{Advisorless Dungeon detected. Declared Fallen by former Advisor, Local Dungeon God confirms. Applying negatives and a few small bonuses.}
What? I was still in a state of semi-shock. I could feel the absence of System clearly, like a missing limb. I could also hear a dull arrhythmic thumping coming from somewhere. I didn’t know that could happen... System didn’t say anything about this being a thing...
{Dungeon Entrance Timer reduced to 36 hours, all non-mythic metals, all non-magic items, and half of all gemstones will be removed from inventory. Unlocked recipes will remain. All Pantheons alerted to the existence of a new Fallen Grand Dungeon. One Perk Point gained. Legacy System Interface acquired, ability to gain non-Pantheon-approved advisors acquired after achieving level 5.}
I felt suddenly hollow as my inventory rapidly drained almost completely, leaving only wood, stone, a few gemstones, a few items, all the collected stone and organic materials, and the starmetal within my resource-inventory. In the upper corner of my vision, a clock appeared glowing a very angry red.
[35:59 Until the dungeon is opened.]
Oh shit oh fuck what am I gonna do? Damnit Fel, gotta stay focused! I’ve still got thirty-six hours to work with before shit goes sideways... Again. Right, with System --damn them to hell for doing this-- gone, I gotta learn on my own. What the hell are these perk points? I opened up my status screen to see if anything changed.
Name:
Fel
Floors:
1
Level:
4
Treasure Quality:
Poor
Race:
Fallen Grand Dungeon
Creatures:
3/10
Exp:
40/75
Traps:
0/2
Mana:
37.5/37.5
Inventory:
+
Mana Regen:
5.8/Hr [6]
Skills/Traits:
+
Magic Affinities:
+
Perks:
+
I mentally clicked the [Perk] button, but nothing happened aside from me getting a notification box.
{Perks are unavailable until Level 5 is achieved.}
Oh fucking hell. Well, I guess I’ll find out later then. Right now, I better get to digging, probably think of traps... I went to the dungeon-planning view, and started laying out rooms without any real rhyme or reason just to get me to stop panicking. Once I had several large rooms, a half-dozen hallways between them and several small rooms, I hovered over the [confirm] prompt.
Hmm, is it five exp per work order, or five exp per room? Time to do a little test. I cut up the plan I’d done into a few sections. In one section, there were two hallways and two rooms of different sizes. In the other, was one hallway that I had adjusted to where there was a foot of stone between its end and the beginning of the room it would connect to while still leaving the room available as a blueprint. I was pleased to note that it became two separate blueprints instead of being one weird funky one.
Alright, time to get the golems to do some digging! I hit [confirm] on both areas, and watched as both golems headed towards the singular hallway first. The large golem tore large chunks out of the wall, while the smaller one took the time to make sure the corners of the hallway were nice and squarish.
I watched them for about ten minutes before I felt myself growing slightly impatient. Right, this’ll go a helluva lot faster if I have a few more golems... though it’ll take a hit to my mana regeneration... I’ll just make a few more. Hmm, I’m thinking a few teams consisting of two large golems and two small golems per team oughta do but that’d be too many monsters. I’ll just make two more to fill out this team then.
I had the golems pause while I made them two new uncored brothers. Once again, the golems took only thirty seconds apiece to come into being. The small basketball-sized golem was dark and twinkled like a portion of the night sky. Oh holy shit, didn’t realize I used starstone for that! Why did it use that? Wouldn’t that be its own type, or is it because starstone is a type of stone? I have so many questions that I doubt I’ll get answers to. Heh, kinda looks like a faceless Geodude with legs and shorter arms. The large one looked identical to its brother.
I watched as the trio of standard stone golems dipped their torsos towards the small starstone golem, then all four of them began work once again on the hallway. The original small golem was moved onto the shoulders of the new large golem, adjusting the looks of the ceiling and making it more smooth as opposed to the rough-hewn rock the larger golems left behind, while the starstone golem attacked the floor’s corners with a ferocity unlike anything I had seen before. Where it went, the area where the floor meets the wall was an absolutely perfect ninety-degree angle, and the floor was smoothened completely flat.
It took the group five more minutes to finish the other three quarters of the short hallway, and I got the notification that it was done. I didn’t even have to tell them to work on the next area, though the starstone golem lagged behind them as it continued making the golem-dug floors as flat as possible. When it entered the areas I had simply absorbed, it gave a little huff of indignation and sped up to get to its brothers, each step sounding like a giant’s footsteps. Probably due to how heavy that starstone is? I definitely need to get things checked on that in the future. One more thing to add to the mental checklist, I guess.
Two hours passed as the golems dug out the second test area. While they did so, I scrolled through the items I could create as well as ponder which creatures I might want for future floors. Man, so many choices, so little time. And so gods-damned expensive now to boot. I guess things won’t be as bad later in time when resource production is up the wahzoo and I need to figure out what to do with it all, but still. Oh, hey, that’s new.
I was just lounging around in the core room, and had just noticed that the mana generator was not in the spot it had appeared in. That’s weird. I kept my gaze on the little floating gray marble for another hour, noting that it indeed moved on its own, and had done an almost complete revolution. That’s very weird.
[Work order completed. 5 Exp gained.]
The golems finished, I see. So, if I want fast exp gains, just gotta micromanage all the digging room by room for the foreseeable future. I wonder if I’ll get a similar notification when the hamster gets the wheat node harvested? On a different note, I should probably, no definitely get some defenses up. I quickly reorganized the rooms I was going to have the golems dig, and let them loose on the next four areas.
I stared longingly at the amount of traps I could have in the dungeon, wondering if they were constructs, or their own menu. I did try ‘clicking’ the trap option, to no avail. Grand. Guess they’re constructs or something? Or am I just being dumb, and I can find them in the dungeon-view?
Once more going back into the weird external view of my dungeon, I took the opportunity to actually investigate the interface. Okay, so there’s more than just ‘wave hand over this area to get it dug,’ that’s good. The traps’re pretty basic though they might get better with new levels. I’ve got two corridors leading to the central area one of which is where my core room butts in, so I might as well put one in each. And I’ve got an idea... I wonder if this will wo-
[Multiple work orders completed. 25 Exp gained.]
Oh, that’s good... wait, only four golems were digging. Where did the other exp come from?
I looked around and saw that the timer on the wheat node had once more returned to the sixty minute mark. To the side, sat a hamster next to an absolutely gigantic pile of grain compared to itself, its cheeks adorably packed full. Aww, it looks so cute! I should totally figure out a name for this lil’ guy later. Wait, shit. That put me over the levelup threshold.
I gazed at the clock in my vision with undisguised loathing as I saw it tick over into a new hour.
“God fucking da-,” I yelled into the empty air as I felt the hammer blow of the levelup process hit me like a five-ton forklift.
I woke up three hours later feeling rather refreshed, but still annoyed. I opened up my Status screen and smiled at seeing that things were updated other than just my mana, regen, and exp requirements.
Name:
Fel
Floors:
1
Level:
5
Treasure Quality:
Poor
Race:
Grand Dungeon
Creatures:
5/20
Exp:
5/105
Traps:
0/5
Mana:
75.0/75.0
Inventory:
+
Mana Regen:
7.1/Hr [7.5
Skills/Traits:
+
Magic Affinities:
+
Perks:
+
[Creature customization unlocked.]
[Construct customization unlocked.]
[Trap customization unlocked.]
[Perk system unlocked.]
[Work order completed. 5 Exp gained.]
Taking note of the new abilities available to me, I opened up the dungeon-view again and opened up the trap menu. Okay, got spike traps, pit traps, trap doors, rocks fall everyone dies. Heh, the very basics. Seems they all come with the caveat that they’re pretty easy to spot with detection magic. I wonder...
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Putting a pit trap schematic in the hallway where my golems had originally broken into the little area, I was unsurprised that the trap did not just spring into existence and required digging out. Ope, right. Gonna get the go- oh, they’re already digging. Man that’s handy.
A short time later, the golems were done with their task, standing around at the bottom of the pit which was twice as deep as the large golems were tall, and stretching the entire width of the hallway. I set up the next work order to start, and noted that the golems all started bumping into the side of the wall in the direction of where they were to dig. Huh, they’re... not that smart. Wait, this is the perfect opportunity! HAHA! TIME FOR SPACE MAGIC!
With the dungeon-view, I waved my hand over the group of golems, observing that a circle of magic runes sprang up around each of them, and with the other I waved at the central room. With an expenditure of twenty mana and a poof of blue smoke, the golems teleported from the bottom of the pit to the center of the room. They immediately started trundling towards the next area to dig.
With this first use of actual magic, I was filled with joy. Oh my god I can use actual magic. This is the best day ever! One intrusive thought did make itself clear that all that I had been doing since I woke up could be described as magic, but I shrugged it off. Oh this brings up so many possibilities.
I noticed that under the [Spatial Affinity] tab, a submenu I’d not noticed before was flashing.
Teleport:
5 mana per item/creature to be moved.
Portal:
5 mana per hour per portal pair, allows instantaneous transfer between two points.
Ah, the spells tab. Wonder why I didn’t notice that before? I quickly checked the other affinities that I had available and noted I had quite a few spells available. I had actually used one earlier --Earthmover-- when collecting the starstone, and when I had dug my first hole. And another, by the name of Spark, when I lit the candles.
I also noticed a small bar had appeared under the Spatial, Fire, Manipulation, and Earth affinities. I think I get it. Those are their own progress bars. Gonna do one test first.
I dropped a necklace that weirdly enough hadn’t been absorbed into the basic resource pools on the ground in the core room. I then focused and teleported it to the other side, while watching the progress bar. It moved just a little bit and I wished once more for a physical body so I could jump for joy.
Alright, next test. I opened a portal pair in the central room, and was relieved that the portals didn’t eat into my actual mana regeneration, they could be active for a time with my banked reserves. Hmm, wonder why that is? Must investigate later, after I’m opened up. Both oval portals glowed a gentle blue, hanging in the air, the edges slightly tattered looking.
Tossing the necklace through one end of the room, it fell to the floor on the opposite side from the other portal and the little bar increased again. Good, good... Tossing it again, gained the same result. Wait, what if...
I deactivated the portals and looked over at the pit in the hallway near the Core. Hmm, if I just put it above, it’s kinda really obvious... Let’s just dig that out a bit, shall we?
With that thought, I spent another two mana making a mirror pit in the ceiling above the original. Also weird, why was that cheaper than just making a golem to dig it out? Man I wish I had an info booklet like those old video games used to come with. I sighed sadly. If there’s one thing I really miss, it’s playing video games with friends.
I shook myself out of the fugue, then created another portal pair and made sure they were lined up properly. Damn this small mana pool... I’m gonna have to wait some time before I can do any more tests or defenses after this. Withdrawing a chunk of granite, I made sure to hover it over the exact center of the bottom portal and dropped it. Through one portal, out the other, and then immediately repeating in an infinite loop.
“This was a triumph! I’m making a note here; huge success.” I sang happily as I watched the rock fall and fall and fall, speeding up each time, Life in Stereo automatically triggering to play the rest of the song. As the song played, the rock’s speed grew faster and faster, by the time the song was halfway finished the rock was glowing a bright fiery orange.
Once the song finished, I was greeted with the notification that my Spatial Affinity had leveled up. And the little progress bar was continuing to go up. Oh fuck the hell yes! Exp loophole! Hah! The rock was almost glowing white-hot.
Soon enough, the bar reached about three-quarters of the way to level three, and the rock spontaneously exploded in a violent display in the center of the hallway. The explosion shattered both portals, damaging the pit and hallway but most importantly clearing out the rubble that had been blocking the way further into the distance. The explosion also reached through the other tunnels, blowing out the walls that had held the first door I’d stumbled across, but thankfully not damaging anything else further down the line.
Oh, oops... That’s... damn, that’d be a good trap! Just the eternal pitfall, with an explosive finish, or probably just burning things to a crisp. Gravity, thou art one of the most dangerous things in my arsenal!
I gazed into the area as the dust settled. The hallway beyond was in ruins, but generally still recognizable as a hallway. The floor sloped upwards and ended two hundred feet away at a round stairwell wide enough for four men to comfortably walk up or down by my estimation. From the evidence of the rubble, a fair few of the stairs had fallen to the lower areas. In the space near the bottom, I also noticed quite a few crates with strange symbols on them. I couldn’t quite make it out from this distance however. Life in Stereo chose this moment to kick in to add ambiance to the area, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. I sighed and just decided to think on the positives for now.
That... might make a good entrance. Just to make sure the system doesn’t fuck me over and make my entrance right in my core room, I might as well go expand my domain to over there and hope it reaches the surface... When I’ve got the mana to spare. Damnit, being low-level SUCKS no matter what you are.
I sighed, glaring at the timer, and looked at the damaged pit. I went back to the dungeon-view, and saw it was flashing the {incomplete work order} notification.
Oh, it needs a cover to be considered a pit trap. Funs. I wonder... Canceling the work order for the pit, I was genuinely surprised to see that it didn’t magically fill itself back in. So pit in ground with a cover equals trap, but pit in ground without cover is just that, a pit? Hmm... I wonder.
In a few moments, I was staring at a window that showed a stone golem. Ah yiss, customization time! I started out by taking the rough boulder-shape, and making it a large smooth rectangle, sized to just fit within the dimensions of the pit. Okay, Box Golem, but this ain’t finished yet. Next I hollowed out the box and made it slope to a point near the bottom.
To the side, a checkbox list was brightly lit, listing off the items needed for a golem. Arms, legs, head (optional), core... Oh, I can make cored golems now! This pleases the Fel. Dang, custom golems require cores though... Hmm, also an option to add a core to an existing golem? Very nice. Oh, there’s a checkbox here for immobility... I don’t plan on this thing moving much, so if I hit this... Ah, alright, removes the need for legs. Nice, but it does make the thing a ‘trap’ variant. Damnit. I unchecked the box.
Hmm, does it matter where I put the legs? Let’s find out! I designated two cylindrical columns at the bottom of the box’s pit as the legs, and was happy with the result. One adjustment lost that moniker though, as I attached both ends to the sides. Hmm. Let’s try this. Another adjustment, and now I had two large cylinders, and two long rods of stone. Alright, that counts as legs. I’m not going to question that. And it doesn’t look like it matters where on the body they're positioned, as long as they’ve got ‘em. This pleases the Fel greatly.
With a positively evil cackle, I spent half an hour adjusting the two cylinders to have a great amount of evenly spaced offset teeth, pointed towards a thin point between the two rollers where the teeth from both rollers intermeshed. Alright, with the shredder bit made, let’s see about those arms. Man, I never knew having such a... eclectic interest in industrial equipment could help me in this new life? And all sorts of other topics, heh. Love me the sci-fi, fantasy, steampunk, dieselpunk, and just good ol’ guns ‘n swords. Bit of a shame I kinda let my degree go to waste back home, but hopefully I can apply at least SOME of the knowledge I’d acquired to this whole dungeon business. So many things that were useful for recycling, or building, or demolition... so many things that I can say “SCREW OSHA! I MAKE THE RULES NOW!” to, and nobody can stop me! Mwahahahahaha! Ha... Ha... Man I think I’d better make my own OSHA once I get some dungeon creatures that can think, don’t want ‘em accidentally dying to my own things. And no lawyers, unless I’m desperate. They’re far too dangerous. Now, enough getting distracted by my own thoughts! Time to finish this golem!
The arms were by far the simplest to do. I stretched them out so that both of them covered half of the top hollow portion. I was able to designate the long edges on either side as the shoulder joint, and grinned when I figured out that I could make an elbow joint in the halfway portion of each arm. Nice. Now, I can be somewhat nice, and only have the golem open up half the actual trap, or be really mean and have the whole thing slam open.
The only thing missing now was the core. Alright, says here I just need to choose any gemstone to form the basis of a core, higher rarity means stronger core, thus stronger golem. I rummaged through my inventory, noting I had a few gemstones of varying rarity. Couple ‘o sapphires, an emerald, a few rubies, one diamond, one onyx, one something called a dragonstone. I paused for one moment. Weird, looks just like that one from Runescape of all things. Let’s see here, there’s also one greater mana crystal... Huh, last one’s on the common variety weirdly enough, also can’t be a golem-core. Funs. Well, let’s ma- oh, these cores take ten mana to make. Damnit.
I waited for two hours, all the while the hamster did its thing and the thumping noises got increasingly more and more constant, like a heavy rainfall during a severe thunderstorm. The kind where you can’t see more than two feet in front of you because the rain is coming down so heavily. During this time, I debated on which gemstone I wanted to use, and ultimately decided on a ruby that I set aside to use.
While on that note, I also discovered that if I took all the gems I had available and made a resource node out of them, I received a [Precious Gemstone Node] that could be harvested for any of the gems that went into its creation. This node went immediately into the room with the hamster, and I tasked the original small golem with harvesting the gems. Thankfully, it’ll only take the small guy an hour or two to harvest. Now, to make that core... And crap, forgot I had to wait for the mana to make the core, used that on the node... MORE WAITING, WHOOPEE!
Without System to guide me, I struggled to figure out how to make a Golem Core out of a diamond and mana. Okay Fel, think. It’s NOT the same as how I made that starmetal node, I can just feel it. Maybe I just toss mana at the diamond?
Tossing mana at the diamond didn’t do anything, sadly. Okay, let’s try something else... Maybe I should take some inspiration from another Dungeon I remember reading about. Fantastic story that was.
I took the diamond, and held it before my sight in the central room. I then enveloped it with both of my hands, leaving the top still exposed. Focusing, I felt my mana flow down into the impromptu chamber and once the necessary amount was added, I fully closed my hands around it. I immediately felt the mana trying to escape my grip, and so I tightened it. It took five whole minutes in which I felt just a little bit of phantom pain, but the process worked.
“Oh thank god,” I panted out as I opened my hands to reveal a brightly shining red gemstone.
I quickly returned to the creature-designer, and placed the core below the rollers of the golem. Hah! Now if any adventurer wants it, they’ve gotta brave the shreddy bits! Oh, hey, that’s nice. Cored golems just have the resource cost, and don't need added mana. Probably ‘cause of the cost of the core.
After adding the core, I just had to select which type of stone I wanted the golem to be made out of. Before hitting the [confirm] button, I noticed that I was able to change the type of stone in the limbs compared to the body. Wait, thought stone golems could only be made of one material? Or... Oh. I think I get it. If it’s a stone golem, and it can be made of any stone... Then it stands to reason I could make it out of several different stone types, and a metal golem would probably be able to be made of different metals. Hmm... The visual would be pretty good, but I’m not sure if I should. Ah fuck it, gonna take me a little longer, but this’ll look pretty good. And that starstone seems like it’s also got that indestructible quality the starmetal has.
Another twenty minutes went by as I harvested some more of my core room’s wall, trying to make the area I’d already scooped more like a small dent, rather than a bunch of rough hand-scoops through soft clay.
Alright, that thumping is getting kinda concerning. It’s constant and it’s all around the dome. What the fuck is causing it, ‘cause it sure as shit ain’t something I’m doing.
Soon, I managed to finalize the golem to my liking after doing some more detailed work to make the top of it blend in better with the tiled floor of the hallway. When it was to my liking, I hit [confirm] and watched as the golem sprang into existence within the pit.
[Unique creature variant: Shredder Golem created. Twenty Exp awarded.]
Woo! Alright, here’s hoping I won’t ever really need to use you, but one can never be too careful. The golem did not respond, but gave off an air of calm patience. Uh, why don'tcha open up yer arms? I’d like ‘t get a good view of ya.
The golem complied, and I was treated to the view of smooth granite sloping down on all sides to meet just above the two toothed rollers of starstone. Without being asked, the golem started moving them slowly so I could see the starstone twinkling even more. Oh yeah, whatever gets dropped in here is gonna think the stars themselves are going to want to eat them up. Alright, go ahead ‘n close up.
I spent the remainder of the time on the clock anxiously trying to save up my mana and manually expanding towards the hallway, because I sure as hell did not trust the automatic expansion. There were several exp-gain messages throughout, leaving me near to leveling up. Eventually, I got to the bottom of the stairwell and gazed upwards. Sure enough, I could see that several of the steps above me had broken in half, and I could see upwards into another flight of stairs. I had also been very, very, wrong about my estimates on how wide the stairs were.
Holy shit these things are tall. Like, you could drive two whole semis down these with room to spare. Jesus Christ who made this, giants?
On one third of the stairs, closer to the center, stairs fit for a human’s stride ran along the central column. Just to their side, closer to the outside wall, the stairs were larger, obviously meant for beings of very long strides. On the outer side of the stairwell, it was more of a ramp than stairs with two generous grooves sculpted into the stone. I stood in awe of the sheer size of the architecture I found myself within, and then laid eyes upon the group of about twenty crates by the stairs. Along with a wagon that laid on its side from several broken wheels. One crate had fallen over and spilled its contents, revealing a large amount of books. Oooooh boy, better not absorb these, might just gain books as something I could make and lose the original texts. I wonder if I can read them, or if I’m gonna have to learn how to read and write this world’s language? Hmm, investigate stuff now, think of what to do with those books later.
I peered closer at the symbol on the boxes. Five of the crates were made of incredibly durable construction--some sort of hardwood coupled with what I assumed to be steel reinforcements--and had a shield that was quartered in black and gray with a gold crown in the center. A rampant lion in black with blue eyes stood in the center of both gray quarters, while the other quarters had an image of a gold castle wall. They were covered in dust, and had obviously been there a long time.
The rest of the crates however looked like they had been placed recently. All of them, including the one that had spilled over, had a symbol of a tall light gray mountain with a black portcullis in the bottom, all on a kiteshield-like background. Above the portcullis I could swear the golden symbols I saw were an I, a D, and a G, but I brushed this off as preposterous. It’s not like this world knows English, I bet. But that is kinda weird. I’ll grab all of these later, once I open up. I sighed, and started the long climb upwards, expanding my influence manually as I went.
Unfortunately for my mental state, it seemed the higher I went up the stairwell, the louder the thumping sounds got along with a slight increase in volume of the music playing in the background. With two hours remaining, I finally reached the top of the stairwell, finding myself in a ruined basement where the thumping sounds were extremely loud and frequent, coming from the wooden rafters above. Dust rained down in a constant stream and there was a noise I couldn’t exactly identify accompanying the thumps.
Just what the hell is causing that? And GOD DAMNIT! Life in Stereo’s been stuck on Library Suite. This is NOT the song I want to listen to right now! AND WHY IS IT ON LOOP? IT’S BEEN GOING ON FOR TWELVE HOURS! HOW DO I TURN IT OFF? I mean, it was great for the first... thirty minutes, but god damn!
There was another smaller stairwell at the far side of the basement, completely blocked off by rubble. Dust cascaded down onto the floor, coating more crates that had that weird I.D.G. symbol. The ceiling was broken in several places, especially along what appeared to be a large trap door or something like a cargo hatch on an old timey sailing vessel, but I could see an opaque magical barrier preventing it from collapsing down. As I watched, however, the rubble and ceiling started shaking in time with the thumping.