in is too extraordinary.
In the end, it just knows.
On her desk was all the necessary paperwork to restrict access to the dungeon. All those below Gold were forbidden from delving. All those at Gold were restricted to 'Safe' levels, assuming the dungeon lets people delve floors that have already been cleared once. Platinum ranked adventurers were allowed to attempt to delve deeper, with sufficient planning and information. The same applied for all those above Platinum, rare as they were. All it needed was her signature.
The problem was the parties who had been regularly delving the dungeon's first floor so far were only gold ranked because of the party's leaders. The rest of them were still silver. Layla, Felin, Horat and Deval were the only Gold guilders on the island, after the two visiting parties left. Sure, Horat and Deval's parties had done well on the first floor so far, but if any of them decided to attempt the next floor they'd be decimated.
Layla sat up, leaning back in her chair. It was a hard decision, not one to make lightly. She had too much responsibility now to just delve into the dungeon every day. A glance out her office window revealed the supposedly fantastic view; The beautiful black sand beach was grey and lifeless to her mana-sight. The sparkling and warm water pulsed with mana, full of life. The clear blue skies were also grey, but dominated by the great river of mana pouring into the dungeon's entrance. And there, on the horizon, a fleet of ships approached.
With a sigh, Layla pushed the paperwork off to the side. When they had more Gold ranked, or if the Silvers reached their next milestone, then she would revisit it. For now, they just didn't have the manpower.
She tidied her desk, collating the reports her aunt and uncle had written with the previous accounts of the second floor. Her mostly-complete record of the first floor joined them in her desk. She placed the large bottle of mana-infused ink carefully into a separate drawer. Thank the Gods Isid had brought some more, she wouldn't be able to write a damn thing without it. Idly, she made a mental note to order more from the mainland. All paperwork that passed her desk had to be written in it for her to do her job, and their stocks were never full.
The next hour she spent in the Dungeon Room, updating information and naming the new monsters. She was interrupted by Felin, who spoke in his usual curt manner.
"Whole bunch of Guilders just pulled into port." He rasped, handing over a report from the newly-established port authority. A glance at the mana-inked writing enlightened her. A whole dozen Silver, five Gold and two Platinum parties, some almost a dozen Guilders strong, had just walked off that fleet of merchant ships.
"Did they say why?" She asked, trying to keep her cool. Her mind was racing with possibilities. Mostly about how they would house and feed so many Guilders, especially the higher ranked ones which would expect better quality accommodation.
"A bounty on the Dungeon." He said, a serious cast to his features. "Ten thousand gold to the party that shatters the core." At that, she froze.
Ten. Thousand. Gold. Pieces. That's...
"That's Insane." She started, off balance. "Who would throw away so much money over a dungeon!?"
He waved a piece of parchment, which unfortunately wasn't written in mana-ink. Luckily, Felin knew to read it out for her.
"By order of the Grand Duke Plaised, for the murder of his second son." Layla took a deep, calming breath.
"That party who left a week ago, the boy who died and left his sister behind, correct? They never gave their last names." She guessed. Felin shrugged.
Ultimately there was nothing they could have done about that, it didn't matter where you came from, if you took the oath you were a Guilder. Many who joined were trying to escape something or someone. Some didn't want their family names behind them in some misguided sense of honor and fair play. An applicant only had to give one name, but it had to be the name they were given at birth. Lie-detecting artifacts were used liberally in that sense.
Layla sprung into action.
"Ask Isid and Jerrard if Horat and Dival can use their Teleport crystals to get some crab meat from the dungeon. We're going to have to test it's edibility first, but it's the most bountiful source of meat on the island.
"Organize tents for the Silvers. The Platinums can take the spare rooms in the guild hall, though they'll have to share. Those new houses near the Hall, knock on a couple of doors and ask if we can rent the buildings for a few weeks. We'll give them fair compensation for the use of their new homes." Felin nodded and left. Layla ran her long, thin fingers through her hair.
If she wasn't albino, this job would have given her grey hairs long before her time.
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The Dungeon, Medea Island, Kalenic Sea
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The ships filled with Guilders pulling in to port gave me a terrible feeling, even before I overheard their reasons for being here.
A bounty.
Someone had put a bounty on me.
For Murder of all things!
Isn't it implicit that you risk your life when delving dungeons? Why the sudden hate? I haven't killed that many people... Kurt, Kale, Herna, Rorgas, Lione, Lieza, Ferai...
Rorgas.
It had to have been his sister. She ran home and told on me to her father, who put out a ridiculously high bounty on me if the response is this... enormous.
I guess I'm going to get a few guests in the very near future.
Guests that want to murder me for money.
I think I'm justified in upping the reproductive rates of my crabs.
I watched through dozens of seagulls and scores of rats as the Guilders settled in for the night. The two parties who delved my first floor regularly were given orders to kill my crabs, then use the teleport crystals to escape with the bodies.
it was certainly... odd. Then they tried cooking the things and it turned out my crabs are delicious. It's a little disturbing to me that they're eating my barely-sentient crabs, but their numbers had been replaced and then some by the next morning, so it wasn't a huge loss.
I also decided The Crabs were long overdue a new breed. I took a Brawler base, added eastern-dragon-like moustache-tendrils and a larger-than-normal mana core. It's pincers grew hollow tubes from which it could blast fire like a flamethrower.
All that was left was a name...
I'm drawing a blank.
Bah, it'll come to me.
I set it up so a few dozen of these would be sprinkled amongst the defenders.
Thus, my crabs now had a ranged option.
There was much rejoicing among their primitive tribes. Speaking of, I did feel a little bad at how many of them were being thrown into the meat grinder. I'd created them with that goal in mind, but it was more unsettling now they were intelligent enough to have a religion.
There were a few things that made me hesitate to reduce that intelligence though; The first was that they actually desired to spend their lives in service to me and the second was a reduction in capability would make them less effective, causing more deaths.
It blew my mind a little, that they would be so devoted as to throw themselves at the humans invading their home, fully knowing that they would probably die.
Tomorrow, when the first of these new parties began their delve, they would be my first line of defense and they were proud of that fact.
Willing to die for the Core, their Creator. Their God.
...I kind of feel bad for these humans. They had no idea just how hard delving me was going to be.
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© Max Porteous, 2021