Dungeon Wars
Book 1: The First
(The Slime Dungeon Universe)
Jeffrey “Falcon” Logue
Acknowledgements
For my fans who stuck with me
Cover and Design by:
Amelia Parris
Editing by Dustin Frost at House of Frost Editing.
https://www.facebook.com/HouseofFrostEditing/
●●●
All work within this novel is fictional. All characters, places, and adventures were born within the mind of the author and have no relation to anything in real life.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; no copies should be made without the consent of the author. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work.
If you enjoy this story, please leave a review so as to make the author’s day and/or week.
Text Copyright © 2019 Jeffrey “Falcon” Logue
All rights reserved
The First
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Afterwards
Prologue
The continent of Palos, the world of Fortum. This is a land of wonder and violence, filled with magic and monsters, gods and demons. With the three heavens above and the nine hells below, the continent of Palos is an ever-changing world, with civilizations across it rising and falling. Eight sentient races cover it: humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, beast-men, devils, and grey orcs. They fight against the beasts and monsters of the land in order, staking their lives on a better future.
Of course, these are not the only intelligent life forms on the continent. Thanks to magic, many new forms of life thrive in the vast wildernesses that rule the continent. Of those, few are as strange and mysterious as the dungeons.
Dungeons are not fully understood by the sentient races, though many delve deep to learn. A dungeon is an underground labyrinth, capable of growing and creating creatures and treasure. The heart of the dungeon is its crystal, the core of the cavern. These magical crystals are powerful reagents useful in all forms of magical research and are highly valued. This makes the destruction of dungeons a highly valuable—and sometimes suicidal—venture.
Those that dive into dungeons are adventurers, thrill-seekers who take on all manner of requests at the adventurer guild in return for recognition and coin. However, as rewarding as it can be, most do not seek to destroy the dungeon, but instead conquer it. While a dungeon lives, it creates creatures and monsters that adventurers can kill to harvest their useful parts. Dungeons also create loot, valuable weapons, armor, coins, tools, and other things that are highly prized by people. When a dungeon proves its worth, a town of adventurers will almost certainly form around it.
Still, no one is sure how a dungeon can be alive. Some adventurers swear that they have heard voices speak to them inside dungeons, but their testimony came after long periods trapped underground. Others have said that dungeons are arcane constructs created by an ancient group of magi. Some countries have secretly made their own artificial dungeons, but those, however, are always found lacking compared to real dungeons.
Perhaps one reason for this is the absence of the dungeon pixie. Dungeon pixies are an extremely rare form of pixie known to partner with dungeons. They never appear above ground, and the only specimens ever found have died soon after. For whatever reason, dungeon pixies bond to their dungeon the same way dryads and their ilk bond to a tree; their life is tied to the crystal. Indeed, the one dungeon pixie ever successfully stolen from a dungeon died after being brought a day’s ride away from it. Its dungeon partner went insane when the pixie died, turning corrupt and destroying the nearby town before a platoon of knights could eliminate it.
Indeed, dungeons possess the strange ability of using their mana to merge with the ground around it. Acting similarly to how a golem’s crystal works, the dungeon heart crystal uses its mana to create an outer shell to protect its core, the outer shell being a dungeon instead of a golem’s body. Indeed, the two crystals appear somehow related, as the legendary golem dungeon in the grey orc’s territory holds within its moving body a legendary dungeon. Without digressing further, this ability is normally limited by the size of the heart crystal. When a dungeon begins to spread and absorb the surface, it is classified as corrupted because the unlimited making of monsters destroys everything in the area as its influence grows. Corrupted bits of land take years to recover any form of viability, and large swaths of dead land still dot parts of Palos.
Still, dungeons are an incredibly important part of the continent’s economy. For example, adventurers could choose to travel into the vast wilderness to search for a rare monster, or they could dive into a dungeon where the type of monster is more frequent. Thanks to advances made in the northern countries, new types of magical equipment has made diving a much safer task. Things like escape talismans, magic bags, dark-vision goggles, and other things that previously required expensive priest blessings or enchanter work is now more readily available to the public, though the southern religious countries have only begrudgingly allowed them in within recent years.
Indeed, dungeons are some of the most dangerous and wondrous of places. They tend to rely on a single species of monster or an ecology, specializing in the evolutions of their choice. New monster species never before seen in nature have been found there, and the much-hated green orcs have been proven to have evolved within a dungeon before leaving. It is not known how monsters created by a dungeon can leave, but reports do confirm the occurrence, though it is rare.
Dungeons also have vastly different designs. The most notable dungeons have taken forms beyond that of a stationary cavern, including the great golem dungeon roaming in the orc territory, the great sky dungeon in the north that has created many smaller flying islands, the great ocean dungeon located beneath the waves of the southern archipelago, the great volcano dungeon that only appears within active lava, the great mansion dungeon that only appears during the moonless nights, the great forest dungeon that appears within a giant treant, the great ice castle dungeon that appears only during the coldest days of the year, and the great cloud dungeon that floats above the tallest mountain. Other dungeons seem to follow one of these paths at some point, though some notable ones are unique, such as the ever-growing taverns. The great labyrinth city surrounds the largest example of this type of unique dungeon in Bosrol, an endless labyrinth that is challenging and rewarding but dangerous.
Nothing on Palos comes close to these great caves of adventure. They are the source of some of the greatest triumphs and tragedies ever known, and yet no one ever hears their side of the story. In later chapters, the artificial dungeons are of particular interest, as they are only relics of such lost magic and science. Are dungeons intelligent in the same way people are, or are they highly sophisticated crystals of instincts?
To answer this question, here is first an excerpt from Magus Falcon’s report on the notable slime dungeon of the fallen country of Nehatra. According to him…
–Introduction from The Dungeon Inquiry #745 of
the year of the sun.
*
A dark room, a dark place. No light shone within these walls of dead stone and frigid air. Silence echoed like a bird in a cage, a peaceful nothingness in trepidation. Even the air itself moved listlessly, carrying an odor of lives lost and time past.
All this ended when a tiny light entered the cave, flying swiftly through air with soft illumination. The thing stopped in front of a small, stone door hidden in the wall. The already dim light faded to reveal a floating letter, some message encased in soft magic.
This pinprick of light sent soft waves through the room, enough to arouse that which had been sleeping. Tendrils of dark energy twisted into existence, as if some eldritch horror had been awoken. A hiss filled the air, directed in annoyance at the light. One of the magic streams swiped at the letter, as if to put out the light, but was repelled by an unseen force.
The source of these dark tendrils of magic roared out in annoyance and frustration, shaking the room with ancient power. The noise awoke others who dwelt within the darkness, some more terrifying than others.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” a seductive and enchanting voice echoed through the room. “What has disturbed you so?”
The room rumbled in response.
“A light?” the voice asked curiously. In response, the stone door opened, revealing a deep darkness eclipsing that of the room. From within, a hand covered in a silver glove extended out and seized the letter in the same manner a wolf would seize a rabbit. The letter was pulled into the room, the door slamming shut behind it. For the brief moment between the letter disappearing and the door closing, the light had already vanished from existence, returning the cave to peaceful, deathly silence.
“I see,” the voice laughed suddenly from within the darkness. “Yes, I see. It reached her. Oh, how wonderful!”
The room rumbled again, though much softer now with a curious tone rather unbecoming a seismic event.
“Who? Why, my wonderfully precious daughter, of course,” the voice replied happily. “I was so worried after not hearing from her for a year that I just had to send a letter. And look, she signed it and sent it back with her spatial location.”
The room trembled in waves, the ground singing in anticipation.
“Oh, I’m happy to see you’re interested, but I can’t allow you to eat her,” the voice scolded. “Yes, I know her father was delicious, but you can’t have her, too, naughty girl. She’s my only daughter, after all, and she’s very important.”
The room was silent once more.
“Oh, fine,” the voice relented. “I’m sure she can part with a leg or two. We don’t really need them. I’m sure I have a few substitutes lying around somewhere, or I suppose there is a relative or two who knows who to regrow flesh. Oh, but then again, she’d look so attractive with a bone leg, just like her uncle! Oh, the possibilities.”
A single shake, and the magic tendrils disappeared from existence.
“Yes, yes darling, I know you’re excited,” the voice said in exasperation. “Now come, send me there so that I may behold by precious daughter once more!”
The small door burst open once more, releasing a dark object that flew into the room. The figure, for it was a someone rather than a something, radiated a dark light, a mockery of both light and darkness in that it radiated an abyss of both that faintly illuminated its edges. A single tendril of magic reached out to meet it, and then everything returned to silence.
Thousands of miles away, the figure bathed in darkness reappeared above a ruined ground. The moon shone brightly down onto the derelict former town.
“Now, where is she?” the figure murmured, her seductive voice emanating thoughtfully from the light. “Oh, what is this delicious scent of death... and demon? What a nostalgic smell. Second or third husband I wonder?”
The figure flew down to examine the ruin. What she beheld were the burned and blasted remnants of what had once been a settlement of some kind. What few buildings remained standing were cracked and covered in black soot, one comprised of little more than ashes of earth and air. Through the ruin, large ruts cut the site into sections that all originated from a massive crater just to the north. It was as if some great behemoth had been unwillingly unearthed from the soil, taking the land with it.
The figure flew down and scooped a trace of soot onto her finger. Bringing it to her lips, she licked it and analyzed the taste thoughtfully.
“Burned warlock,” the figure exclaimed suddenly. “Well that certainly explains the scent of demons. Hm, did my precious little girl get in a fight with the big bad Empire?”
The air was suddenly filled with thick bloodthirst and rage, enough magic to drive anyone into a terrified run.
“Oh, if they touched so much as a hair on her head, I’ll see those arrogant fools devoured!” the voice coldly said.
And then, quiet was restored.
“Oops,” the figure giggled, “best to learn all the facts first. Wouldn’t want another mess to explain at the gathering, after all. Not again, anyway. Shouldn’t have those fossils watching me closer than they already are.” The figure flew up over to the crater, landing at the very bottom. With a flick of her wrist, the dark light vanished, revealing the figure in all her glory.
She was a pixie with flowing black and silver hair over black eyes set above a slightly pointed nose, with a pair of full lips contorted into a smile. She wore a flowing uneven black dress that revealed half of her right thigh with silver highlights in the form of tiny skulls along the edges. Her arms were dressed in long silver gloves that seemed to change color from white back to silver in the moonlight. She wore no shoes, but her feet never quite touched the ground. Her wings, silver and white, possessed an eerie feel to them, as if they were not quite alive.
“Here. She was here,” the pixie murmured excitedly. “I can smell my little Claire.”
The silver pixie raised her palm and clenched it toward the night sky. A ball of white fire burst into being, silent and of no apparent temperature.
“Death is the great equalizer,” the pixie woman chanted. “Reveal the deaths of those who came before.”
At her command, the white fire shot into the air and exploded, sprinkling the land with tiny pinpricks of white. The pixie woman smiled and flew up high enough to see the grounds below.
Everywhere the fire touched, ghostly phantoms sprung into being. These pale forms were only shadows, echoes of the souls who perished before traveling to their final destination. The land was littered with countless phantoms, centered mostly in the ruins and in a field to the east. The eastern field phantoms were considerably older however, but the pixie had eyes for neither battlefield. Her eyes were fixed sorely on the crater.
“So, you’re still alive,” the lady pixie smiled happily. “That’s good. Your dungeon must have gained a teleportation ability. How surprising that such a new dungeon is capable of that. Did my little dear stumble upon a chance encounter? You always were my best student, Claire my dear. Still, it will be easy enough to follow you...”
Trailing off, the lady pixie created another white flame and dropped it down to the center of the crater. Unlike the first, however, this flame sputtered out of existence and vanished, much to the lady’s displeasure.
“Divine interference?” she frowned slightly. “How boring. How dare those trollops interfere with a mother’s quest to find her daughter.” Still, there was nothing she could do about it. Her magic was easily dispelled by the mere trace presence of true divinity, and as such, there was little to do besides curse. The pixie flicked a piece of soot off her shoulder, irritated.
“Hm?” the pixie turned her suddenly as motion attracted her attention. At the edge of the wood, five figures clad in black garments were surveying the glowing phantoms.
“Perfect,” the lady pixie said, licking her lips. “I needed something to take out my frustrations on. And...” she inhaled, “warlocks are perfectly wicked things for the job. They even have the same scen
t as those dead ones. How… delicious.”
She snapped her fingers and the lady pixie reappeared in front of the scouting warlocks, who promptly stumbled back in surprise.
“You’re in the right place at the right time, boys,” she giggled happily. “Well, for me anyway.”
“A pixie?” The lead warlock was startled at first but promptly broke into a boisterous laugh. “Men, looks like we’ve hit our pay day! She’ll sell for a city’s ransom back in the Empire!”
The lady pixie instantly frowned. The atmosphere around them shook, and an intense pressure fell from the sky. The warlocks looked on in terror as the might of the pixie took ethereal form behind, a thing of shadow and death that stared them down with eyes of void.
“How dare you, worm!” she growled. “My value eclipses that of your entire nation! Rot!”
With a horrifying roar, the lady pixie’s mouth opened impossibly wide and released a torrent of green acid onto the lead warlock. The man screamed as his clothes melted into his flesh, followed by that very flesh melting from his body. Worse, the acid worked slowly, almost playing with the dying man as it dissolved each muscle from its bone. The other men scrambled backwards in fear but were blocked by a white wall of magic that appeared out of nowhere.
Then, the dying man collapsed.
“Rise, my precious, new pet,” the pixie woman giggled. “It’s time you made yourself some friends.” She pointed her figure down and shot her white flame into the corpse’s chest.
The corpse shuddered under the influence of the pervading magic. The necrotic spell worked its way in, using the available materials to create a new monster. From the forest floor, the former person shook and shuddered as the last of humanity, scant little to begin with, burned away. Its former companions backed away in horror as they recognized the newly created monstrosity.
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