Chapter 051: Descending
I gave our ranger a bottle of fine wine and sent him off to strike a deal with local naiads. As most nymphs they were pretty easy going and were totally fine with tolerating (or even helping) mortals as long as there was something in for them. The suggestion of future gifts should be more than enough to persuade them.
If only everything was so easy…
I decided to depart to the dungeon tomorrow. It was already after noon (13:34 according to the watch I bought recently) and, frankly, there were things to do. We had to install the magical devices we bought. We had to help unpack the food Kovacs group bought (they bought it in bulk and it was packed into rather big containers).
Then there was a time for official consecration of both shrines. Overtyrant one was off limits, obviously, but the inrithian priest invited us for theirs, and it would be pretty rude to say no. Also, our resident khardics attended another event, so they were unusable for a while as well.
It was nice to see people being genuinely happy. Their lives improved considerably. This place was like heaven for them. Most of them probably couldn’t imagine such opulence.
We left before the mandatory mass. I… wasn’t exactly ready to participate. Neither was Simea.
Vaera spent the whole day lazing around. Lena and Leria choose ten young men and women from each village. Then they forced me out of my bedroom. Where I, together with SImea, engaged in a rather pleasurable things.
We read books.
The double L team decided that it wouldn’t stand and that they need someone to teach the basics of mana manipulation. At least some prospective adventurer/guard hybrids should have some skill in that regard.
I also planned to have our ranger teach a few of the villagers (three-four tops) about how to hunt. Few more about foraging. Though not now, since searching around the area was much more urgent and the winter was almost upon us.
Of course, we weren’t going to teach them the basics in one day. So we devised some basic exercises they were going to do while we were absent. Menara, in the same time, was supposed to use the resources brought back by Kovacs team and create equipment for them. Which was much cheaper than buying it in town and allowed her to increase her skills.
She already finished golem steel daggers for Simea and spear for Lena. The wooden parts for the latter she bought in the city while we were busy retaking second level of the Hold.
Progress on every level, that much was obvious.
We also had our enchanter enchant Leria’s sword. The effect wasn’t strong. She only had a small mana crystal, and she was still a low level , but it should make her sword more dangerous against Beyond creatures.
The ranger returned early in the evening. He persuaded naiads of local river to look favourable on as. They confirmed that there were no apex predators around, and the forest really was a somewhat idyllic place with bad PR. Huh.
The bad PR would probably change it into a true deathtrap (damn Dark), but the local dryad held everything in her ironfist and kept the place more or less safe. How nice of her.
The last thing I did that night was having a talk with Kytar about the reconstruction of my quarters. There was something I wanted to change there. Not yet (lack of money was a pain), but just in case if we had some free assets to spare. Then… I could finally retire to play with Simea for a bit.
***
The next morning our group prepared their gear, got provisions from Kytar and, finally, departed. The ranger showed us the way to the dungeon he discovered.
It snowed. Not strongly, but according to Leria in a few weeks trying to get anywhere was going to be a pain.
The Dungeon was a completely unassuming cave, hidden deep inside local woods. Maybe an hour of journey from the Hold. No wonder he found it, really. The magical power leaked from it, as from all Dungeons.
Their spread was partially responsible for the whole world being so… magical. And for the number of wild daemons running around. They extracted aether from beneath the ground and used it to power itself up - while exhausting what was left outside. The plants normally encountered in a mana-tainted environment started a few hundred meters before the entrance.
Sooner or later someone - probably one of the local archmagicians - was going to detect a spike of magic in the area. There was nothing we could do with that. But it depended on the speed of growth. It could take years.
The forest elf excused himself after he led us to the entrance. He said he wasn’t in fighting condition, not after his years in the sewers. Running was one thing, fighting against things was another. We bade him farewell and he run away.
“So, what’s the plan?” Leria asked me when he disappeared.
“Well. We get in and we beat everything the Dungeon Master sends against us.” I answered her with a smile. “Then we gently knock on the dungeon core and say ‘Excuse us, do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ?’ Or Overtyrant, if you will be the one doing the knocking.”
“Is that another joke from your world that I don’t understand?” She said, after hearing Simea and Lena chuckling.
“Yes. Well, the rest stays the same. Dungeon Masters were created to rule over vast amounts of lesser creatures. Many of whom, especially those strongest, have enough power and free will to become a threat if left to their own devices.” I said. “Because of that, Dungeon Lords are naturally… uhm… dominant. The only way to force them to negotiate is to prove that everything he surrounded itself with is meaningless. And we can destroy him if he refuses to cooperate.”
“Doesn’t that mean that sooner or later he will rebel?” Simea didn’t seem to be convinced to the whole idea.
“Normally, yes.. But the fact that they prefer to be on top in every relationship doesn’t necessary mean they can’t see reason. There are precisely as sapient and sentient as we… that is, as long as the Dungeon Core grew enough.”
It was the only potential flaw in our plan. It would be hard to negotiate with the being unable to comprehend human language. Or any other method of communication. It required a lot of growth for the Core to achieve sentience and then a bit more to understand the concept of ‘self’ and to differentiate itself from the Core, to truly become a Dungeon Master.
Well, judging from the amount of power that seeped from the Dungeon into surrounding territory, it spent a while growing. It should be smart enough to communicate. And we had a lot of things it would find useful. All that remained was to force it to sit by the negotiation table - the fact that we could reach the Core itself should set us in the position of strength.
***
You entered a Dungeon!
Name: Cave
Grade: Iron +
Number of Floors: 24
Floor 1: Floor
… yes, well, it certainly wasn’t that smart. Otherwise it would have picked better names both for itself and for the first floor. Plus some grandeur welcome screen (according to lore they could, if they wished, introduce some basic RPG-like mechanics in their domain).
Iron plus meant that it was at least Iron grade. After all, Copper grade Dungeons ended with 20 Floors. It was almost surely at least Silver, maybe even Gold grade though. If it was Iron grade, it would already reach adulthood and would be much smarter.
That again, maybe its naming sense simply sucked?
The first floor was obviously a simple cave. Probably remnants of the place from before the Core moved in. We walked through the corridors and rooms, not discovering anything worth noting.
Maybe it wasn’t that stupid?
There were many tactics a Dungeon could use. If it had a purely defensive approach to intruders, there was no need to betray the nature of his defenses right from the start. We were yet to discover what sort of creatures he used to defend himself. Rather than have us encounter groups of enemies (naturally weak due to being far away from the Core) it should try to overwhelm us with a sudden wave of enemies. Probably everything it had on the first floor.
If we died, it meant we weren’t a danger. If we didn’t die, it should at least give it a gist of our skills and show how much of a threat we were.
I was proven right when we entered a Hall.
Halls were one of the things that most Dungeons developed quite early. Normally, a Dungeon was limited in size. Even with its entire space being heavily compressed by magic, it was still something limiting. A Hall was one of the ways to circumnavigate this limitation.
In short - like a Room, but heavily compressed. If one made a map of the entire floor, it wouldn’t be much bigger than simple Room. But instead of being for example five meters per five… it was five hundred per five hundred. Or five thousand per five thousand. Or fifty thousand per fifty thousand.
Honestly, it all depended on how much power the Dungeon had and could spare on it. It could seriously enter weird levels. The Black Crystal Grade Dungeon beneath the Imperial Capital supposedly fit entire DUNGEONS within its Halls. Which made them reached a truly absurd level of complication.
Here? It was a large hall, with the wall opposite to us being maybe… two hundred meters from us? There was also some vegetation (and an almost obviously fake ‘break’ in the ceiling that let some light in). And three… no, four different routes.
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Suddenly all of them almost disappeared under the wave of creatures.
Giant Hornet
Category: Nature/Locust
Type: Daemon/Servile
Threat Grade: Copper IX
A surprisingly dangerous species of daemons serving Locust, Imperial Goddess of Pests, Parasites, Worms and Weeds. They are armed in weak paralytic poison.
Giant Mantis
Category: Nature/Locust
Type: Daemon/Servile
Threat Grade: Iron II
A surprisingly dangerous species of daemons serving Locust, Imperial Goddess of Pests, Parasites, Worms and Weeds. They not only possess natural armour but also have very sharp front arms that can be used as swords.
Giant Butterfly
Category: Nature/Locust
Type: Daemon/Servile
Threat Grade: Iron II
A surprisingly dangerous species of daemons serving Locust, Imperial Goddess of Pests, Parasites, Worms and Weeds. They can use weak elemental and black magic, while remaining in a safe distance.
Oh fuck, Locust’s daemons.
Fifteen hornets and five butterflies in loose formation flying above our heads, plus ten Mantises that charged us on the ground. Each of them at least a meter long.
Well, this might have been a problem to us… like a month ago. Today? Not so much.
The Butterflies fell almost instantly, to three Arcane Bullets in short succession, Dragon Fireball and my Greater Life Tap. The Mantises got shredded to pieces by our warriors. The Hornets tried to attack us, but they failed to pierce our magical shields and aura armoursl.
A presence I felt since we entered the dungeon disappeared. Looks like the Core’s attention was shifted somewhere else. Probably to the second level, where it was preparing a welcoming committee worthy of the threat we posed.
We searched through the Rooms. We found a way down behind the first doorway we choose, but before going down we looked through the other routes. We found aether vein, some ore, and what looked like a heavily overgrown area with some popular alchemical ingredients from the area growing around.
Aether Veins were literally the foundation of the local economy and the permanent (but crawling) industrial revolution of this world. It was a place of permanent aether eruption that the Dungeon extracted from the ground.
Useful. You didn’t have to murder things, all you had to do was just… well, murder things trying to stop you, put a dedicated aether container in the vein and… soon it would be filled to the brim. The deeper you went, the more magic in the environment and thus better quality aether.
Having a Dungeon in your city was like having a localized magical anomaly literally at your doorstep. One that had a central being, that controlled everything and could be reasoned with. It wasn’t unheard of for city-states and some background duchies to actually go to war over the chance to host a newborn Dungeon.
For an added benefit, ‘cultivating’ your aura in aether vein rooms was much easier and faster than outside. But there was no need to waste time here. Too far from the center of the Dungeon, so the difference wasn’t enough for it to be sensible. Let’s go deeper.
***
Second level was more or less the same. Cave biome, Locust daemons everywhere. They sometimes manifested by themselves in the wild. Sometimes even started reproducing. That’s where local Giant Spiders and so on came from. Some of them probably tried to use the cave as a nests, and then got killed and eaten by the Dungeon.
The Master changed the tactic. Instead of trying to overwhelm, he moved over to trying to buy some time. Probably quickly rearranging the lower levels to be more… difficult to us. That’s the fucking problem when you visit the Dungeon as the first person - they always take it personally. Ugh.
So, instead of swarms we had guerilla warfare. Enemy attacked us in the corridors. Small groups, but always directed at one of us. Some of our warriors at the front, or, a few times, one of the casters. After a particularly big group of Giant Hornets assaulted us from the back and almost swarmed Syna’s Aura Armour to death, we redirected Lena to act as rearguard.
Which, of course, slowed our progress down. Not like we had many choices in that matter. Almost everything around was poisonous. Sure, I had an antidote (things like Giant Hornets and Giant Spiders were common in the wild, or at least happened from time to time so I was prepared), but we had only a bit of it, and it didn’t work instantly.
Getting one of us poisoned with a paralytic poison was bound to have us stop for a while. And that’s in case the Hornets failed to LAY MOTHERFUCKING EGGS in the victims.
In no way was it sexual - they literally impaled you with their ovipositor, laying eggs in your stomach area that very soon ended up hatching, with the newborn hornets bursting from your body in a rather lethal fashion. Not very nice, but it would only mean getting resurrected in a Hold to us. Still, losing anyone so early would force us to retreat.
Coincidentally, Wasteland - Gehenna’s realm of Locust - was considered one of the worst places to visit in the Imperial Religion’s afterlife. I wonder why.
We cleared level two quite quickly. The only notable place was a small Hall converted into a Giant Hornet’s nest. A lot of reddish wax and honey, made from devoured blood and flesh rather than flower pollen. The honey was considered a delicacy (both when used as a typical honey and the mead), while the wax was useful for making candles for magical rituals.
If we could start harvesting this place… Mundane crafts could let you earn enough money to live. But the true riches awaited those who dared to venture beyond the city walls. There was a reason why all ambitious people from the lower strata of society sooner or later ended as adventures. Despite the mortality rate.
We entered third floor without troubles. We were slightly behind the schedule (that existed only in my head), but there was nothing overly dangerous or troublesome. We haven’t even encountered the Servants yet. The Dungeon probably lacked reference material to construct them. If their number was limited, why waste power on making them in the outer layers, where they were bound to be weak?
Third floor was a pain. We wasted a bit too much time on the second floor and the Dungeon used Giant Spiders to barricade the corridors with their web. To make matters worse, Demon Spiders started to show up.
They were a smaller variant of Giant Spiders. Maybe the size of my hand. But they were armed in more powerful variant of the weakening poison which their giant version employed. For an added benefit, they could pierce through all protection magic aside from those that stopped attacks at a distance (so Lesser Bend Reality was fine, but Aura Armour wasn’t). Why was that a major pain?
Because the fuckers snuck up on us using the cellar. Leria stood in one place for a few seconds too long, busy trying to slash apart the webs covering the corridor, and one of them jumped on her head from the ceiling.
I saw it while it was in air and managed to kill it with Greater Life Tap, but it was damn close.
“I’m officially renaming this place a ‘Arachnophobe’s Nightmare’.” I said right after. As if to emphasize my point, the webs in front of us suddenly opened, and another group of Giant Spiders assaulted us.
I’m beginning to warm up to the idea of facing the Pentagram’s daemons. Ugh.
***
There was a Servant awaiting us at the end of the third level. Spider Maidens. Ugh. God only knows how the Dungeon Master managed to find one.
Essentially, Wasteland’s inhabitants were divided into two categories. Most of them were practically the Afterlife’s version of animals. Like those we faced until now. But there were also a slightly more civilized people. DFI’s version of monstergirls. Spiders, butterflies, scorpions, mantises, hornets and so on, all of them fused with human looking women.
Their… ways of procreation remained the same as in case of their animalistic kin. So hornet girls tried to lay eggs in you, that then devoured you from the inside. Fun stuff, really. Robinson must have hated the whole monstergirls idea.
They were all supposed to be Locust’s descendants, all the way to the Demigod-grade Queens that served Locust (their mother) herself. Trying to think about how exactly does she gave birth to half-woman half-insects of like ten different species led to rather… disturbing thoughts.
Maidens were the lowest grade of her descendants. Not awfully intelligent, but could communicate in human language. That particular one didn’t seem interested in talking, though.
She ruled over various big spider nests, full of freshly laid eggs and unfortunate victims, coated in webs. Some of them might actually be real animals caught by the groups of spiders send to roam the countryside, the rest were just an element of decor. Nothing really interesting. Though the webs were another potential thing to sell.
She faced us together with a vast host of Giant Spiders and Demon Spiders, that she was buffing from safe distance.
After we defeated her, we descended into the fourth level.
***
The main theme of fourth level seemed to be mantises. Most of the place were Rooms and Halls, many of them had an open ceiling that let some sunlight come in. Fake sunlight, obviously, but it was enough for a lot of vegetation to grow around.
Perfect place for ambush. Giant Mantises seemed to be everywhere. Every minute or so another bush exploded with creatures that hid themselves behind them. Tons of sharp edges awaiting us around every corner. Everything was hostile.
Wonderful.
The first thing one had to do when he managed to conquer a Dungeon was to make it stop being so… uhm… murderous. They were naturally wild and territorial, so you had to beat some sense into them. Show them that a different way of life exists.
Why kill everyone when instead you could for example keep outer levels quite tame, and instead of going into murder spree, thrive on the power you get from your fame and the WOW reaction of all those newcomers?
Why keep your middle levels a murderous maze, when you could make it average in difficulty, and have tons of people brave it because of shiny stuff that can be found there (all in accordance to the treaty with a nearby city that makes its economy thrive without being collapsed by a sudden influx of goods or starved without them at all)? With the same mechanism granting you power? Less of it, of course, than if you just murdered everyone and absorbed them, but you could only get a fraction of this power… as many times as they decided to return to you.
And don’t get me started on gifts that the local administration could give you for being a good boy. Like, daemons and beasts to absorb that you normally couldn’t get your hand on. Or even citizenship?
Well, maybe it didn’t sound all that awesome, but it meant that if someone murdered the Dungeon to get his hand on its Core, it was automatically considered a murder according to law. And rather than fame and glory the murderers could expect getting lynched by a violent mob of townspeople whose entire industry they just murdered together with the Dungeon.
It was going to be a pain in the ass. We couldn’t give it citizenship, nor proper protection. All we could hope for was getting a deal about it being less murderous and allowing us to harvest the goods (plus train recruits) in a low-danger environment for gifts.
***
There was, once again, a Servant guarding the descent to the fifth layer. We should probably get used to this.
Servants were basically a Unique serving the Dungeon Master. A being given much greater degree of power… and a soul. They were different than the rest of the things the Dungeon spawned. They were… well, mortals. Even the daemon we faced was, in fact, not precisely a daemon. More like an extension of a Dungeon, given a soul and made to look like a daemon.
He could even die (if it decided to do so) and experience afterlife. While also meaning that it was at least theoretically not forced to obey the Dungeon Master. It wasn’t unheard of for some of them to desert. There were even occasions of regular civil wars waged within the Dungeons or Master’s murdered by their own Servants. Rare, true, but while all of them started ‘merely’ as the Lord’s extension, after getting souls they could evolve in a weird direction.
Of course, the Servant guarding the next stairs down was a Mantis Maiden. A woman-mantis fusion, that resided in a hall that was almost… crawling with murderous mantises. More and more of them joined the battle, emerging from the smaller… well, they looked like caves inside of caves. Weird.
Unfortunately for our host, we were prepared. Fighting even vast armies of creatures like that… well, Havoc Bolt set for maximal dispersion and Leria’s Lightning Strikes were akin to a nuclear bomb.
When the wave of mantises slowed down for a while, a few Destroyer Bolts together with Dragon Fireballs and Arcane Bullets finished the Mantis Maiden (yet to evolve enough to get herself a name, I guess).
Of course, the rest of mantises didn’t disperse magically. Instead, kept charging at us.
Ugh.
It’s going to take a while.