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The Merchantman Ship Good Tidings, Uncharted Island, Kalenic Sea

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Captain Eli Hart took a deep breath.

The remaining members of the shore party had gathered in the ship's hold, surrounding a circular table. Kailen had also been called to the meeting to take down notes and offer his observations.

"Alright, let's begin." He started, getting the other men's attention. "I want to start with what we saw of the dungeon itself."

"Fuck all." Garth spat. "We got one bloody room in, then those fucking crabs killed my friends!" Eil sighed. The man wasn't wrong.

"That's true, but we gleaned quite a bit of information from that single room," Eil stated, weathering Garth's glare. He powered on before the man could interject. "First, that strange mana light. It was too bright to make out the details, but where most will only brighten a small room, this one lit the entire cavern." He looked around at the others, who nodded.

"You might not have noticed the bars of stone that cupped the light. They were shaped like hands." Kailen stopped writing and looked up, startled.

"That is... worrying." The navigator stated, getting a contemplative look.

"Why so?" Leon asked with a concerned look.

"It means the dungeon knows what hands are." Rahim began.

"Which implies it's encountered humans before." Jahim finished. Hart nodded gravely.

"Yes, that's it exactly." The captain stated. "It's seen humans before and knows exactly what our hands are shaped like. Intimately. It also knows we hold things in them. And yet.... this island is still unknown and uncharted. There is a possibility we've stumbled onto a Lost Dungeon." He finished gravely. Leon and Garth looked confused, so he elaborated.

"Every dungeon is the same; a large gem that hides within the earth and creates monsters to defend itself. But there are categories we put dungeons into to make it easier to identify them. A Baby dungeon is newly-formed, with likely only a floor or two. It might only have basic monsters, which might not even have cores yet. Mana-mutants, essentially. This ranking system goes from Baby through Young, Mature, Elder, to Ancient. Then there are the special categories like Conquered, which should be obvious. A Lost Dungeon is a dungeon which, at some point, was likely Conquered but managed to free itself, wiping out its old masters in the process." Eli took a deep breath.

"How come you know so much about dungeons?" Leon prompted, more curious than before. Eli blushed slightly as the others also showed interest, embarrassed.

"I grew up in the city of Cott, on the western coast. Cott was built around the entrance to a dungeon and, as such, had a relatively high population of Guilders. Our entire economy was based on the resources the Guilders brought back from the dungeon's depths. They brought up meat to supplement our farming, metals, and other materials in abundance. With such an important role, they were greatly respected by the city's common folk. I once had the dream of becoming one myself." Eli trailed off. He continued after a few seconds.

"So I studied everything I could get my hands on. I pestered the friendlier Guilders for insightful tips and tricks." He sighed, sadness shining through his eyes. "Then, when I was old enough, I went to get evaluated. You might not know, but Guilders... aren't like normal folk. Something different about them lets them use the mana in their bodies to strengthen themselves, make themselves faster, or even perform magic. I didn't have that." He shook his head, mourning the lost opportunity.

"But we're getting off-topic," Eli said, changing the subject. "Losing Kurt and Kale was a tragedy, but it's more understandable if the Dungeon is Lost." He held a hand to forestall Garth's objection. The man had already opened his mouth and was visibly bristling. "The dungeon is likely an Elder Dungeon, or perhaps Ancient, in the worst case. It will remember being conquered and forced to use its mana in any way its master desires. Lost Dungeons are far more lethal in their defense if they feel threatened. But... in time, if shown that the guilders won't push too deep, they relax. At least, a bit."

There was a momentary silence, which Kailen broke.

"What were its monsters?" the navigator asked, obviously trying to move on.

"Giant Crabs," Hart explained, his tone becoming clinical. "There were three kinds. Two were the size of a Deepwood Wolf, the third the size of a juvenile."

"The big ones were mostly bright orange," Leon added, "Though the shade dipped into yellow and red at points. They had iridescent designs in the ridges of their shells that caught the light. They might be valuable. The smaller ones were grey, completely identical in color and texture to the cave walls. It could be a camouflage ability, an enchantment of some kind, or natural coloration."

"One of the nasty little assholes took my fucking bag!" Garth complained in a whining tone. He slammed a fist on the table. "Forty silver worth of potions and poisons, gone!" He sat back in his chair, palmed his face, and let his fingers drag downward.

"Aye. As we were leaving, one of the grey ones showed itself." Hart confirmed, "Right nasty shock, that. It looked just like a rock; we discounted it entirely. They had sharp pincers, sharp enough to cut through the leather strap in one snip." They gave Kailen a minute to catch up, and when he was finished, he rolled his hands to prompt them onwards.

"The first kind of the bigger ones had bulbous, spiked pincers. I'd call them mace-like. The other kind had two differently-shaped pincers, one resembling a shield, the other a sword. When you think about it, this is more evidence of it being a Lost Dungeon. Normal monsters don't mutate weapons new weapons from their bodies. They enhance their natural ones."

He looked around the table. "When we reach Port Laviet, I will visit the Guild Hall there. There is a substantial reward for information on dungeons, especially newly discovered ones. I'll ensure you all get a cut of the reward for your part in this little fiasco." The promise of silver caused Garth's eyes to gleam in the candlelight.

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The Dungeon, Uncharted Island, the Kalenic Sea

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I wished they had this conversation on the deck rather than in the hold. Gull could barely hear them through the noise of the other sailors and kept getting shooed away. Even his enhanced hearing struggled to pick up what little he did hear, but I caught a few words I understood. Not enough to understand what they were saying, though.

Giving it up as a bad job, I turned my attention from the busy but subdued atmosphere of the ship and back to my dungeon. The crabs had dispersed after their little battle and returned to their patrol paths.

All in all, I learned plenty from this experience. First, humans will attack me, if for currently unknown reasons. Second, I didn't feel much about having killed two of the humans. There was some guilt there, but it was overridden by the deep confidence I felt. I was only protecting myself. They were intruders; I couldn't talk to them, and who knew what they wanted from me? I didn't. Third, and most important. They could make healing potions. That meant there were definitely alchemists or potion makers, if not outright mages, wherever these sailors came from.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

And wasn't that a shock?

Shifty had pulled a round-bottomed flask from his satchel, one filled with a stereotypical red liquid. I couldn't sense the mana in the liquid while it was so close to the party, but now that I had free reign, I could feel the potent intent suffusing the mana in the bottle.

I likened it to when I'd healed my crabs by filling them with mana suffused with intent to heal. The humans had somehow figured out how to impart mana with incredibly strong intents and store them in liquid.

From all this, I drew a few conclusions. My moral code had been changed by being turned into a dungeon. Mana was known to the local humans. Mana has been harnessed in some way by said humans, and large amounts of mana can be somehow infused into a liquid.

Hmm.

You know what? That gave me an idea—a reward for passing the first floor.

If they wanted to kill me, there'd be no need for rewards, but maybe... They might be more likely not to murder me if I was beneficial. Or, at the very least, benevolent?

I formed another pedestal out of the stone sand, located in the empty circular space at the top of the spiral stairs. This one was a pair of twinned pillars curling around one another. I thought of making them snakes, but continuing with the theme, I kept them smooth and had the point where they split off to support a bowl shaped into hands, which cupped and were fused to the bowl. I extended a long thin stalactite from the ceiling, having it stop barely a foot above the bowl. Next, I pushed mana into a ring at the top of the spike of stone and infused the concept of condensation into the mana. Yes, this ring of mana would pull water from the air and form droplets on the stone's surface. It would. After a few minutes, I saw water droplets form and dribble down in long trails. They collected at the bottom until enough was gathered. Then...

Drip... Drip... Drip...

Now, I have a bowl of water.

For the second part, I carved intricate Celtic-inspired designs into the stalactite, layering it in bands. For each band, I pushed in mana with the concept of infusion.

As the water droplets passed over the carvings, the mana would be infused into them. With each band passed, the droplets would gather more and more mana. By the time they reached the bottom, they'd completely saturated.

And so it was. I watched my creation for a time, making sure it worked.

When water dripped down from the top of the stone, the drops shifted from unaltered water to something like liquid starlight. It shined and glimmered in the light passing through the doorway.

I had created my first... would this be an enchantment? Did this count as enchanting? You know, I think this counted as enchanting. Mana, given purpose and intent to do something more than float around in the air. Yeah.

I'm going to call it enchanting, fuck whatever the humans call it.

Whatever. Since this had once been my core room, a fair amount of mana still existed here. It'd been pooling near the ceiling. Now it'd been pulled into an orbit around the stalactite. After a few revolutions, a stream split off to flow down the staircase. The enchantment pulled mana from the stream as it passed and used it to power itself and infuse the water, though the amount used was negligible. It was surprisingly efficient after the bands of faintly glowing carvings had been filled.

Slowly, drop by drop, the level of the mana-infused water rose.

Now for some... regulation. I didn't want the bowl overflowing and spilling all over the ground. That'd be a waste. To that end, I layered a single ring of mana along the inner edge of the bowl. This was going to be my most complicated command yet, but I needed to see if it would work. I pushed a specific concept into the ring: a light switch—a conditional statement. If the water in this bowl reached this level, it would stop the mana in the stalactite from condensing water. If the water falls below this level, mana start condensing again.

I pushed it hard. I willed it to work just as I wanted. All that was left to do was wait.

It took an hour to fill the bowl completely, and when it reached the ring, I felt the enchantment at the top of the stalactite stop absorbing mana. Though it had stopped, it didn't dissipate. It'd deactivated successfully!

Success!

Now I felt like a proper dungeon. I had lesser monsters, a boss monster, and a reward for beating the boss. Now I just needed some properly equipped humans to test it.

Speaking of humans. After their last attempt failed, the humans from the ship weren't likely to try again any time soon. They'd ship off soon and inform whatever authority was responsible for monitoring dungeons. That authority would likely send a dedicated force to check me out properly—an experienced team.

This was where things got sketchy. They could just want to exploit my resources, which were my giant crabs and the bowl of mana-infused water.

They could want to seal or control me somehow. They might want to force me to make something specific.

They could also take my core from my dungeon and use it... ME... as reagents or in an item. Like... a magical staff!

If they viewed me as something to be destroyed, and if they were sufficiently powerful... I'd be unable to stop them.

I didn't know. I couldn't know. The soonest I would find out would be when they got here.

So, we fall back on the golden rule when facing the unknown.

Pray for the best, but prepare for the worst.

I'd need more than Crabs. Even if I upped their numbers significantly, they needed to be more experienced to be more than trash mobs. If I made them bigger, they couldn't navigate my dungeon. I couldn't make their shells stronger or their weapons more effective without making them larger. Or if I could, I still needed to figure out how. I didn't know how to make the assassin crabs actually invisible.

So, I would have to make do with something else for my second-floor monster. It was a little sad, to be honest. I was hoping for rat monsters. I looked over the labyrinth I'd carved, concepts and themes running through my mind. Maybe...

Could I?

If I raised this part here, lowered that... yes.

Yes.

This would work.

Without hesitation, I opened a passage in the lower half of a wall on my second floor. It wasn't big. A triangular prism, each side a foot long. Carefully, I connected it to the flooded tunnels my small crabs and fish use to get between the different caverns. It took hours, but soon my labyrinth had become the 'Flooded Labyrinth.' The higher portions were dry, but about half the maze was filled with water up to waist height. I ensured the tunnel you needed to take to reach the exit was flooded completely, along with five other sufficiently long dead ends.

If they had people who could see mana and follow it to find the exit, I decided to make my mana stream take a long, meandering route. It crossed over itself multiple times and passed through most of the flooded tunnels.

Now for the floor's defenders. Since the only animals I had access to were aquatic, I'd have to make do with fish.

I took a small break to watch the human ship sail off towards the setting sun, two men less.

I hoped they wouldn't hold a grudge.

Now for the monsters which would inhabit my second floor.

It'd be very dark since there were no light sources down there. Invaders would have to hold their torches or whatever up above their heads, out of the water. They wouldn't be able to see what's in the water.

Hmm. What kind of fish live out in the reef...

From what one of my claimed fish can see, they don't look like much. Regular, tropical fish. No sea snakes or sharks. I'd have to make something new. I had no specific ideas for what I wanted, but I realized I didn't need any. I shoved a whole load of different fish into the maze, saturated them with enough mana to form a core, and watched what happened afterward.

I may get inspired. I could be surprised.

Finding out would be entertaining, at least.

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Port Laviet, The Phenoc Kingdom, Theona

Five Days Later

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After getting to the bustling port city, Captain Eli Hart first met with his merchant contact to sell his cargo. That was just good business sense. Who knew what would happen later.

The second thing he did was grab the map with the rough coordinates Kailen had worked out for the island and find the local chapter of the Guild. The Guild was a massive organization, with branches in almost every city worth the title. This chapter had an imposing hall built of wood and stone in the previous century's fashion. It proudly displayed its age and history to all who knew what to look for.

When Eli entered, he froze. The eyes of dozens of Guilders loitering in the hall focused on him, sizing him up, then almost immediately dismissed him. He was just an ordinary man, not one of them. Not a threat. Eli took a minute to collect himself before walking slowly and deliberately to the reception. The woman behind the counter was stamping and signing forms with remarkable speed. When she didn't look up, he cleared his throat. She stopped and sighed.

"What's your business with the guild?" She drawled, looking up with a bored expression. Eli was a little taken aback. The Guilders at Cott had been a lot friendlier than the ones here. Or perhaps it was because he was an adult, not an overactive child. He spoke quickly but quietly.

"I'm the captain of the ship Good Tidings. On our latest voyage, we were blown off course by a storm. We found an uncharted island, and on this island, we encountered what I believe to be a Lost Dungeon." Though he had been trying to be discreet, from the suddenly sharp glances some of the more powerful guilders in the hall were sending him, they had heard his whispered words. The receptionist was a lot more interested now. She nodded, pushed her forms to the side, and spoke as she stood from the chair.

"Please follow me. I'll arrange for you to meet the Guildmaster."

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© Max Porteous, 2021