As the party started leaving, Alex had a strange feeling. He had been feeling it this entire time, but it felt like the dungeon still had tricks up its sleeve. When everyone left the core room, he sealed the room with earth magic, and when asked just replies with, “just being cautious.” And thus the party left without further incident.
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“It seems that we really couldn’t win...” Yuna said dejectedly. The young dungeon core responded with, “Don’t worry too much right now. We are both still very young you know. Besides, while we didn’t kill the enemy, they didn’t accomplish their objective either.” Upon hearing that, Yuna could better handle the draw that they faced. While the adventuring group did reach the farthest depths of the dungeon, they lost to the illusionary power of the kitsune. They mistook an illusion for the true dungeon core, and didn’t notice the illusion of a wall right besides the dead end.
Still, losing my forces isn’t something that I like to see. Those brave foxes faced certain death against stronger and more numerous foes. Their sacrifice, however, was not in vain! Thanks to them I gained some insights on the enemy’s strength. They also had someone that could use earth magic. It seems that if I had focused on monster creation, they’d have busted my dungeon open with it. That would very likely end horribly, as they could end up opening the dungeon at any point of the path I created. If it was opened right at the core room, there could be disastrous results.
The dungeon was slightly surprised to have noticed the invaders as soon as they entered the dungeon. Although it could have to do with the strange bag of powder that they left and sealed off. The young core could tell something about it was terrible, and was glad he didn’t really need to deal with it. He didn’t know if he was detecting the powder or the actual group by themselves as he could still feel an ominous feeling from the room that had the powder in it.
“They may have failed this time, but I need to become stronger, so that we don’t have to hide behind tricks! We won’t always lose out to such invaders!” exclaimed Yuna with fire in her eyes. Although she’s acting like this, I know that keeping the two separate illusions up at the same time was very hard on her. With the last room noticeably sealed as it is, we’ll be able to avoid draining too much of her strength keeping two separate illusions, one being in another room entirely. Since I feel like I wouldn’t be able to create additional creatures if I was close to that powder, I’ll use this room to hide my new forces as well as create additional rooms from this spot as a hidden path to avoid dangers.
“Yuna, we’ll be contin---!” as The young core begins to speak, he detects a much more powerful force in his dungeon. The strength of it is much greater than that of the previous invaders of the dungeon. “We need the wall back, NOW!” Yuna noticing the urgency of of his voice quickly forms the illusion for the false wall. She felt uneasy as the previous group, although stronger than them, didn’t cause her master to panic. A dangerous threat had appeared.
The core focused very clearly on this new foe’s progress. It moved through the dungeon very quickly, not that anything was placed to stop it. It was not to long before it reached the fork in the road, now a dead end as both the way to the core room and the cake core room were either sealed or hidden. He looked around, examining the area before turning to his left and walking straight towards the core room.
Very shortly, and much to Yuna’s surprise, the invader just walked past the false wall, completely ignoring the illusion. It was a hulking figure that seemed even bigger due to it’s intimidation aura. The huge figure had green skin with tusk like teeth that pointed upwards protruding from its mouth. It wore a thin leather armor and had a single handed war ax strapped to his waist. With a sinister grin it drew the ax and said, “Heh heh, once I’ve dominated you, little dungeon, the tribe will be mine!”
This new invader was an orc. The dungeon core was sure that he recognized it due to the fact he could have chosen this as a monster type for his dungeon. This one was really powerful, too powerful. Yuna raised fox fire above both her hands and tossed them at the orc. The orc just used his free hand and batted them away. Then he swung down his ax at yuna, knocking her to the floor as blood pooled below her.
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For the young core, time seemed to freeze after he saw that. Overlapping with Yuna was the figure of some woman he couldn’t remember, dressed in a modern day business suit. He failed then. He would fail now. He would not allow this fate to continue.
Dungeon attempting to create avatar, insufficient power.
Dungeon attempting to create avatar, insufficient power.
Dungeon attempting to create avatar, insufficient power.
Requesting additional power from outside sources.
Such messages continuously popped up for the young core. He was vastly overdrawing his strength to create a chance to save Yuna. His very crystal was humming loudly and on the verge of shattering with cracks all along his surface. He gambled everything to save his friend. He would not lose to anything again. Just as his crystal was about to shatter…
Power granted. Initiate avatar creation.
His crystal burst into a vast green light! While it was a great struggle to reach this level of power, it happened within the span of a few seconds. What appeared after the light died down was a androgynous male, wearing a green yukata with emerald colored hair and eyes. On top his head was a pair of fox ears and he had several tails shown behind him. He looked to the orc with great anger.
Calling forth great power, the dungeon core drew the orc into a new illusion. This illusions power was many times greater than the one that provided the false wall. To the orc, it seemed as though he was brought to an entirely different world, one that stretched on for an eternity of white. Contrary to the dungeon’s expectations, the orc let out a grin. “A foolish move bringing me to your inner world. I’ll subjugate you here and take this power for myself! Kekeke,” the orc said with it’s laugh.
The orc quickly charged up to the dungeon core and quickly swiped his ax. The core didn’t even respond to this attack. Unexpectedly for to orc, the ax passed through the core as though he wasn’t even there. “What!?” he exclaimed in surprise. The core then stuck his hand through the orcs chest, passing through the armor and flesh and grasping something before yanking his hand back. Much to the orc’s pain filled horror, he saw his heart in the cores grasp, “impossible...” he whimpered as he fell to his knees and grasped at is chest do to the pain.
The core looked down at the orc with eyes of hate. Thoughts of sparing its life were a fantasy only the orc could hope for. The core looked towards Yuna, as he could still see the world properly through his own illusion. While the overlapping image was still in the back of his mind, his thoughts strayed to the myths behind the kitsune. They are known as messengers for the god of harvest Inari, and are even referred to as Inari foxes. He had decided on his name. Looking down upon the orc with all the authority of the world he held the heart in his fist a little tighter and stated, “You have committed the great crime of hurting my greatest servant! For this terrible crime I, the dungeon Inari, sentence you to death!” With that declaration, Inari crushed the heart in his fist and the orc died of a heart attack, truly believing in his own death. Inari wasn’t finished with just this.
As the orc died, Inari could see the remaining spirit. He then grasped it, the remnant of this orc within its spirit. He stripped the last bits of ego that remained of the orc until it was a wisp. His instincts were screaming to devour the wisp, but he decided to use it differently, Kitsune were fox spirits, and he thought to add some spirit to his first fox. Taking the spirit and placing it within Yuna, she began to glow and change. Inari wouldn’t be able to see the results, however. This was due to him running out of power. He fell to the ground, reverting back to an emerald crystal, bigger than before though.
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Name Inari Rank e Health 500 Health recovery 10 per hour Mana 500 Mana recovery 50 per hour Titles Creater of Kitsune, molder of souls