There was not much to think about, the closed steel gate in front of Kiki's nose spoke volumes of their next options.

"No, NOOOOOOO!! Let us out! Please let us go! We will pay!" Percy began shouting and banging against the steel door, but there was no response.

"Murderes! This is evil! You cannot do this! Release us you fucking bastards!" Kiki listened to Percy's plea that was slowly but surely changing into wild cursing.

"Man, be calm. What the problem is?" Zawir had still not even the slightest clue about what was going on.

"Do you know what the problem is you fucking imbecile?! This is no dungeon break or anything like it, this is dungeon feeding and WE are the fodder!" Percy looked at Zawir with his eyes full of insanity.

"But they gave us all the gear." Said Tonka in confusion, shifting his weight on his other leg with unease.

"Because they can take all of our weapons back after we are dead!" Percy had not stopped shouting.

"This cannot be true, the officer spoke the truth, I have never saw anyone cheated by the . ."

"All of them are fucking dead, dead! That is why you have never seen anyone!" Percy's shout interrupted Kiki as she was grasping on straws. Only Percy was experienced enough to hear the rumours that circled among more experienced adventurers about dungeon feeding. It was quite an explosive information and no one really dared to speak about it aloud, but the more experienced people were still able to figure it out.

It was logical that if a dungeon had let's say a silver golem as its basic monster, its advanced monsters could be made of gold, diamond or even better marketable resource, similar situations leading to dungeon feeding, where people were sacrificed to the dungeon one way or another to increase its output. The trick was a dungeon would not lose experience if somebody with high enough level killed its monsters and this way what could be created was basically an exploit of the dungeon system. First, the valuable dungeons were fed experience to imrpove the yield and then high level soldiers farmed the dungeons, pocketing the dropped items.

Naturaly, dungeon monsters were summons that disappeared and could not be reforged to metals, but the drops from monsters usually corresponded to their types, meaning one would not receive elven panties from killing a stone golem, but rather something related to stone golems.

Toby had similar thoughts, remembering his research. He had been suspicious there was something like this going on, the main clue being Durkan's food supply! He had always wondered where Durkan buys all the food, as the city was enormous and no ordinary farm was able to supply for its needs. After comparing some sources and later studying more about dungeons, he thought that he had figured it out.

Durkan had groomed some dungeons producing food as loot and could freely farm as much food as needed, the only limitation being the food variety. In fact it might be some empire-wide net that was probably the secret of the empire's success. He had been reluctant to search about it more, as this was probably a topic that could cause heads flying, but now Toby and the party had been thrown right in the midst of it.

"What are we going to do?" Asked Kiki, but Percy had no answer, only shaking while glued to the steel door, his back pressing against it, like he wanted to make an imprint of his back.

"This is bad." Zawir evaluated the situation, the gravity of the situation reaching even him.

"Silence, do not make any noise. It must not know we are here. The next time the door open, we will break out of here." Percy was in the end able to put together a simple plan.

Everyone stared silently at a giant chasm in front of them with stairs carved into the rock's face, those were leading down, deeper into the dungeon.

But the stone wall behind them was manned with a few soldiers that had been instructed what to do in a situation like this. Soon, a big stone was flying down the chasm, thrown by one of the soldiers.

"Move your ass adventurers, you have not been hired to just stand there!" One of them shouted, still keeping the pretense, as the official version for the poeple outside had to remain legit and proper.

They wanted to argue with the soldiers, but heard that the rock he had thrown had done its work and a cacophony of roars and screeches was coming out of the giant hole in the earth.

"Feeding time." One of the soldiers whispered in their direction and giggled.

They had no time to curse the spineless soldier, as some kind of reptilian monsters emerged from the depths, runnig up the last few stairs that parted them from their prey.

They arrived in no time.

Tonka tried to block a blow from the nearest monster that looked like an overgrown reptilian version of a porcupine, but the blow was too strong and his sword flew out of his hand after their brief clash. The monster followed fluently with a bite and Tonka fell down while blood and air was gurgling out of a nasty gash in his neck.

The monster immediately bent down and mauled him to death in an unpleasant show of gore and brutality.

"Brother!" Kiki screamed, but her scream was interrupted by another monster which nearly tore her head off with its claw. Stained with blood, her treasured necklace was thrown away into the depths of the chasm, its delicate metal chain torn apart.

That was the last time Toby had seen his unwanted companions, the dugeon core gem housing him falling deeper and deeper with increasing speed. The sounds of the skirmish, or rather a sacrifice, died down and Toby was awaiting his death. Yes, he was a stone, but he was not sure how hard was it when compared to the bottom of the chasm.

After a while of dreadful silence, Toby felt an impact and the sensation of something enveloping him.

"Thank god, there is a pond at the bottom!" Toby felt his body sinking deeper until he had finally rested at the bottom of the deep pond. At that moment, one serious question occupied his mind.

"Do my acolytes have to breathe or not?" He was aware that the pond was very deep, at least he would be safe here from the monsters, unless they were amphibious.

He gave a minute of silence for the now surely deceased fake adventuring party and began to summon an acolyte, purple lights dancing at the very bottom of the body of water.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

* * * *

"Off with you!" Percy used the distraction when one of the porcupine-like monsters was tearing into Kiki's neck and pushed it with his pike. The monster was still too close to the stairs and fell down the chasm, screeching desperately. Percy quickly backed away, positioning himself to be behind their stupid bowman and as expected, the monsters that had gotten up among the first jumped at Zawir. Percy managed to stab one of the monsters through its eye, killing it instantly, but that was about all he had managed to do before Zawir was dead and he had to turn back and ran away. He ran along the edge of the chasm and knew there would be nowhere to ran when he fully circled around the giant hole in the ground.

The slight trickle of power he felt flowing into his body after the kill was the only pleasant feeling he would have before death. Even if he had gone up the rank, the situation would not have changed. He noticed Kiki was following close behind him in a desperate attempt to escape death, her head covered in blood.

"No, no, I do not want to die!" Her tears mixed with blood as she wailed, Percy could not care less about her, because he had just noticed one important fact.

He had not felt the first kill.

Although ordinary people were unable to see their experience gains, it could be felt and Percy knew that he had felt nothing fron the monster he had pushed over the edge, despite it was the same kind as the second one he had stabbed to death.

"It has not died!" There was no doubt about it and there could be just one reason why the long fall had not killed the creature.

"There is water at the bottom!" Percy nearly laughed like a lunatic, but had no time to think about it, as the monsters were slowly catching up to him.

And so he jumped.

The feeling of weightlessness consumed him and he felt intense nausea. His shoulder hit some rock that was extending too far from the wall, but he was not even aware of the dull pain.

Wait, what if the chasm was too deep and the monster was still falling?

Many thoughts ran through his brain, but at some point there was a terrible impact and then nothing.

* * * *

"Party killer!" Toby just shook his head, when Percy regained consciousness and started to panic. He frantically tried to get up, only to fall back on his behind a second later.

"Why are you here? Where am I?" Percy seemed disoriented, looking around, but it could not help him, there was only darkness around them for those not having night vision.

"Just shut up, or the beasts will come." Toby said and that one line calmed him down in an instant.

"The situation is simple, I have saved your ass despite your previous attempt to kill me. You should thank me for pulling you out of the lake." Toby scolded him.

"What are we going to do?!" Percy asked while holding his shoulder that was still in pain, but it was the question Toby himself was pondering.

He had a guess they were out of range of the enemy dungeon. The chasm was too deep to be in its control in its entirety. They were trapped on multiple levels, the way up was blocked by the dungeon and the army camp if they tried to go further up. He could certainly dig his way out. No, that would take too long and it would be a wasted opportunity as he was in the end where he had been heading to. Thinking about it further, it was an ideal situation, what if he simply kept gnawing on The Depths of Zaraturk Ibn Fahlan from below, while the army was feeding it from above?

Ingenious!

Wait, that was certainly not humane to use a provy to feed on humans, elfs and who knows what other species, but why should it matter? To grow was what was important, it was ingrained in the very marrow of his bones, well more like the bones of his minions as he was just a piece of a fancy rock now.

"That is right, I will do it that way. Although there could be that problem after some time." Toby mumbled for himself under a simple black robe of his acolyte. Fortunately it seemed the acolytes were undead as well and had no trouble not breathing under the water.

"Hey, I am talking to you! What now?" Percy drew Toby's attention to him again and gave him an idea.

"That's it, there will be those two, if something goes south, I can point my finger on them and let one of my acolytes die spectacularly again. They have no clue of my true origin anyway." Toby rolled around his thoughts in his mind, putting together some emergency plans. If the army went berserk about this, he would just let them think Kiki and Percy were the ones stealing kills from their precious, fat dungeon. He just had to make sure his origin was a secret to be able to wait it out at the bottom of the lake among the rocks later.

"Auch! Put your filty feet somewhere else moron!" An angry whisper cut off Toby's plotting.

"Kiki? How come you are still kicking?" Percy was startled, almost thinking her ghost had come to haunt him.

"Haven't seen a healing potion before? Our army supplies were really juicy. I have spilled the rest before the fall, you have come too late if you want some." She scoffed at him.

"Wait, I am pretty sure there were no healing potions in the rations they've given out." Percy searched his memory.

"Of course you dummy, I nicked them from the ones prepared for soldiers when they've been handing rations to us." Kiki giggled, but it sounded forced, she apparently wanted to keep her mind occupied not wanting to think about their current predicament.

"Hey, your brother is dead right? It did not look like a potion can put him together." Percy asked bluntly, perhaps irritated by her giggling. "He was kind of lame with that lousy parry of his."

"It is life, without good eyes, there are no free healing potions for you. Like Zawir, he can't steel shit, too clumsy." She continued like she had not heard Percy at all.

"You mean that retarded bowman? I have seen him torn to pieces right after your brother. He was a good shield though." Percy continued in his merciless push and Toby watched with amusement as Kiki's breaths turned quick and short, her brain's denial of reality unable to handle Percy's thick dose of naked truth.

A moment later, tears appeared in her eyes and she started sobbing quietly, covering her face with her hands.

"B-Brother. . "

Hillarious these humans and their little emotions! Amusement was all they could provide for Toby as they were probably too low level to be sacrificed for his growth. What a shame. That reminded him of losing one hundred to Percy when he had killed his acolyte.

"Just you wait you little .. "

Hillarious?

Amusement?!

Sacrificed?!!

Toby tensed when he realized how conflicting his thoughts were with his original behaviour. Something was a bit wrong. No, something was going totally into deep shit and that something was his personality!

His instincts had been replaced with those of a dungeon, meaning replaced with something that had the cravings of a serial killer and an asocial, hoarding maniac.

"Percy, stop being the cause for unnecessary noise." Toby said dryly, trying to bend himself in the right direction.

"Eh . .ok." Percy was not surprised with his sentence, as this response was perfectly in line with the picture of Toby in his mind.

Toby made the acolyte pace back and forth, it was interesting how close to actually being an acolyte it felt, when he focused on one fully.

"We shall begin, but not here. There is too little room." Toby mumbled under the robe and jumped back into the lake, slowly sinking to the bottom.

The funny part of his [Tomb] building was that there was no requirement to make it above water. Later he might try to build an underwater dungeon as a lot of water seemed to be a good defensive measure. Here he just used the wide space that the bottom of the lake provided.

He had built enough to make a force of fifty skeletons and sent them climbing up the steep wall. Of course only after a half an hour of summoning them.

* * * *

The camp commander slammed his hand into his table, nearly breaking it in half.

"How is this possible?! We feed the damned dungeon more and more, but there are no signs of any substantial growth!" He was furious, yesterday he had received a letter, the emperor had been seeking results, but the damned lizard-spawning thing had not undergone any substantial changes! He looked incompetent and he knew the emperor did not like incompetent people.

"May I help? I have come for a reply, but the soldiers said there wasn't one." It was Duran Khali, the messenger scheduled to receive the commander's reply. The reply he could not possibly provide as things were.

"We might have run into a little trouble, I think there is a saboteur inside." The commander looked at the messenger with puppy eyes, something hilarious given the commander was a veteran. The messenger knew right away where this was going.

"A saboteur? Do you need some assistance?" Duran Khali along with Boru would be a considerable force when one closed one eye about the regulations and there was no worry about the delicate nature of the matter as Duran belonged to the royal guard.

"Yes, if you would. The situation is like this . .. "

* * * *

"Run bitch, or your ass will be even more slim than it is." Gloin barked and suppressed his urge to kick the behind of the elf running in front of him and only swiped her back lightly with his claws.

Her moans of pain invigorated him.

The tunnel was too narrow to switch places at the moment and the beasts hunting them were not ceasing in their pursuit. It was bad luck, he had turned south to get into human territory to get rid of the elves following them, persistent bastards, but he had miscalculated using a shortcut he should not have. The tunnels were long and complicated, at first he had no intention to turn back because of the elves following their trail and now he could forget about going back, when the stupid monsters began to hunt them.

There was too much of them, meaning there was a lair nerby, or a dungeon if they were less lucky. However, their levels were rather low, he could still outrun them if he decided to leave behind his pet dog. It was a miracle she was still alive, he had to praise her resilience.

He smiled and readied himself to swipe again, intoxicated by the smell of blood. Due to his overexcitement and his dog's total exhaustion, neither of them noticed that the tunnel abruptly ended.

With roars and shrieks, they began to fall into a large hole that seemed infinite.

* * * *

Percy shook his head, the party killer was really nuts. He was rarely with them, because Kiki often complained about their rations that had basically ran out, but currently he was almost dancing. He could tell that the freak was happy even though he had no expression.

Had he no one to share his joy with or something? Strange.

Actually Percy was quite hungry to the point he thought he might start to see things, the freak was apparently eating cockroaches or ants, as hunger had no effect on him.

"My god, what is it? I start even hear things." Above his head he heard a voice of a girl. That was plausible, he was quite horny and Kiki was no fun in her poor condition.

Next he heard a roar of a demon and that of a tiger? A girl, demon, tiger . .he was really hearing things out of hunger.

Still, his eyes narrowed when he saw a pitch black sphere growing out of the body of the party killer, quickly growing in size.

He could not escape in the confined space and the sphere enveloped him.