After walking for what I believe to be a few hours, I finally started to see in the distance buildings peeking over wooden spiked logs like a settlement from older ages. It made sense to me, the note did say this was a fantasy world. I couldn’t expect the luxuries from my world here, I hoped they still had at least similar bathrooms. Walking up to the gate I noticed a couple of guards standing on either side how ever there didn’t seem to be any kind of checkpoint as people walked in and out of the small town. Taking a deep breath, I strode forwards entering the town.
The town seemed to be on the small size, though that may be because of the town I use to live in, the buildings was made from a mix of stone and wood, with various places being homes and other places being stores. I noticed Signs for Bakeries, blacksmiths and more. I stopped in my tracks when I came across a three-story tall building, it’s base foundation was made of stone and its upper floors was made of wood. However, this building also was the only one that seemed to have metal reinforcements throughout the structure of the building to make the building sturdier and even able to withstand heavy outside impact. There was a sign siting above the door of weapons crossing each other over a shield, when the big words adjusted to English it read ‘Adventure’s Guild’ causing me to stand there staring at the sign for a time.
I had read some stories similar to my situation though I usually never finished them, after all what else could I do, stuck in a hospital bed, besides read books and watch television. Either way a common theme was the adventure’s guild, a place one could get an identification card and find work. So, knowing I needed to find some way to defend myself and earn money to live I head inside of the building, at first the smell is what hit me causing me to cover my nose, a smell worse then a pigsty. Should have expected it since this was a place where many people in heavy hot armor among other things, spend a good portion of their days causing strong body odor to fill this place. The second thing I noticed was the sere amount of people in this building, it numbered way higher then I could even count. There was many who was sitting at tables just laughing it out having drinks and partying, there was those going back and forth from counters probably accepting and finishing jobs. There were even huge groups of people around tables planning for jobs it looked like. The final thing was the fact not all these people was humans, there were all kinds of species running around, from humans to beast men, from dwarves to Elves.
Knowing I would draw attention if I just stood there I headed towards one of the open counters as quickly as I could. What greeted me was a Dwarven woman doing various paperwork, the woman looked at me when I arrived and spoke out “Greeting sir, how may I help you today” in a polite manner. Though it was like listening to two voices speak out at once thanks to the language skill working, where an English voice was overlapping the woman’s regular speech. It was just enough where I could understand it but reasonably get annoying after so long. Trying not to stand there in a daze realizing she might not understand me I tried to speak out “Um yes I wanted to register” surprising myself and almost causing me to stammer my voice was just the same, to me it sounded like I was originally speaking English but that other language seemed to overlap over it naturally.
Overcoming the shock of this I listened as the woman began to pull out a sheet of papers and what seems to be a pencil replying “Ah yes please fill out these forms in order to register for the guild, there is a two silver payment for your card, if you cannot pay for it now please mark this box on the form to receive a payment reduction instead to jobs until the debt has been paid.” I had started to fill out the papers as she spoke and pointed out the box, it had shocked me that there was a down payment, but I had started to figure it was for material and man power to create the cards. After filling everything out and marking the box I turned in the paper. The woman took it hopping off the stool she sat on she walked into the back for a few minutes, when she returned she had a folder in one hand and a small card in another. Climbing back up to the table she put the folder and Card out She spoke out beginning to explain “This is your card, it can be used as identification to get into the major cities and it also helps keep track of your progress in quests. Now inside this folder is a couple of beginning rank quests you can take at your current rank” opening the folder there was three papers. They each was for a different quest, each seeming to be marked E on the corner of the papers.
The first paper was an obvious one, to gather medical herbs from the forest. The second quest was for handling an odd job of finding some lost possessions in the town. The third and final quest was to subjugate wolves, it warned the wolves loved to fight in packs causing their danger rating to increase if not careful. Scratching my chin, I decided to take the herb quest and the subjugation quest since there was something I wanted to try now that I found a way to make some money for a place to stay. Leaving the guild waving goodbye to the lady I headed back out of town heading into the forest towards the east.
Finding the herbs was the easy part as they seemed to be growing everywhere crazily, it made me wander why this was a quest, but then it hit me that the wolves probably made it dangerous to do this, and it was also an annoying job, so people probably didn’t like doing it. After gathering a handful of 10 herbs I kept heading deeper into the forest looking for a hill or side of some mountain a distance away from town but close enough to walk without taking all day.
After what felt like an hour and a half walk I found a large mound finally in the forest, surprising me that I didn’t find any wolves first. Taking a deep breath, I walked to the mound and put my hand up to it concentrating on my Dungeon make skill, when I felt it activating a new menu suddenly appeared before me.
Dungeon Creation points
100
Starting Dungeon Monster
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Wolves, Goblins, Spiders, Skeleton, Imp, Rabbit
Dungeon Layout
Caves, Ruins, Tomb, Swamp.
Dungeon Theme
None, Traps, Demonic, Grave, Evolution.
The new menu caused me more questions than it answered, I decided to concentrate on it to see if I can learn anything new, after a few minutes I started to learn some details for each section. Dungeon creation points was apparently the points awarded to me to create each dungeon, the points themselves was determined by my own level and achievements, the more I did more points I got for a new dungeon it appeared, each dungeon having its own separate pool of points. The other three sections were to decide the starting properties of the dungeon, each having its own point cost and the options available was determined by my own knowledge and the starting package given to me.
Out of the monsters Wolves and Goblins both costed 50 points each, Skeleton and Imps costed around 150 points for some reason, while Spiders and Rabbits only costed 25 each. All the dungeon layouts besides Cave seemed to cost 50, while the themes also had a more verity pool of requirements. Knowing this was my first dungeon I decided to keep it simple, I choose wolves, caves, and Evolution theme which spent all my points. When I finished the selection a sudden cave mouth opened before me as the ground gave away. It caused me to feel slightly dizzy stumbling to the side using the cave mouth to right myself, deciding to check my status I notice my mana dropped rapidly, I only had 100 mana left. While it seemed to start to regenerate itself It made me realize creating a dungeon was costly to my mana. When I checked my skills, it showed I had one active dungeon now. Walking inside there was a wide cavern room with a height of about 12 feet high, wide, and long. The room was fairly dark besides a glowing crystal I could see in another room behind this one.
Following the light, I made my way down a small pathway into the second room which was much smaller, reaching out I touched the crystal and when I did two things appeared before me, the first was a holographic map of the dungeon. The second was a menu like the others with a couple of options.
Dungeon Rank E, Mana: 100/100
Dungeon Monsters
Dungeon Traps
Dungeon Shop
Opening the dungeon shop it was filled options for Traps, Themes, Monsters, even layouts. It seemed this was a method to gain new options for the future as well as new things for the current dungeon though everyone, but the beginning options was marked as question marks. They all costed Dungeon points, so it appeared when I got new points my old dungeons could still be improved with the new points. Dismissing the shop, I looked at the monster’s option which had two options, White Wolf Cub and White Wolf. The traps menu had only one option called pitfall trap. Wondering how to expand the dungeon I looked at the map and decided to tap on it, a section highlighted, causing a prompt to appear.
Do you wish to Excavate this area? Cost: 15 mana
Y/N?
Shrugging I pressed yes, and the cave shook as a wall dug out in the first room. It appeared I can use the map to design my dungeon, when I looked at the menus again I noticed the dungeon mana has gone down by the 15-cost letting me know it took the dungeon’s mana to do these things. Deciding to test out the other features I clicked on monsters and choose 1 wolf and two cubs, a new prompt told me to select an area on the map to place them, selecting the first room.
Do you wish to summon these Creatures? 1x white wolf, 2x white wolf cub. Total cost 75 mana
Y/N?
I grinned when the new prompt appears letting me know that it wouldn’t let me make a heavy mistake that could drain all of my mana if I paid attention. So, selecting yes, I watched as the mana dropped from 85 down to 10 as a light shined in the first room and I heard paws stepping around. I chuckled to myself at this, it was clear I was going to enjoy designing dungeons, it was then a prompt appeared detecting the medical herbs in my other hand asking to absorb the herbs. I decided to let it absorb one of the herbs which causing it to vanish into blue particles, I was then alerted that herbs has been added to the decoration menu, confused since there wasn’t one, a new set of options appeared next to the map, stating in order ‘Removal’ ‘Move’ and ‘Decorations’ guessing these let me design the dungeon to my desires even better, so I hit decorations and only thing on the list was the herbs.
I selected the herbs and selected a spot on the map, it appeared it only cost 5 mana per herb, it was then I noticed 5 more mana in the core thanks to absorbing the herb. So, I placed two herbs to grow in the core room, hoping I could use this as a method to farm herbs in the future. Having nothing more left I decided it was time to head back to town, so I started to head towards the entrance of the dungeon, it was at this time I noticed for some reason I could see a lot better in the dark dungeon, even my hearing and smell seemed much better. I looked to see if there were any noticeable changes to me and noticed both how my nails were more animal-like and my muscles seemed leaner.
Staring in disbelief I started to remember the last skill on my skill list, the unique skill Personification. Realizing this was my body adapting to wolf aspect of my dungeon, this also meant it should disappear when I got away from the dungeon, so using the new-found muscle strength I found in my legs I rushed out of the cave passing by the wolves who just looked at me in confusion. After I was 15 feet from the dungeon I felt my body changing back to normal as my speed slowed. I decided to head back to town instead of trying to hunt for wolves for the quest, after a while I manage to return to the town gate and entered town. I was sweating a lot more than I realized just from the heat and all the traveling I’ve done today. Arriving back at the guild I turned in the herbs for the 9 herbs I would get 25 bronze coins but thanks to the debt I only received 20 coins. It seemed like this was more then enough to stay at a cheap inn for the night.
Hunting around town I found a small inn called The Howling Night, inside there was a burly beast man, resembling that of a tiger, at the counter. When I inquired about getting a room the burly man laughed and replied “Sure it’s a simply 15 bronze coins a night, 20 if you want meals” nodding to his statement I handed in my 20 bronze coins, planning on gathering many more tomorrow so I can stay a lot longer. After having a hearty meal of boar soup and bread I turned in for the night with big plans for tomorrow.