It wasn’t like there was any point in not using the statue.
The way she got it sucked, obviously, but there wasn’t any going back, right? Refusing to use the statue wouldn’t un-kill the person who died. She wondered if this kind of reasoning was just an instinct from being a core. Like, sure, humans rationalize all the time, but that doesn’t mean she has to.
But she really really really wanted to use the new trap.
And who was going to stop her? The dungeon police? She’s literally designed to keep people out, so she should at least not worry if she’s going to piss people off by doing that. A girl does have to eat.
The new question was now not if she should use the statue, but where she should use the statue. She could make another room, but she didn’t want to be spread so thin. And what was the point in having a room that people could avoid the trap in just by not looting. And the less concentrated her traps and monsters are, the more time intruders have to recuperate after each fight.
Baby’s room was kinda like a boss fight, right?
This isn’t the kind of trap that you put in a boss room. She placed it down in the first room, centered, but in the back, so that when people came in, they’d have to pass the scorpions to claim their “reward”.
Once she put it down, a new menu appeared
> Statue of Cruel Motherhood
>
> Loot: Coin pouch (nearby)
>
> Effect: Crumble
The coin pouch was fine, it was already down in the room, plus it was the only treasure object she had available. When she clicked on the effect, her options were straightforward.
> Crumble
> Spawn Monster
She clicked spawn creature, and it pulled up a list of all of her current kids, and “Spawn new”. It was a hard choice. How would spawning just one help, if the others were dead? What’s more they were greyed out. She tapped it.
> Option unavailable. Monster must not be in active use.
So many god damned restrictions. Fine. She set it to crumble. It would probably be more useful anyway.
Then she set about doing what she usually did. Just, pace through the halls, seeing if anything seemed worth changing. The whole layout was still in an N shape, but… maybe she should fuck around with it! Make it a cock’n’balls! Who knows! She was sooo bored.
She went to the entrance, and looked up to the outside world. Was anything out there? Any yummy yummy creatures or people?
Oh. Oh yes there was. There was some kind of… quadruped. She was sure of that. It had a single horn in the middle of it’s head, arcing backward, had eyes and a face like a goat, and a hump like a camel. . It was approaching, lazily chasing a tumbleweed. The weed landed right at her feet, and she watched carefully, seeing if the creature would descend.
Wait. If it just entered the hallway, the kids couldn’t kill it. Very, very quickly, she moved the entrance from where it sat to a part of the first room, so that anyone entering the dungeon would enter Boy’s room directly.
It made her head spin a little, as she got rid of a part of the dungeon she conceptualized herself as standing in, but soon she was everywhere instead, and pushed down the instinct of nausea. She was getting better at this ‘no body’ thing. With bated breath, she watched as the weird unicorn walked down the stairs, carefully, to follow after the tumbleweed.
It rolled a little farther in as the creature kicked it accidentally, and when it bent down to eat, it was eye-level with Boy’s stinger. He didn’t waste time, and it pierced the jelly of the thing’s right eye. It reared up on it’s hind legs, horn clinking against the ceiling.
It swung it’s head, trying to smash what had stabbed it, but Boy had moved on already, slicing through the tendon of its back left leg with a snip. It buckled, and then Asmodeus and even Dude got in on the action, all of them swinging with their tails and injecting their venom.
It tried to get out, it really did, but between the venom in its veins and its injured leg, not to mention the other legs which were getting peppered with wounds, it went down for good.
It took a while for it to die, but when it did, oh it was exciting.
> Ivek(Dead)
>
> A divine beast of burden, closely related to the unicorn. Its horn is moderately valuable, and is often harvested after death, making the purchase of one an investment as you wait for it to die after its service.
> Horn(50 SGI, 5 RG [T1Treasure])
> Meat(120 LI, 15 SGI 75 RG[T1Treasure])
> Tail(10 LI, 10 RG[Traps])
Least exciting? It listed which research project each thing would work toward. No more flipping back and forth and checking every item. Next? Another new ingredient! This one was represented with a symbol with different shards of color. And most exciting, she’s just finished the research on Treasure. She cashed in the horn for the new ingredient, and the other two for grist.
Immediately, three new boxes popped up. She ignored them, for the time being, but some of the words she caught felt very accusatory. Before all that, she called up the help menu to find out about this new ingredient.
> Stained Glass Ingredient(SGI) - Represented by a multicolor ingredient symbol, SGI is used to create anything related to the divine, whether that is a magic item, a utility object, or a room for worship.
Sick. She closed the menu and looked at the first window.
> Transformation unlocked!
>
> Scorpion 1 “Boy”
> Sand Scorpion Juvenile
>
> Activate transformation?
>
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
> Yes
> No
Sick x2 combo. She grinned, and pressed Yes as quick as she could. Boy slipped into a new form, bigger, stronger. His yellowed chitin darkened into a pleasant brown, and she cooed as she kneeled to watch her boy grow. His stinger got longer and curved wickedly, and spots appeared on his back as he got larger and feircer. She wrapped her incorporeal arms around him, and kissed his lil’ head, and received a pleased chitter in return.
After giving Boy his requisite affection, she turned back to the tasks at hand.
Research complete!
Unlocked:
> Decor: Old Chest
> Decor: Barrel
> Research: Treasure Tier 2
> Treasure: Meat Shank
> Treasure: Blessed Shank
> Treasure: Pocketknife
> Treasure: Blessed Herbs
The extremely dangerous and ultra–rare Sick x3 combo. She was already coming up with some ideas of how to use these new unlocks. The meat in particular seemed like it would be helpful for future growth. Now for the accusatory box. She took a deep breath.
> New Creature Tag added: Taboo
> New Dungeon Tag added: Taboo
>
> The Taboo tag is given to those that have committed some sin against divinity, such as killing sacred creatures, killing celestials, desecrating holy symbols, or else ruthlessly violating specific, intensely held, social norms. Tag requirements scale with Dungeon power.
>
> Requirements met:
> Killing of a celestial
> Killing of a pregnant human subtype
The weird fucking camel was a celestial. She closed the box. It was immediately replaced with two new ones.
> Requirements met:
> Gain the Taboo tag
>
> New Unlocks:
> Decor: Taboo Altar
> Decor: Skull Spike
> Decor: Imp Statue
> Research: Basic Infernia
> Style: Desecration
> Trap: Oilspitter
> Trap: Firevent
> Treasure: Avoidance Medallion
> Treasure: Penitent’s Crown
And the next one:
> Transformation unlocked!
>
> Scorpion 1 “Boy”
> Slainstone Scorpion Juvenile
>
> Activate transformation?
>
> Yes
> No
She wanted to say yes. She really did. But her mana generation was getting dangerously low, only at one mana per tic. Boy and Baby were both costing four mana per tic, and Asmodeus (who she really needed to get turned into a Slainstone Scorpion) and Dude were both costing three per tic still.
With a heavy heart, she pressed no. With the rate of mana production as it was, any further upgrades would probably only make things much much worse, and potentially put her in a situation where she would die. Since she was only just starting out, that probably meant there was a way to upgrade the mana tally soon.
With all the boxes closed, she noticed that the mana tally had a little alert next to it notifying her that her mana generation was low. She dismissed it with a wave of her hand, and got to work on the dungeon.
For a start, Boy was now the biggest, and scariest looking scorpion in her repertoire. She could move him to the “Boss room”, but it felt kind of… wrong. For starters, the different types of scorpion would mix, which was aesthetically not working for her. For another thing, she did have the option to get Boy to spawn in specifically when the statue trap was activated which would mean he wouldn’t be pulling from her mana constantly, plus it would synergise well with her current plans.
She pulled up the statue’s menu and moved the gold coins from the trap and created a new treasure for the first time since the tutorial.
> Blessed Shank
>
> LI: 25
> SGI: 5
> A piece of meat of indeterminate origin. It gives off a gentle energy of divinity, making it more valuable to the average adventurer.
The gold coins, she deleted, and was given fuck-all in return. She opened the monster menu, and clicked on Boy, before selection the ‘Despawn’ option. Now, with his entry greyed-out, she set the statue up to spawn him in once the shank was removed from the statue.
With Boy inside the statue, she was filled with a rush of mana. It felt like her sinuses depressurized and got rid of a headache she didn’t know she had. Now that the trap was all set, all she had to do was wait and see if it worked the way she wanted it to.
Compared to how long it took for the human (the veil?) to descend into her depths, she hardly had to wait at all. A small, six-legged fox, or maybe badger, creature entered, following its nose. With bated breath, she watched as Asmodeus approached it, only to be quickly bitten on the head, have her tail slashed to the point of unusability, and be completely dispatched. She crossed her fingers and chewed her lip, and watched as the creature sniffed at Asmodeus’s corpse, as it crumbled from its touch. It sneezed and moved toward its prize, the shank.
As soon as it pulled the meat out of the statue, Boy appeared, Pincers snapping. His tail lashed and the creature barely managed to scuttle backward as Boy’s stinger threw sparks up from the ground, as it scraped across. It was like Boy had an entirely new moveset, twisting and snapping, whereas before he would just click across the floor. He was shaping up to be a proper monster whereas before he was just… a creature.
The rest of the fight was hardly a contest, a war of attrition rather than a battle, the intruder tiring itself out and gaining no ground from Boy. He took a middle leg from the beast, and as he backed it toward Dude, they stung it in the back. It was the bullet that broke the glass, and with that distraction, Boy charged in and ripped away another limb, and then another, and another, and then the fight was won.
> Ardwnn(dead)
>
> A tricky and adaptable omnivore that gathers the nourishment it needs from scavenging and opportunistic kills.
>
> Pelt(LI 15, 20 RG[T1Decor])
> Meat(LI 25)
> Fangs(LI 2, 15 RG[Infernia])
Everything worked perfectly. She quickly processed the parts of the Ardwnn for the RG, and the leftovers for the LI. Satisfied, she despawned Boy again and sighed. Time to get to work on the important stuff.
Stylez.
----------------------------------------
Lash would love to get to the important stuff in her day. The problem was that the people in front of her in line at the inn in Kaversee would not stop talking to the clerk. There was a pair of Caradin twins, tanned darker than their companion (and certainly darker than Lash, who was practically translucent on the best of days, like spoilt milk dashed across the orange sands and rocks of the region), and shorter than both lash and their friend. Both were thin and knobby, like no matter how they touched you their bones would find a way to dig into your soft spots. They looked like they had cut their hair to match, but like the differences in their style still shone through. One had a bouncy, puffy bob, frizzed slightly, and the other’s bob was slicked back with what Lash could only assume was some type of beastoil.
Their companion was a tall and strong Arbal, with their obvious tail and ears, both covered with a dark grey fur that crept up into their hair. They looked, in spite of all their heft and obvious strength, gaunt and jittery, twitching and wincing like every movement made them dizzy.
“It’s fine, Ams,” the Arbal was saying, crossing their arms and hunching like they could shut out the rest of the world, and it would keep them from their obvious discomfort.
“It’s not fine,” the slicked-back twin said, before turning to the innkeeper again, “You truly don’t know the nearest dungeon to here?”
“Not aside from the Helexiav, but if what you say is true, it’s gone now. I know the big dungeons, but not any small ones. I’m… really sorry,” the innkeeper seemed a little over her head.
The other twin, the fluffy one, piped up, “We could get a skimmer? Take it to Lorehain and settle there?”
“Yes, we’ll get a skimmer with the money that’s coming flying out of our asses,” the slicked-back one snapped.
“Ambrosia!” the ill one hissed in response, “Don’t yell at her. She’s trying to help. We need to accept that I might not-”
“Finish that sentence and I start hitting you,” Ambrosia said. They made eye contact with Lash, who looked away quickly, “We can plan more in our room.”
The group leaves, but not before Ambrosia sends the sharpest look in Lash’s direction, and the other twin says politely, “Thank you anyway, miss!” to the innkeeper.
It’s not that the interpersonal drama was particularly interesting, Lash reflected as they paid for their own room. Rather, the implications were interesting. Dungeons don’t just disappear, so if it was gone, that meant someone had killed it. And based on how the Arbal was shuddering and twitching, and how desperate they were to find another dungeon, that made them the prime suspect.
Lash wasn’t completely clear on how it worked. They weren’t clear what it was like to kill a dungeon, but what they had heard was impressive. Dungeons were powered by an innate magic that allowed them to grow and expand, strengthening themselves with each kill. It was said that killing a dungeon passed this power to you, making you stronger, and making you capable of feats that would be impossible to the average person.
There was a glaring downside, though. Those with these powers, without frequent exposure to natural dungeon magic, would go through a deadly withdrawal process, inevitably dying without the ambiant mana. Lorehain was a town of these people, built around a central dungeon, the type of town that often springs up around a dungeon, not just for those who require the mana to live, but for those who industrialize and profit from the dungeon’s presence.
Which meant that if Lash was right about the Arbal’s guilt (and two and two do make four after all), there would be a significant bounty on their head.