Jungle Rocks Dungeon, foot of Mount Gursway, 18th day of Sol, 1661

Jessica felt a bit lonely. After all the action of the last week, the sudden quiet was a little disconcerting. Her first Dungeon level was complete, well, a few odds and ends were currently generating, but those would be finished shortly. She had automated her Dungeon Influence growth, glad that she could set it to automatically stop once she got to a seven-kilometre radius, so she didn’t really have anything to do.

She ran through her various updated options and abilities, when she spotted something she had missed when she had upgraded, probably to level 5. She could now enchant her Core Pedestal to be able to talk?

A few minutes more research and she had the details of the enchantment. Based off her ability to have instances, she could also enchant one location, usually a pillar, which she could use to talk through. So, she could either have one spot in each instance she generated, or one spot somewhere else for each instance.

As she probably hosted many more entities in her core room than a ‘normal’ dungeon, she’d go that way. Maybe put a second one in an entrance room.

This also allowed her to have her first real look at instances, and how they worked.

*Hmm. Maybe the way I’ve designed things isn’t optimal.* She complained to herself.

She decided to talk this over with Fancy. Maybe she needed a Vestibule in her Dungeon? Anyway, she cast the enchantment on her pedestal. She could now talk!

She also started thinking about what she wanted to do for her second level. She thought through the stories she’d read about dungeons, but they all seemed a bit same-same. How could she make hers different? This triggered a memory of a few of her uncles reminiscing about their adventurer years. They were talking about the strangest dungeons that they’d ever come across. Uncle Marvin was talking about a ‘reverse dungeon’ he’d visited in…where was it now? That’s right, in the Isles of Storm, between this continent and the one to the west. The entrance was at the base of a mountain and the levels of the dungeon went upwards instead of downwards. That might work for Monty or Sara.

Uncle Mervin talked about the Dungeon of the Deep, whose entrance was at the bottom of the Sea of Merchants. Most of the dungeon was completely underwater.

It was the dungeon that Uncle Madison talked about that she was trying to remember the details of. That’s right, the Dungeon of Sorrows. What was the word he used to describe it? Yes, non-linear. It was freeform, there was no preferred way of doing the levels.

The last Uncle, Uncle Menander, talked about a dungeon that was just a huge room for each level. Instead of discrete rooms in the level, the huge room seemed to have areas that acted like a room. This was sort of the same thing, except that the exit from the level was always a ‘boss fight’. So, it was sort of freeform, except the entrance and exit were fixed. It was called…that’s right, the Dungeon of Fears and was in the far north of this continent.

With a pop, Fancy returned. “Right, that’s all organised. You’re a bit further along than both of your siblings, but I would think they’ll have their first level complete in a couple of days. What have you been doing?”

"I've updated the Dungeon Map with all monsters and treasures. It should show us in real time what happening.”

Updated map of Jessica's first level [https://images2.imgbox.com/3d/f6/p0nhZKHN_o.jpg]

“I’ve also been thinking about the next level or two. Have you heard of the Dungeon of Sorrows and the Dungeon of Fears?”

“Yes, I’ve done case studies on both. Wait, are you speaking through your central column?”

Jessica giggled. “No, you’re obviously losing it, your grip on reality is slipping.”

Fancy gave Jessica’s crystal a disgusted look. “So, this was something that you got with your last level?”

“It seems to be part of the ‘Basic Dungeon Operation’ skill, but I noticed that this is now listed as ‘BDO 2’.”

“That makes sense. I’m realising that some of the things I learnt at the Dungeon’s Assistant School I did not understand as well as I thought.”

“Anyway, back to my Dungeon Design, I was thinking, how about a structure like the Dungeon of Fears – each level just a giant room, but with the non-linear structure of the Dungeon of Sorrows. So, multiple paths between levels. But I was sort of stuck on the second level boss room. If it’s not really needed to advance to level 3, would anyone ever go there? I suppose I could force it with all the stairs to the next level blocked until the boss is defeated, but sort of defeats the idea of a non-linear dungeon.”

“You’ve got teleport gates now, don’t you?”

“Yeah?”

“OK, easy-peasy then. You have the Boss Monsters give out the teleport tokens, that way people don’t have to fight the boss monster, but if they want to use the teleport gateways to bypass the floor, they must defeat the boss at least once. Anyone in the party that does defeat them, gets their character awarded the token that will allow them to teleport straight from the entrance to the end of that level. The whole thing will slow down your growth a little because you’ll be limited by instances. On the other hand, you tend to have parties stick around in your dungeon for much longer, so you also maximise the DP from the parties. Sort of balances out.”

“Hmm, OK, I can see how that would work.”

“Now, about the instances. Oh, I was also thinking of installing a Vestibule up front in the Dungeon, and running the instances off that.”

“That is a fairly standard way of setting things up, and I was going to suggest you make that change just before activating your instances.”

“Wait, we have our first Delvers?”

Jessica had created a number of crystal panels on the walls of her Core Room and displayed an image from just outside her entrance on one. A party of three Delvers were checking their equipment before entering her Dungeon.

Fancy said, “That’s strange, why aren’t they using the area just inside our Dungeon? There’s always a prep area for the party there and, as experienced looking Delvers, they should know that.”

Jessica figured out how to add sound, and Fancy could suddenly hear them.

The most experienced looking member was speaking, saying, “…so once we get to the end, we have to make sure we kill the Assistant, otherwise they will be able to warn the other two dungeons. The spell indicates that one will probably open tomorrow and the other the day after, allowing us to gather up all three Dungeon Cores. Remember that our payout is ten times greater if we capture all three of the cores intact. Questions?”

One asked, “Do we know which one this is?”

“Well, it’s the first one open, so probably the boy. Right, let’s go.”

Fancy looked at Jessica and pulled out her phone.

Queen Camilla answered her phone and said, “Yes, Fancy?”

“Y…your Majesty, Jessica has just opened her Dungeon.”

“Oh, that’s great! And the other two?”

“In the next day or two for both of them, but we have a…situation.”

“What’s wrong?”

“A group of three high level Delvers just turned up and Jessica overheard their plans. They are planning on killing me and capturing Jessica. Then doing the same to the other two dungeons as they open. They seem to know who the siblings are.”

Queen Camila was quiet for a moment, then said, “Well, this confirms we have a leak in our staff. Can you tell what level the Delvers are?”

“Jessica, are they at your entrance yet?”

“Yes, just entering the lobby now.”

“You should be able to examine them now and tell their class and level. As you are now level 5, you should be able to tell the level of anyone up to level 10.”

“We have a Glokenzie Marlow, thief, level 8, Trilian Gopher, fighter, level 10 and Aarocan Forrestwalker, mage, but his level just shows two question marks.”

Fancy repeated that and then added, “Queen Camila, that means that the last person’s level is 11 or higher. But it can’t be above 15, as their class is shown.”

“Right, we will get you reinforcements as soon as we can, but likely they won’t reach you in time to stop these three. They will, however, be able to protect Monty and Sara. I just hope that Jessica’s Aunt Bess gets there in time. Please tell Jess that she can trust her aunt completely. Please keep me informed. Oh, does Jess have any reasonable defences in place?”

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“Yes, but we just don’t know if it will be enough.”

“I understand. Tell her that both her father and I love her dearly and that she is ordered by Royal Decree not to die.”

Jessica laughed. “Thanks, Mum!”

As usual, her mother had known exactly what to say to relieve the tension. She was a great mother.

“Was that Jessica, I heard?”

“Yes, she just reached a level where she can start to speak.”

“I remember that point in her life very well. Please do what you can to protect her.”

“Yes, Queen Camilla.”

As soon as Queen Camilla hung up, she dialled Bess.

“They’re after the triplets again. A snatch and grab team has just been spotted entering Jessica’s Dungeon.”

“I’m on it, I will be there within the hour.”

Queen Camilla walked over to her balcony doors, opened them and stepped out onto her private balcony. She put up a barrier, and then screamed out her frustration.

She sensed movement behind her and spun to find her husband. Standing there.

“They’re after the triplets. A snatch and grab team has just been spotted entering Jessica’s Dungeon. Bess is an hour away and is aware.”

He walked up to Camilla, put his arms around her, and said, “Then they will be fine. Look, once we get the news that they are fine, why don’t you take a break for a couple of days. You remember that bandit group that were harassing merchants in the southern pass?”

Camilla perked up, “Yes. They disappeared when we sent the army detachment to track them down a few months ago.”

“Well, they’re back, bigger and, well, not better. They hit another two caravans last night. Sounds like a problem you’d be good at solving.”

Camilla sighed, “You know me so well.”

King Duniel said, with a certain amount of heat, “I know. Come on, you can join me for this morning’s petitioners. I’m not going to waste the expression on your face. It’ll scare the heavens and hells out of them. Petition time always goes so much faster when you’re annoyed - maybe we’ll finish early enough to get some us time, while we wait for news.”

The Delvers had reached the entrance to room 1 and dutifully put their torches away as they made their way through the water curtain. They seemed to fall into what must be their standard marching order. The Thief was in front, the Fighter was in the rear and the Mage was in the middle.

“So, even though they’re here to capture me, they are still dumbly allowing me to dictate their actions?”

A very worried Fancy half smiled and said, “Well, yes. That’s Delver nature for you. What’s your plan?”

“I don’t think we can really do anything until we get to room 9. If I can isolate one of them, I might be able to skewer them with the big Stalactite monster. They’ll need their torches for the tunnel down to the Core Room, so if I start filling up room 11 with explosive gases, do you think I can hurt them when they spark their torches?”

“Worth a try.”

“I just don’t know if I can kill them both with the deadfall. Regardless, as they’ve offended my gender, they must die.”

“Umm, what do you mean?”

“They assumed that as I was the first opened dungeon, I must be the boy. There is no way that I would let either that insult stand or Monty beat me.”

This got a half laugh out of the still worried Fancy.

The Delvers entered the first room. The irregular shaped room was about 30 metres long and a bit more than 20 metres at its widest. A small stream ran from the base of the entrance (fed by the wall of mist across the entrance) and ran across the room till it formed a small pool, then flowed through the room’s exit. As they passed the middle of the room, the small goblin party ran from their camp with a shout to attack them.

The Thief parried the first goblin warrior and stabbed it with one of his knives. The Mage stepped aside and the Fighter advanced and engaged another two of them. The last of the goblins also attacked the thief, giving him a minor wound on his arm.

The Thief dispatched that goblin, and the Fighter killed the other two.

Jessica said, “Well that didn’t go well.”

“It did, actually. Facing four goblins, that party shouldn’t have had any injuries at all. The fact that the Thief took a wound says that they’re not that impressive.”

Pointing at the Thief getting a potion out of their bag and drinking it, Fancy continued, “And that proves it. Firstly, he’s carrying his potions in his backpack and two, he took a potion for that small an injury. You know how I had you turn down the venom on those spiders?”

“Yes?”

“Turn it back up. In fact, turn it up to maximum. We’ll drop it back down later, but for the moment, I’m not really worried about these thieves giving us a bad review.”

Jessica snorted, then complied. She also increased the venom toxicity of the millipedes. “I’ve increased the venomosity across the board, but I disabled the copper and bronze stalactite monsters. The coins will still be there, but the monsters won’t drop. The only monster there that has a chance of doing a one-shot kill is the silver.”

Fancy nodded.

The Delvers continued along beside the small stream, moving to the second room. Jessica had instructed the first group of spiders to attack after the group passed them. This would hopefully get them to stumble into the lilia traps. She’d also turned down the illumination being given off by the moss, to make it harder for the Delvers to see the traps and spiders.

As they passed under the first group of spiders, the spiders begun to rappel down on silk threads and quietly creep up on the Delvers.

The trap worked perfectly, with the Fighter spotting the spiders behind them and shouting out just before anyone could notice the traps in front.

By the time that the combat was finished, the Fighter and Thief had both been bitten multiple times but had quickly dug out antidote potions and were now recovering. The Mage had fallen into two of the lilia traps, with the sharpened stakes doing some minor damage to both of his feet. He took a health potion to allow himself to walk normally.

The Mushroom fighters and cave fishers did not pose much of a challenge to the Delvers.

Jessica did, however, get the patterns for both minor health and minor antidote potions from what was left in the discarded potion bottles.

In the first fake Core Room, the Mage took out a glowing stone and turned in a circle. He pointed towards the hidden exit and the Thief went over to search for it.

Jessica asked, “What was that he was using?”

Fancy said, “Probably a Core Tracker. It shows the path to the Dungeon Core. It also shows that the Delvers are after your Core. There is no reason to have one unless that is what you are hunting.”

“Do you think I should put some stronger monsters into my last room?”

“We have time, so it wouldn’t hurt. What were you thinking?”

“I’ve got the plans for an alligator, so I was thinking of injecting them with Darkness and Illusion magic?”

Fancy blinked a couple of times. “What ratios?”

“Two darkness to one Illusion.”

“Do you have enough mana to do three?”

“Yeah, easily. Actually, I’m a bit surprised at how much mana I have.”

“You get mana for having monsters, so your mana should usually be full that way, but the monsters are quite expensive to grow the first time – from now on. Expanding your Dungeon will always be a stretch. You haven’t had to repopulate a dungeon yet, so that expense will be a bit of a shock to you but isn’t ruinous. Where dungeons can get a problem is when they have a high turnover of dungeon refreshes, but don’t have a good mana income from Delvers. Anyway, sure, try some alligators – is there any reason that you’re using alligators instead of crocodiles? I’d try a range of ratios and see what happens. You have time so, try two to one, three to one and four to one.”

“Um, no?”

“Use Crocodiles, they’re bigger, tougher, and their bite is worse.”

“Done.”

Fancy heard a ‘pop’ noise.

“OK, two to one and four to one didn’t work. They make quite a mess when they explode, but three to one seems to be stable.”

“What are they called when you try to identify them?”

“Mystic Crocodiles. They have greatly increased camouflage and stealth abilities.”

“Might be worth putting some in the room for now and cutting that back to just one or two after we beat these suckers.”

Jessica deployed six of them around the quicksand trap, plus a pair further back towards the entrance.

“Ouch, level 3 monsters are expensive. That took a whole 736 mana – 92 points each.”

“Yeh, twenty points of mana per level for each monster, plus the eight points for each point of mana infusion would be about right. That drops to about a quarter to re-generate them later.”

“Why do we have to experiment with the ratios, aren’t they consistent?”

Fancy paused for a moment, then said, “It’s a peculiarity of monsters in dungeons, that each dungeon has to find its own ratios. What works for one dungeon, won’t for the next. I’d expect to find that even the three of you end up with different recipes to get the same monster.”

It was interesting to see how that quicksand trap worked. Triggering the trap would basically turn that three metre by three metre pit into a spa pool, releasing thousands of tiny bubbles of air every minute from the bottom of the pool, sucking the Delver down to the bottom. If the crocodile was able to tackle the Delver into the pit, they would easily outlast the Delver’s need for air, being able to hold their breath for a minimum of a half hour. It was just a bit obvious, since it was a patch of sand, in the middle of a room of mud. She played with the colour, until the sand started to blend in.

“How did you do that?” Asked Fancy.

“Normal sand is made from quartz, but sand can be made from a number of things. I took normal ‘white’ sand (quartz), added feldspar sand (grey), olivine sand (green), obsidian sand (black) and a bit of garnet sand (red) till I came up with something that blended in with the dark mud.

The Thief quickly found the release for the hidden door and proceeded through into the next room.

Failing to spot the pit trap, he fell into the pit, landing on the sharpened stakes. Shaking his head, the Mage walked past the pit, while the Fighter dropped a rope down and helped the Thief up.

After taking another potion, the Thief was able to continue, but this time he stayed at the rear of the party.

The Giant Frogs, Millipedes and Kobolds proved to be little challenge to the group, but now that the Mage was leading the party, he’d usually kill them all with a spell. The arrow trap hit the mage, barely doing any damage to him.

Fancy commented, “Good, we’re making him start to use his magic up.”

Jessica grunted in agreement.

Entering the second fake core room, the Mage pulled out his Core tracker and backtracked until he again pointed to the section of wall that had the next concealed door.

The Thief searched the wall, finding the entrance and opened it.

The Mage and Fighter advanced through the room, but the Thief hung back. His instincts were telling him there was some treasure here, somewhere. A quick search located it at the bottom of the pool. Once his party members were out of sight, he quickly slipped into the pool, found the small chest, and exited the pool.

Packing it into his backpack, he tried to catch up with the others.

As he entered the next room, a long, drawn-out passage, he could see the other two about fifty metres ahead.

He noticed a glint off to his right. Looking, he could see a nice, shiny, copper piece sitting on the ground. He looked around and, not seeing anything, lunged for it, then jumping back and looking around again. Nothing happened, so he moved on. By the fourth copper piece, he didn’t even look around. He was about twenty metres behind the other two when he saw a silver piece, again off to the right. He picked it up, stopping to look around for more.

The Fighter heard a loud ‘thunk’, followed by a grunt and spun around.

“Aarocan, it’s Glock!”

The Fighter ran back to where the Stalactite Monster was sucking the Thief dry. It had pierced the Thief’s back, just below the skull and had skewered him, cutting the spine. The thief now hung from the Stalactite, as if his corpse was impaled and on display in a gibbet. The dozens of tiny mouths on the monster were happily feeding on everything they could get a hold of. Each mouth was able to extend out of the body and those inside the Thief were sucking all the fluids out, while those outside were taking small chunks out of the corpse. The corpse was visibly becoming more desiccated as they looked.

The mage sighed, pointing to the silver piece still clasped in the dead Thief’s hand. “He was a greedy bastard, but he should have known better. You don’t just pick up coins in a dungeon.”

The Fighter used his sword to cut the thief’s purse off his belt and grabbed it. He was going to ignore the backpack, until he spotted a chest in the top of it. Again, using his sword, he popped the chest out and grabbed it. Opening the chest, he emptied the twelve copper and one silver coin into the Thief’s purse and then secured the purse into his backpack.

The Mage said, “Not worth his life, was it?”

The pair continued to the end of the room.