I flayed the earth-lizard’s puny mind with anger. I scourged the beast with pain, drowned it in sorrows, and crushed down beneath my will. I was a storm that tore and took and the beast could only hope to withstand. When my fury was spent, I finally let the pitiful creature slip unconscious, reaching out and engraving the following commands into its mind. Serve. Faithfully. Hurt nothing but what I say to hurt.

The thin web of spellwork seared into its flesh shifted, inscribing my orders on the beast’s skin.

It lay sprawled out unconscious, and as it slept, I conjured two great trees of red iron and bound its manacles to them with long, thick chains. The bindings drew taut, and the creature was left a chained dog. A new servant for my dungeon.

Surveying the damage done to the second layer, I saw nothing that couldn’t be fixed. The torn-down, uprooted trees could stay as they were; they lent to the desolate air of the endless gray flowers that stretched out into darkness. The upturned roots of rusting iron stretched like strange, twisting tendrils. The severed stumps of the weeping-trees told a grim story. I made cup-shaped flowers of dull, blunt steel burst from the fallen trees, the way mushrooms and other parasitic specimens will sprout from rotting logs.

Now, I needed a Dungeon Law, and I’d had more than enough time to consider it. I would add a new dimension to the second layer, something that no amount of brute strength could overcome.

Thus it is spoken, and shall be Law:

All intruders must bear a jewel on their bodies in plain sight. Those who do not shall be devoured body and soul by the Dungeon.

[https://i.imgur.com/okCjs7y.png]

What did I excel in? What set my creatures apart? In truth, it wasn’t pure strength, but agility and cunning. This Law would set the battlefield to my tempo. It would make adventurers fight me on my terms, a battle of wits.

If I could steal away their gem, their protection, I would eat them alive.

The supernatural gloom of the Field of Lament, where fruits of nightvein shaped like human hearts devoured the light, they would face a gauntlet of thieves.

Previously, I had created blood-red, fleshy vines that wrapped around the salt-covered trees, growing thicker the deeper the viewer wandered through the seven islands, until the second-to-last plateau was completely overrun, blanketed in strange floral flesh.

Now, I realized they could be more than ornaments. If I could find a way to make a thinking plant, I could turn every one of those creeping vines into an arm that snatched and stole. As for how to make such a plant, I had a good idea of where I could learn- there had to be such a creature in the Everforest, where flora and fauna blurred together.

That would be my glass golem’s mission.

I would have to leave many of my creations behind, to guard the first layer. Cabochon would be their new leader in my steed. The glass golem would become my hunter in the Everforest, bringing back rare specimens for me to absorb and memorize. The fungal lion, lazy thing, would remain as a protector of the Glass Gardens.

I would take Aurum, Argent, and the new kobold with me. That was all. Even the kobold I would have left behind if he didn’t seem to cling to Aurum’s side. Even now, the little creature was carefully scampering down the wall to join us, now the battle was over.

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I had a great deal of work to do. Traps to design. I could see them now. Butterflies that hid beneath the flowers and burst up, their brilliant, colorfully luminant wings disrupting the endless dark of the Field of Lament, stunning the passing adventurer into a stupor with the Attunement of Gleam’s hypnotic charms. Opening a moment for my thieves to strike.

A long time ago I had harvested the larval form of an enormous mosquito, and now I could take its numbing venom, a tricky stuff that dulled the senses to pain, and mingle it in with a razor-sharp vine that would tangle around adventurer’s legs. If they tried to pull themselves free, they’d saw themselves to ribbons without ever realizing they were being cut apart.

More. Most of the adventurers would wear their gems in the form of jewelry. I could lift lodestone from my walls, animate it into golems that would tear the glittering gold and silver away with their very presence.

For so long I had been pent up, cramped in the first layer, suffering in the too-thin Mana of the air. Now that dull, everpresent pain was gone, and my mind seemed to race forth, refreshed, seeing the possibilities.

But there was one thing I had to handle first of all. I had carved a new entrance, a gaping cavern mouth high up in the walls. It couldn’t remain as it was. An ugly mar on my beautiful work. No, I had to dress it up. Make it part of the effect.

Slowly, the walls began to recede, carved away to form the scowling visage of an enormous bearded face, its mouth the gaping hole I had cut to allow Aurum through. All around it I sculpted the impression of an enormous red tree, molded into the walls. Smaller openings hid amid the branches, linked to the central tunnel through small, burrowed-in dens where smaller creatures could rest.

I anticipated a great deal of little darting birds with clever thieving beaks in the future of this layer.

Finishing the sculpture, I relaxed, letting my mind sink into a happy place of idle dreams, traps and tribulations for scurrying, unfortunate little adventurers. Their imagined pleas for mercy warmed my heart.

Cabochon carried me up, towards the eye of the giant face. I would rest here, where I could overlook my trials directly. Where Aurum could protect me.

GO NOW TO THE FIRST LAYER. THERE I WILL APPOINT YOU GUARDIAN. I directed the Arachne, as he set me in a carved niche at the scowling visage’s pupil.

“I will not see you again, will I?” He asked. There was an odd note to his voice, a bleak sort of resignation. I suppose I understood. His creator was moving on, and his part to play was now set, left behind to carry out a role into dark eternities.

I WILL BE WITH YOU.

[https://i.imgur.com/okCjs7y.png]

Cabochon returned to the upper layer through the dark tunnel, a mix of feelings in his heart. Deep hurt, as if all his service was being rewarded with rejection; a determination to continue on faithfully; fierce pride in that he alone had been deemed fit to fill the Maker’s role.

He would fill it well, he promised himself that.

The first layer would not stagnate, would not become a dead place, a perfunctory challenge to be tossed aside as intruders continued deeper. He would guide the denizens to strength and prime further traps, further trials. Cabochon would see that the first layer was never overlooked or dismissed. It would be the pride of the Dungeon, not a negligible little appetizer to the real challenge.

These things he promised himself in the dark.

And beauty!

It would have beauty. Even if an intruder made it no farther, even if they turned back at the first layer, they would live to tell all tales of a Dungeon equalled by none in grandeur. Cabochon would tend the Garden well and see it’s splendor grow by the day.

This was another promise. He wound a band of nacre around his fingertip for each. And Caboch felt promises, all things really, should come in threes.

Blood. Yes, he would make a promise of blood. His every kill would be an artist’s rendition. He would honor the Maker in the demise of his enemies. The Maker’s attention, after all, would still be drawn towards fresh kills, towards souls and Mana to take.

He would make sure the Maker saw him then, carrying out his duties in a style it could be proud of.

But…

Something was strange. The darkness around him was more than it should have been. More than the dark of the earth.

It was an absolute black, a void.

And from that utter void a voice spoke to him.

LITTLE SPIDER. I HAVE A PROPOSAL.