Chapter 11: The First Dragons
Dungeon POV:
It’s been a week now and I’m finally ready to start on my third floor. Fletcher has been regularly bringing in a group of teenagers though not always the same ones each morning. Then in the afternoons I occasionally have a few stragglers or people wanting to blow off steam coming into the dungeon. So far it seems like I’m doing a juggling act, if I give out too much loot I lose mana but if I give out bad loot people don’t really care about coming very often.
In the end I just decided on making the regular monsters drop a regular monster drop while the bosses give a little extra. Killing a rabbit gives you either a rabbit pelt or a lucky rabbit foot, though the pink ones occasionally drop some kind of perfume called essence of love. The dove wyverns only drop a few of their feathers but I didn’t really want to have to deal with anything else like dove meat or some such. The rose creepers drop flowers or a section of their thorny stems. While trolls drop one of three things a pair of troll leather pants, a large wooden club, or a vial of troll blood. Apparently, troll blood is some alchemy ingredient. The swan wyverns usually drop a pile of feathers but rarely drop one of those pink gemstones, they’re called love gems.
For the most part I was happy but I was getting a bit stir crazy. I’d been holding myself back from creating the first floor until I could make at least three rooms on it. That way my monsters would have some space to move around and I could create my next boss. Before moving my core down, I created a lover’s apple in the troll bosses room, defeating every boss besides the first would allow someone to taste some of my amazing apples. Now it was time to begin expanding.
Dungeon lv. 3
+10 Evolution Points
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Current Evolution Points: 10
I was grinning in anticipation of what was to come. My wish is finally going to come true, unfortunately it’s not the one where I get a body and a beautiful busty elf falls into my arms ready for me to have my way with. Cough, well there’s not a lot of stuff for me to do but fantasize about things and I don’t even have a body to relieve the tension. I’m basically an embodiment of sex, a love dungeon hello, but I still don’t have a body. The tenth floor is looking so far away right now.
Still right now is about making dragons not bemoaning my rocky existence. I hurriedly grabbed a dove wyvern, pink but right now that didn’t matter to me. Spending 2 evolution points I gave it the Wyvern (Un) class and it truly became a dove wyvern. After gaining the wyvern class the bird grew to over twice its former size reaching almost ten pounds. Its pink feathers grew almost iridescent and harder like true scales. The features slightly warped. Where before it was a bird with a few draconic features it became a true hybrid of wyvern and dove.
Wyvern lv. 1 (Uncommon)
+2 Strength, +2 Agility, +2 Constitution, +1 Endurance, +1 Perception, +1 Wisdom
Next onto my true masterpieces. Seeing how well that worked out I grabbed one of my eldest swans a silvery female that had reached level 8. At level eight she was one of the highest leveled creatures before my troll boss showed up in the dungeon since only a few of the biggest rose creepers were level 8. She grew in size from her previous 40 pounds to almost 100 pounds and I had a feeling the males would be even bigger.
Her feathers grew thicker, harder, and more flexible. From her head a pair of slightly spiraling horns sprouted. While she still looked like a wyvern I had hopes that one day that would change. Maybe on the next rank up she would grow an extra set of limbs and become a true dragon.
Dragon lv. 1 (Rare)
+3 Strength, +2 Constitution, +2 Endurance, +1 Perception, +1 Wisdom
The dragon dungeon has begun its rise. Beware it’s might or perish in a fiery inferno. That’s an idea I could develop a fire breathing trait but for now I need to focus on some other things. Like this new challenge room feature that showed up. I have a very interesting idea that the Goddess of Love would surely approve of and I want to see if it’ll work.
A while later inside the dungeon I got a message and knew that it had been a success.
Due to your great devotion to the Goddess of Love and your efforts to spread her message you have been awarded an Altar of Love.
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As you already have an Altar of Love inside the dungeon one will appear outside the dungeon by the entrance instead of in the dungeon. Followers of the Goddess of Love may gain increased strength and reward from your dungeon.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
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Through your actions you have gained the class Baron of Love (Rare):
As the lord of an area and the follower of the Goddess of Love your efforts to impress her have been rewarded.
Baron of Love (Rare) level 1
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(+3 Charisma, +2 Wisdom, +2 Constitution, +1 Intelligence, +1 Perception)
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As a dungeon you will not be affected by normal stats until you become a dungeon lord and gain a body.
A baron huh, guess even this pink shell can’t contain me. How many other players can earn the baron class? Not that I’m sure I’m really a player anymore. Lately I’ve been having a bit of an existential crisis though it helps to focus on the monsters and what the adventurers are doing. Now, I guess it’s time to see what the adventurers think of my new additions.
Wait, what is this woman doing by my core? How did she get in here? I don’t remember any adventurers coming this far in today. The kids seemed a little nervous today and retreated as soon as they saw the troll boss. Let’s check her status and see what’s going on maybe she has some kind of stealth skill.
Oh, she’s a dryad apparently. All my excess mana and the boons from the increased connection to the Goddess of Love must have sparked something in her. She had pale white skin with a slightly pinkish tint to it, her hair was a bright fiery red and besides her head she was completely hairless. At roughly 5 ½ feet tall and with an hour glass figure she was a natural beauty. Why oh why am I still a rock?
Besides the new dryad in my core room a second one was also birthed from the second floor boss room. She was a couple inches taller and had a willowier figure but almost identical besides that they looked like sisters. My first dryad birthed from the lover’s apple would stay in the core room. As her tree was confined to the core room she was one of the few monsters that could permanently stay and guard my core. For now, the other one would be part of my new challenge room.
***
Captain Clifton POV:
God I’m exhausted. With all the new changes with the dungeons lately there’s been more paperwork than ever that needs to be filled out. I’d never thought that one dungeon could have such a big mountain of paperwork that needed to be filled out and with two of them I’m positively buried in work. Then there’s the need to have guards posted near each of the dungeons to ensure no trouble makers or little kids get into them. The guard is spread thinner than ever and working almost everyone is working double shifts a couple days a week.
Besides all the guard and dungeon issues, I really need to figure out what is going on with Ashley. My daughter is acting way too good lately, she has to be hiding something from me. I wonder if she found a boy she likes? Nah, any boy would be too scared of her to get close to her, she’s a real monster compared to the other children. I really need to figure out she’s gotten up to. Hopefully it’s not as bad as the cooking faze, I shuddered thinking about that dark hellish month, I gained five levels in basic poison resistance. I was only lucky my constitution was high enough to survive her monstrous creations. I think one might have even been a slime, something about Ashley and the kitchen spells disaster.
My thoughts are interrupted by Fletcher walking into the office. I wonder if there’s any chance it isn’t related to one of the dungeons, doubt it. My suspicions are confirmed as soon as he opens his mouth.
“Sir some of the boys from town were heading into the dungeon when they saw something strange. From what I can gather after listening to their mumblings there was a sparkly pink statue or something to the right of the dungeon entrance. I suggest we go check it out.” Of course, it is related to that dungeon, it causes over twice as much trouble as the goblin one.
As we headed out to town though we were stopped by an ecstatic Edgar. He was positively beaming with joy. This can’t be good I thought.
“Our town has finally been blessed with a true altar of the God of Storms. I was doing my morning sermon and daily prayers when I felt his presence descend over the area. Now we have a true church and anyone who is devout can go to the altar to receive the priest of storm or weather mage class.” Oh shit, I think I know what that pink thing the kids were talking about is. It’s most likely an altar to the Goddess of Love. The God of Storm bestowed a true altar on the village because he’s fighting the Goddess of Love for followers. This town is going to get hectic pretty soon.
“That’s great Father, you should spread the news to the townsfolk. I’m sure they will all be glad to hear it.” I have to keep him from finding out about the possible altar for the Goddess of Love at least for now. How did I end up in the middle of this?
As soon as we got close to the dungeons entrance I could already tell it was a true Altar of Love. The centerpiece was a life sized statue of a beautiful woman out of pink gemstone. On each side it was sheltered and surrounded by white marble statues. Behind it was a pair of something similar to the swan wyverns we’d seen in the dungeon but bigger, with a regal air to them, and a pair of spiral horns. The statue seemed to be sheltered under their outstretched wings. At the woman’s feet was a pair of white stone rabbits while clutched between her clasping hands was a stone rose. This was definitely a true altar to the Goddess of Love, now where are the guardians.
As we approached the crevice that held the statues and the altar we walked between a pair of enormous apple trees there branches ripe with fruit and they stepped out of the wood. A pair of dryads, or no hamadryads I guess since they seem connected to the trees.
“This is an Altar of the Goddess of Love mortal. Those who do not show faith in her may not approach.” Well that explains why we couldn’t see the guardians. They were the trees or the trees were them, all this stuff with dryads and hamadryads is just confusing.
“We are sorry for intruding on this holy space, come on Fletcher let’s go.” I led Fletcher off to the side and into the dungeon proper. We definitely did not want to get in a row with a pair of guardians. Out of the entire town besides me only Smith Paul could probably handle one of them one on one. I could kill the one if I had to but with two of them I wasn’t confident on my odds especially in a place empowered by the Goddess of Love.
“Sir those were both level 50 if you count the totals for their classes. What do we do if someone pisses them off?”
“You don’t have to worry about them that much. A guardian is created and bound to do one thing only protect the altar. They can only intervene in outside affairs when a majority of their follower’s lives are at risk and even then, it is not all the time. Still it worries me that there are two of them. An altar only has one guardian so obviously the altar in the dungeon became a true altar as well. I just hope that neither the Goddess of Love or the God of Storm get the idea of creating a temple here. With three altars consecrated to a specific deity a temple can be formed but gods take great offence when their altars are attacked, destroyed, or converted to another deity.”