Book of the Dungeon Maker

by Nathan Valerio

  “Damn, that dwarf is crafty, even I would fear this kind of setup that looks rather advanced for the time period,” I said out loud.

  “It ain't advanced, I just gone and seen one a these traps before. As for the spikes. Hehehe, let’s just say I have dabbled in those as well.” He grinned evilly.

  I raised my brow to that and thought a bit. He was the first dwarf I saw, I heard there was a nation so maybe there were mountain villages underground which would make sense if he aided in making traps to protect the cities.

  “So, did you get to any of the others?” I asked.

  “The room dropping and wall moving are hard ta make. Though I know how it's done, but it would take ta long for me ta make somethen like that at the moment,” he said.

  I could understand, to make a mechanical moving wall you needed lots of gears and mechanisms and I couldn’t be sure how to activate it quickly when there were enough goblins in an area.

  “How are the spikes activated?” I asked.

  “Pressure plates, how else?” he said.

  I nodded and looked around putting my pen against one spike trap.

  “Archive trap,” I said.

  At once the runes started to fly out but, it rapidly spread to all the spike traps that were almost attached.

  I drank a potion and the runes kept spreading and after 10 minutes of the runes flowing, every last spike trap turned into light and was absorbed.

  You have archived a new Trap. You can now place Spike Trap of any present types.

  You have 20 different spike trap variants.

  “What do you know, I don’t need to archive them all separately, they all fall under spike trap. Convenient,” I said.

  “Boy, yer lucky fer sure with that book,” the smith said.

  “Maybe, still don’t know the limits to this class yet though,” I told him.

  “True, now get the other one and let’s get to maken that last corridor so we can get to finishen up,” he said.

  I nodded and walked to the arrow trap to archive it too.

  You have archived a new Trap. You can now place Arrow Trap on any corridor wall of dirt. Other wall types or inside rooms are prohibited until an adequate variation is built and archived.

  I nodded understanding a bit more about the principles of the trap archive. The book stored trap types, and since that trap could come in many different forms or materials then it didn’t consider random variations a different trap unless it was very different.

  “Alright, it’s still early and I didn’t get properly cleaned last night, so I will at least take the morning to rest and wait for the others,” I said and bid the smith farewell. I headed to the house I was allowed to return to, but just as I was about to enter I stopped and knocked.

  When I got no reply, I opened the door and walked inside and headed to the bath and again knocked only to find the house was empty. I walked into the bathroom and find a large stone tub already filled half with cold water.

  I though a moment and pulled out my book and pen.

  ‘Fire Shards Revolve,’ and ‘Water Ball.’

  The first spell made five small fireballs revolving in a set diameter and the second one made a water ball in the center.

  After about a minute, the fire went away and the water was already letting off steam. When the force holding it up in the air vanished, it splashed down into the cold tub.

  I put my hand on the sides that were still cold and mixed the water until it got warmer.

  I made one more ball and found it satisfactory, so I checked the living room again before closing the door and stripping to take a bath.

  After several long minutes of washing myself then another dozen minutes relaxing and almost falling asleep, I reluctantly got up and looked around. I found a moist towel made of linen or yarn, probably from sheep or something, and a dry one next to it.

  I took the dry one and dried myself and got dressed while taking both of the bath towels out to put them on some chairs to dry so they would not get moldy.

  Walking outside, I could already see a group of men raising the third section of the wall which meant that one the first leg of the X shape was almost done and just needed the ceiling ones.

  I looked to the side and saw a group of carpenters piling up support beams separately from the pile already set near the structure. Next to it were people gathering and dumping lots of dirt and another with some piles of braided branches.

  These were the supplies I needed for making the other corridors and rooms.

  There was one pile with planks as well but that was still rather small compared to the others.

  I got off my ass and headed to help the construction that had long since been underway.

  ***

  Over the next few days, carts upon carts of wood and ore traveled into Jagged Mountain Town as well as carts exiting and going to many paths and stopping for extended periods of time.

  Several times explosions were heard from these areas and when people checked, a massive wall of stone blocked the passage into the mountains.

  Caves used to pass into the mountains toward small villages also faced explosions and collapsed.

  Slowly the paths through the mountain were sealed, and it didn’t go unnoticed by the goblins as the scouts also rapidly died off with their mounts. It was rare for one to return alive anymore because the forests had traps for the mounts such as meat placed near a bear trap that snapped off the leg of the mount. Those were paired with a nearby rope trap set to a bent tree that would activate simply by stepping in the middle.

  This left the goblins almost blind and when the scouts that didn’t completely enter the region through the main road caves that were still left, they found more than 90% of the paths blocked by stone walls that couldn’t be scaled from their side as someone had come and cleared any significant boulders that could serve as a step over it.

  This left the goblins with four paths left to take and with a scout they found all the paths were dangerously booby trapped and the villages were fortified with a part of an army each.

  The leader of the goblins was left in a bind, he was already an elder of nearly 30 years old, which is very old for a goblin whose lifespans are shorter than humans.

  “We need to attack the main post, Jagged Mountain town. We take big road and strike!” he shouted.

  They were still a day away from the last cave before the town and they would be slowed down by needing to let a small number of goblins at a time through the cave.

  At this time, Ace stood at the entrance from their side.

  “Magic Hole Formation: Page 1 dungeon open,” he said.

  You are about to open the magic hole within a cave. Because this cave possesses two openings, do you want to make an entrance and exit at the furthest end from the opening?

  He raised his brow, since he didn’t know about this.

  “Yes,” he said and soon his mana flew and formed a magic circle formation and mana began to gather as the formation turned light blue, and a small ball of mana began gathering over the circle.

  He stepped through and traversed his dungeon without tripping the traps that were set only for monsters and demons.

  Over the last days he had consumed such a huge amount of resources that it made him worry about the future, but he was able to set up a three floor dungeon with arrow traps, spring traps, spike traps, and spear traps which were similar to the arrow traps and shot spears from the ground or walls.

  The floors was a complete death trap and if he didn’t have the map in his book even he would get lost.

  To attract the goblins even after they were killed in large numbers, he made a few safe rooms and asked for some things like ale barrels just to tempt the stupid beasts.

  With three floors, it cleared out quite a bit of trees around the villages but luckily it was far less than it was thought due to the book reducing losses by 20% after Ace found out that just absorbing the complete tree directly after chopping saved a huge amount of
material but took more mana to produce each section so he spent almost three days meditating after setting up the entire diagram of the dungeon’s three floors and gathered the material for it so that he would have the mana to make everything. When he looked, the well-hidden runes all over made him wonder what a real dungeon looked like and how different his dungeon was.

  Coming out the other side he found some knights at the door, swords drawn.

  “The dungeon is up. It converted the entire cave into a dungeon so entering means you can get lost in the maze. Block it. The goblins should be within a day's run of us. Send the message to the three remaining roads and have them ready to detonate the bombs,” I ordered the knights, they headed off after saluting.

  The next day, the entire tribe of goblins appeared in front of the cave entrance.

  The sensitive goblin chief noticed something was off as he entered the cave and saw the back completely black without a hint of light.

  To the targets of the dungeon makers dungeon, when in a cave or any enclosed structure they don’t see the magic hole formation and all they see is endless darkness until they enter the other dimension of the dungeon.

  The chief could feel the dungeon because much like a regular dungeon it was gathering mana slowly to power itself.

  He pointed to three nearby goblins.

  “Check cave,” he said.

  They nodded and ran inside.

  As soon as they stepped through the magic hole, they were transported into the dungeon and sound was cut off.

  They looked around and saw nothing and started to walk forward when suddenly—

  *Click*

  “Grawh!”

  “ARGH!”

  A mount and goblin pair were instantly killed as three long metal spikes shot out impaling the wolf and goblin from below driving all the way through the wolf into the goblin and one from behind and the front.

  The three were shocked and the mounts jumped back, but the second pair stepped into another trap. This one caused a small platform under both to activate and suddenly fire them right into the ceiling that had suddenly pushed out several dozen long spikes. Both goblin and wolf were impaled and slowly slid down.

  The final pair looked in terror and ran back shouting “Trap!” but Ace had expected as much and made a specific spring trap that only activated when the first step came from the pressure plate on the inside of the dungeon.

  The pair were instantly flung back, and before they could react or even register what happened, they fell on the ground the goblin being partially crushed by the wolf and what followed was a ceiling spear trap stabbing down on both and killing them.

  As they all died, the four bodies burst into blue light that was absorbed into the walls and the traps were all returned to their previous states. The only proof that something had passed through was the armor and weapons left behind by the goblins.

  After a while the goblin chief was getting suspicious. He pointed to one of the goblins.

  “Follow,” he said and walked personally followed by the goblin and dire wolf pair.

  Inside, he pointed at the corridor.

  “Go,” he said.

  The goblin looked fearful, but with the chief pulling out a glowing red axe he spurred his mount. As they dashed inside they were met with a spike shooting out from the front killing the mount and bucking off the goblin who landed on a spring trap that shot him into the same ceiling spike trap as the second wolf from the first group.

  Seeing this, the chief frowned and walked back out.

  “TRAPS! Scouts, search for path!” the chief shouted.

  This was the start of a nightmare that would result in the near extinction of this tribe of goblins.

  Chapter 7

  Within Jagged Mountain Town, a robed figure came flying in.

  As he flew around the city, he found his target and soon landed in front of him.

  “Sir Cross, I have watched the goblins movements on the other side of the mountain. They have not entered your dungeon and instead have sent out scouts to find alternate paths,” the man said.

  This was an adept level wind mage who was someone that could fly using wind magic and worked as a strong long ranged unit.

  “Good, it seems the chief is just as smart as the report sent by the scout party. Alert the mages on the three remaining pathways that the goblins will soon be arriving at any of the three at any time. Cause the landslide only when they are almost on top of the trap,” Ace said.

  The mage nodded and walked off and soon three wind mages flew off in different directions.

  Misaki was beside Ace and looked with an emotionless face toward the flying mages then back to the man next to hero.

  “How close to expectations is everything?” She asked.

  “Hmm, around 90%, if what the report says is true. Aside from around 100 archer units within the goblin ranks, they consist almost entirely of cavalry units. They have wolves, so forest areas and flatlands are their field of battle, but an enclosed cave with traps will have them wry. I made the first five traps really showy to make them split up and decrease morale after decreasing their forces,” he said.

  “What are the chances they choose to retreat and bring more forces?” she asked.

  “That is not a problem Miss Shinigumi-san. All demons are born with something known as the Demon Lord’s Seal. It is a curse he placed long ago on every tribe after beating their strongest warrior. It forces the tribe’s loyalty to the death. They can't disobey his orders unless he calls them back through a telepathic link the seal gives him access to,” A royal mage explained making a flame appear on the ground and burning an image of the seal.

  Ace looked at it carefully and was surprised.

  “The runes here are correct?” he asked.

  “No, every demon is born with a different one because demons have what is called a true name, the seal is the outer rim runes which are also wrong but I wrote random ones as example and the inner ones are the runes making up the true name of the demon the seal is on,” the mage explained.

  “This is good information, at the very least we don't have to worry that they will retreat and make a base in the mountains or something unless given orders to,” he said.

  He nodded and smiled as he looked at the circle before passing his foot over it ruining it.

  In the other three towns, the three mages arrived and warn the people before flying to the location of the ambush.

  On one side, mages were on the trees with archers, and on the other were some large boulders along the other side that hid the bombs. But a single one was exposed in a barrel between the rocks that an archer and mage had in their sights.

  Getting the warning, the archers pulled their arrows while the mages begin to prepare their magic for one large assault after the ambush.

  The objective was to ambush, seal the passage and damage their numbers then get out of there before they reorganized and attacked.

  On the goblins side, they had retreated a fair distance from the cave out of the chief’s caution against surprise attacks from the deadly cave.

  His forces were around eight hundred around him, while two hundred were searching.

  As they waited, he heard a shout as a goblin came shouting on his mount.

  “Path found!” he shouted.

  A moment later two more came saying the same thing.

  The chief was cautious and wouldn't move all his forces after seeing the trap.

  Looking at the low-ranking goblins he shouted. “150 goblin each path! Attack! Rest stay here!” he shouted.

  The goblins roared and soon split into three groups of 150 and split into the three pathways following the scouts.

  After an hour, the goblin’s shouting could be heard once they found the pathway cut between two mountains in all three paths.

  The readied mage looked over.

  “Get ready!” he shouted, and the archers lifted their bows.

  He lifted his staff and the small fireball in
front of him grew from the size of a nail to the size of a human's head.

  As they waited, the goblins came from the bend in the path and they rushed.

  Being smart, and as long range fighters, both the mage and archer calculated the distance just right so that when they fired their flaming arrow and fireball, it was too late for the goblins to stop and even those that noticed—the dire wolves who were fierce beasts that didn't fear death—didn't stop and rushed forward.

  So when the resulting chain of explosions rang out, more than half the forces were already within the danger zone of the landslide that came washing down on the goblins. Trees, rock, dirt, all this fell over the goblins, and only about 50 got away but it was split between those that passed successfully and those that didn't.

  Obviously, each path had different success as one path had 70 goblins that passed but the rest died while another blocked all the goblin but only killed 20 since they fired too early.

  After that, came the ambush by the archer and magic. The ones with too few survivors were destroyed. The one totally blocked was hit hard. Before the humans ran away they took another 30 goblins down. The group that passed more the 70 goblins in it hit dead center taking 40 goblins before they ran.

  The paths with goblins that passed were soon run over by knights that finished them off.

  The surviving goblins ran back injured and told the chief what happened.

  The chief was exploding in rage, to think those paths were left on purpose.

  He spread scouts to search wider but after hours of searching they came back with the same answer.

  “Blocked Path found.”