"Dungeon! Wait, Who said that?" looking around the room, only seeing the small ruby bob in the air.

"Me, I am the dungeon core! The one that is talking to you. I really, really, really need your help! Please!" the ruby bob up and down a lot, now.

Thinking about what a dungeon is in this kid's mind, he found that the boy heard about a dungeon a few months ago. Someone destroyed the core and sold it to a mage in the city's central section for a large bag of gold. Thinking of selling an intact core could mean a lot of money.

Seeing brief greed in Jack's eye as he rubs his chin in thought, the ruby got agitated. "No! No! Please! I need your help. My fairy was killed by those rats outside when she arrives and found out she a dungeon fairy. She refuses to help. Saying she always wanted to be a forest fairy and not trap in a dungeon as a dungeon fairy! Then she flew out of the room, and a rat killed her. The screaming was horrible. I could not do anything to help her.! But if you want, I can make you rich!" she exclaims.

Pondering for a few minutes, he stares at the ruby floating in front of him. He sat down against the wall and stared some more at the gem moving around. "I don't need a dungeon, but being rich is nice. I only want a place to rest and hide. From what I know about dungeons is they like to kill and give loot for killing stuff. I don't need a bunch of adventurers wanting to kill me to get to you. I want to build a place, maybe in the future, that is something like a small empire of greed." shrugging his shoulder. "Build too big, and they all go after you and die. Too small, you get swallowed up and disappear. I am not evil and have given away money to help orphans and the poor. I only retired because I grew too old and started feeling my age. I didn't need the money after a few heists."

"Wait! Let me look through my list. Maybe I can help," she said, and he can hear her muttering. "Nope, nope, maybe, nope, ah nope, possible, yep those might work! Ha! Okay. You are a rogue, right?" she bobs in front of him.

"Last I look, I am." checking his information, "Nope, said I and a Thief, I like thief over a rogue. Rogue sounds too rascal-like for me. I like doing things with a flair and style.

"Good, this could work! That means you have all three a pickpocket, lockpicking, and a burglary that makes you a thief. I have a list of the dungeon... I mean lairs you can design, a pirate lair, a brigand camp, a smuggler den, and a thieves den. They can all be built above ground and some part below ground that fit mine into my setting. Do any of them fit what you want?" she hummed.

A scroll appears before him.

Pirate Den

Create an area along a river or seacoast for raiding

A small village on an island, sea coast, or riverside.

One sea vessel or two riverboats.

A crew of eight men at the start. Pirates only

Brigand Camp

Create an area that brigand can steal from travelers and villages.

Small wood palisade camp.

Eight men at the start. Scouts and bandits.

Smuggler den

Travel between two towns either by land or sea.

Distance of ten to a hundred miles on the first route.

One large merchant ship fast, two riverboats, or two wagons with a team of horses.

Eight men, either sailors or teamsters.

Thief Den

Has the best of all world. It can only be formed in a city.

Thief Den can have their hands into many pies. Only imagination is needed.

Twelve men at the start. Pickpockets, burglars, thugs, pirates, fences, forgers, scam artists, smugglers, etc.

One small block of land, one to ten acres of land must be claimed at the start legally, scam or force. Or a small den below ground or both. It can be above, below, or both.

No vehicles are giving at the start.

Harder to control and hide the den when creating a building.

"No, to Pirate Den, I hate lots of water. Brigand Camp requires me to move to the countryside and..." He shivers, "I hate country living. The Smuggler Den sounds nice, but it requires me to set up a smuggling route on land or water, or both, nope. But the Thieves Den calls to me, but will I be stuck in this dungeon if I agree?"

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"You will not be stuck inside the dungeon until you are killed, at which point I will summon you after twenty-four hours of your death. You will not remember anything about how you died. I can only summon you with memories from before you step out of my range. I can slowly expand my range and affect things as I grow. I can expand one foot an hour to my level times two hundred feet. Also, after you die, you are stuck within my boundaries."

"So you can affect things above ground to about two hundred feet." rubbing his chin in thought as he stares up at the ceiling. Two hundred feet will put about medium ten buildings and this side of the wall in my control. Looking back at the dungeon core.

"Can you build a building?"

"Yes, I see shops, fence house, warehouse, and several barracks for your men, even a bordello if you want. But we would have to be careful and not let others know I am a Dungeon if you want to hide me. Once I died, everything I create will fade away."

"I can't have you build building above without someone know there is a dungeon here. Is there any way to make it look like someone is building the building and have you change it overnight into better work?"

"Hmm, I could create a team of men and women to build. One moment I will have to look."

Jack walks around the room thinking of the pros and cons of making a thieve den to selling the core. Overall the pro outweighs the con. He wanted to semi-retire from being a thief. But now he is young again got his blood pumping. Running a thieve den could allow him time off to enjoy life, maybe travel a little bit and see the area around the city and get his hands dirty a few times. I need to create a persona as a minor lord that has arrived by ship, maybe. And see about purchasing some land in the slum, figuring it be cheap need money first.

After five minutes, "there is a builder guild that can summon four builders. The cost is twenty Dp, and they can train local people or creatures to build things like walls or buildings. Each member can have ten people working under them. You can set the wages for the new hire. Just remember, the new hires are not loyal. But the longer they work, their loyalty bar can rise unless they are working for someone else, then time will not work with loyalty. One year with the builder guild will give them a fifty percent loyal that can raise depending on the person and benefits."

Interesting, they somehow create a loophole on finding spies without meaning to. After a year, I can find out anyone is a spy while helping the community build things. Turn back to the gem. Remembering she said barracks?

"Wait! You said barrack for my men. What do you mean by that?" he turns to the ruby.

"Barrack or some building are needed for summoning men to fill your need. Each barracks can summon up to four men or women. As you upgrade the barracks, the more men you can summon. The men are one hundred percent loyal to you as the dungeon master. You can get dungeon points to summon them as long as you have the income to support them each month. They remain loyal until their loyalty drop below fifty percent, then they flee."

"Only men and humans?"

"No, they can be a mix of random men and women. They can be all one race, or you can base it only on the city demographic. Take this city its sixty percent humans, fifteen percent half breeds of different kinds, ten percent orcs, eight percent dwarves, five percent fae that counting elves, and two percent other races. That two percent counts as monsters in this city." she explains.

"So I can build a thieve den, and no one will know if you are expanding?"

"I'm not sure. The farther a dungeon goes, the farther down, the more mana a dungeon produces to make monsters that can survive outside the dungeon. I will be expanding above ground and spread out. It could be a year to fifty years before someone notices me, and by then, I will already be ready for them with your help."

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't ask, but do you have a name?" staring at the ruby.

"I was called Ariel. I use to be human. I died in a dungeon, just two more missions to retiring from diving into dungeons, and then I can design a building for the builder guild. My ability to disable traps and draw dungeons map made me famous, but my hunting band of five men raped and killed me. A rival member of the building guild did not want me to join, so he paid them to kill me. They told me why they were doing this as they were raping me. Their city builder guild is not from this city, and I already know it was a hundred and fifty years ago that I died. I was mad when I awoke. I could not do anything but expand out to the stairs and upstairs and stop by a barrier to move into the city to learn a thing. After my fairy died, she never bonded with me, so I can not summon her when she died. So I have been looking around but was not able to expand more without bonding with someone. I have been alone here for ten years, waiting for a fairy or someone to show up. If you bond with me, I can start expanding and building rooms and building."

"Okay," spreading his hands, "I will bond."

She squeals, "You will? Really? Okay, you need to drop some blood on me, and the bonding will happen." the gem seems to buzz.

"Stop moving around so I can put blood on you."

"Oh, sorry. I will calm down now." Still hearing the joy in her voice.

Taking out the sharp stick, he pricks himself and watches the blood drip onto the ruby, and he heard some sizzling noise as it was adsorbed, then he blackout.