Dungeon Desolation (The Divine Dungeon Book 4)
Page 5
According to all available texts and rumors, when a Core was torn out of a dungeon, one of three things would happen. The first option was usually the most likely, where the backlash of losing the controlling Core would kill all of the Mobs, turning the creature with the highest ranked Core into the new dungeon Core. This made the dungeon into a new, weaker version. This wouldn’t happen here, as far as I could tell from Dale’s story, there should only be one creature in there with a Core, and Hans had taken it.
The second option was that the accumulated Essence would be released into the environment slowly, mutating and empowering the nearby… everything. Even the water could gain some mystical properties. That was the least likely option normally because option number three was the apparent go-to.
In this scenario, the accumulated power was released all at once. Boom. Cataclysm. Mana storms, cats and dogs living together peacefully, rain turning into diamonds. Also, fire. Lots of fire, and in almost every circumstance. I was trying to avoid this because I was attempting to create a fourth option.
In what I was unbiasedly calling the best case ‘Cal option’, my ley lines would insert themselves and regulate the various Essences in the area. There was already a framework all around the dungeon’s location, and now that there wasn’t an active influence eating away at my Inscriptions, they should be working to connect and drain the excess Essence into my dungeon. Even though I was directly above the dead dungeon, the power wouldn’t reach me for several days. It would follow the ley lines back to my mountain’s original location, then the condensed Essence would pour through a small portal that connected me to my growing reservoir of Essence.
I say reservoir, but it was currently more like a funnel. There was hardly any Essence in there, as I was able to absorb it as fast as it appeared. Perhaps it would accumulate over time as my network of lines connected fully, but for now… well, for now it just waited. The skyland was starting to move again, but as always, it gained speed just as quickly as it slowed down. Eventually, I would be able to make the entire thing a part of my dungeon, but that was going more slowly than I liked. At least I had boundaries and a goal for myself. Eat. Entire. Mountain. Tearing it out of the earth and making it fly was one thing, but most of the Essence I would need to use to expand my influence went instead to keeping the place afloat.
I looked at the shattered remnants of the dead dungeon Core one last time before absorbing them. Now that this task was out of the way and Navigation Bob had charted a course to our next destination, it was time to try out some of my new… features. That sounded better than ‘killer golems and deadly traps’, right? Oh, and before that, there was another group going to challenge Manny the man-eating Manticore! This should be fun. The five Mages looked fresh, determined, and excited for the battle that they would be fighting. They must have come to this floor via a keygem and portal and seemed to think that they were going to get a sneak attack off on the floor Boss. This made me chuckle darkly. Manny knew they were coming. Manny was waiting. Manny… was hungry.
“This thing is in the B-ranks, right?” One of the men was polishing a weapon that gleamed in the sparse light of the room. I had no idea why he was doing so; even I couldn’t see any imperfections on the surface of the blade. Although the edge could have used a bit of sharpening.
“Yeah. B-one, if the new info is correct.” These people must be in the B-ranks at least, but I was thoroughly uncertain how they got the keygem. Either they bought it or stole it, and since I had never seen them before, I had no idea what form their mana would take. On the plus side, they were seemingly unaware that most of my creatures were far stronger than others of their same ranking. Any of my Mobs in the B-ranks had at least rudimentary intelligence, which translated into adaptive fighting styles. Cats could pounce, and Manny could skewer you by sliding his tail through a hole in the wall or floor and ambushing you. He had also learned a new trick where he waited on the mirrored ceiling and dropped rocks on people.
“Shouldn’t be an issue. Let’s get the bounty and check out the next floor. Not too many people have the Manticore keygem, so getting down to the next floor is costing an arm and a leg.” This came from a man who was the apparent leader of the group, although it seemed that there was some contention, as another spoke nearly instantly.
“Better than paying with an actual arm or leg.” This man sneered at the leader, making me happier with every passing second. Contention in the group! That should make this easier.
The leader rolled his eyes and jumped back as a projection of light appeared in the air before them. It wasn’t anything malicious - mainly because I couldn’t seem to weaponize the illusion - but it held some information that Manager Bob collected for me. “This Boss has a forty percent pass rate? What does that even… oh, the words changed. For every ten prepared parties that enter, only four groups survive. Then… what’s this, ‘challenge rating’?”
I growled to myself at that. I had made Bob update the list after Chandra came down here and killed Manny all by herself to gather ‘exotic meats’. The challenge rating meant that people who fought and won a hard-fought battle earned more and had a higher spot on the leaderboard than people who might come down with a group of A-ranked people and blow my Manticore to smithereens.
“Who cares? Let’s do this and get moving.” They pushed open the massive door and stepped through into the Boss battle arena. Manny was waiting for them patiently, sitting on the floor and staring at the approaching Mages. “Pff. It is so scared that it’s just waiting to die! Let’s oblige him, boys!” The sneering man ran forward, plainly attempting to steal command out from under his current leader. Two of the other men cursed and darted forward to join Mr. Speedy Man, but the leader and what must be their group’s healer didn’t move.
“Something’s wrong.” The healer was trembling as he stared at the Manticore. “I can sense no Mana from that beast. Boss, you need to call them back. …Boss?” The healer looked over, just as the man he was talking to slipped to the ground. Before the healer could shout a warning, a potently poisoned spike tore into his back. He slumped to the floor, joining his leader on the ground.
The charging men got in range of the Manticore, who seemed to be almost smirking at them. It didn’t even bother to move as a Mana-infused sword sliced through the air and stabbed into… a mirror. The reflection shattered, and to their credit, the men whirled around nearly instantly. They saw that two of their number were already dead, then their eyes traveled up a bit. The Manticore was sitting on a ledge that was placed above the doorway, mimicking the pose it had been using in the angled mirror. A deep chuckle resounded through the room, and the men began to sweat. “Get it!”
Manny crouched and sprang forward at them like a tiger, opening his wings with a snap and zipping toward the Mages. There were abrupt curses, and the men scattered out of the way before launching their own assault. Oh, now this was interesting! I was starting to classify Mages by the tier their law was residing on, which I had learned was a common practice. Now, I didn’t get a chance to interact with every node in the Tower of Ascension, but I had a pretty good feel for their general location. The more I interacted with various forms of Mana, and the more I grew to know my own, the better I could gauge Mages.
Two of them were ‘tier one’ Mages, basic Mages that had accepted a law from the first level. One was a fire Mage, the other a wind Mage. The final man was a tier three, and his abilities were more abstract and powerful. He was a ‘force’ Mage, someone who could transfer force from one position to another. After the first two sent a blast of elemental destruction toward Manny as a distraction, they all wound back and punched into the air with as much power as they possibly could. This force was redirected across the distance, and Manny took the entire synchronized kinetic load of three B-ranked Mages on his chest. The area it hit was the size of a pinhead, so it blew through his armor and splattered his innards against the back wall without hardly moving his body at large.
Manny
collapsed with a shudder, coughing wetly and weakly. In a few moments, he stilled. I was stunned at the outcome of the battle. I would have never expected a couple of sneering jerks to survive against Manny. For some reason, I was certain that he would rally at the last minute and have a fantastic comeback. I guess the only comeback he’d get was when I brought him back. Wow. Oh, right, they won. I formed a keygem and let it clatter to the ground at the top of the stairs leading downward. Put in the work, get the reward… even if you are a sucky person.
Chapter Eight
The Mages walked down to the next level and halted. They stood there for a few moments, gawking at the various paths they could take. Obviously, they were frustrated by the concealment Runes I had made, but even the simple paths that were visible seemed to entice them almost to the point of self-destruction. Not being able to see the way clearly was surely frustrating, and in fact, they nearly stepped on the trail and started walking in order to see and understand more of them. That would have undeniably spelled doom for them, but sadly, they realized their current weakness in time to make an inglorious escape.
Too bad. The portal closed behind them with a *fizzle*, and my lowest levels were once again mercifully empty. Mostly empty. I still pretended not to see the Dark Elf guards that ‘protected’ the Silverwood tree that grew over my position. They tried so hard to be stealthy; I just couldn’t bear to break their hearts. Heh, that made me think of bears and bear jokes. Maybe someday I would make an entire area devoted to that. Then if they did something wrong I could make a punishment! It might be funny. No, it would be funny! I just couldn’t let Dani know about it ‘til it was too late, or she would try to stop me.
I briefly glanced upward, looking over the first few levels and smiling at the massive amount of fighters that were moving around the area. I usually left those floors to be managed by the Bobs, but it was fun to see all these students struggling against Bashers. Seriously, how do you have a hard time fighting rabbits when they didn’t come in overwhelming numbers? Just then I saw a Hopsecutioner decapitate an instructor with a sneak attack. I winced; Dale was going to be sad that they needed to find another instructor for… lutes?
What in the world was her class doing here? You know, besides getting beat into the ground? The students lasted longer than the teacher, but not by much. There was only one survivor, a Dwarven earth cultivator. He coated himself in stone and was ignored by the Mobs. He escaped after they left the area, I tracked his progress directly to the tavern. Now, a serious question, why were the Hopsecutioners this far up in the dungeon? Hadn’t I assigned them to hang out with Raile or something? …Yes. I had, but… they were rank C-zero mobs and only came out when they were bored, or a too-powerful group attacked Raile. Technically, these things were stronger than Snowball, at least in cultivation, but… they were rabbits. If they were this bored, I thought it would be fine leaving them as wandering monsters… so I looked for something else to work on.
At that point, I was waiting on the results of the self-writing quills I had designed based off my vision. It had been fun to access creativity mana because I was suddenly able to envision Runes that I had never seen nor heard of. Not to brag but I had a copy of every Rune known by the Spotters, and their lists were extensive. So suddenly being able to take an idea and write out an unknown Rune… pretty amazing. The combinations I had made had produced these new quills after only a few failures, and I didn’t even accidentally summon a creature when I powered the new Runes! Sure, I had blasted a hole out of the mountain, but that just made it easier to fill that space with my influence. Sure, I had been testing in a reinforced experimentation room, but this was Mana so powerful that it was located at the highest, well, second highest tier in the Tower of Ascension. Even a drop of it was more potent than a river of tier one mana.
To be fair, I shouldn’t have powered the Inscription with that type of Mana, but I was so excited! I probably should have used Essence and did on the next trial, but still! Now I had a self-writing quill in each of the workrooms that I had set up for non-Mages. They recorded everything anyone in the area said or did, and it was kind of funny to see the annotation ‘Spotter attempted to grab quill and screamed in frustration when defensive Runes took hold’. That was all over the place on the papers. The Spotters that could see the pens moving were salivating over the thought of new Runes. Heh. I’d make sure to give these out as a reward on the lowest levels, but I would put the Inscriptions on the interior of the quill and make it from some kind of material that would take weeks to peel away. That should keep ‘em busy for a while.
“What are you doing, Cal?” Dani interrupted my chuckling and diabolical plans, and I went silent instantly.
“Is that what you should be doing? Or should you be working on what we decided you should be doing?” Her voice had a dangerous inflection, and I sighed at the reminder.
“It isn’t a break when you are doing it all the time. Take a break from your ‘break’ every once in a while and do actual work. There’s an idea! You doing work is actually a break from what you normally do.” Dani’s voice was a whiplash.
Dani flashed red. “Excuse me? You are the one that asked me to keep you on task for the deadline you set! I-”
I had almost enough space converted to make a new floor, but I was holding off until I could think of a good theme for it. I could continue with the Tower of Ascension theme, but what I had between the sixth and seventh floor currently listed out options all the way to the ninth tier. I initially had all of them on one, but that had been too crowded for me to really enjoy watching the battles. Now, the platforms were more extensive, and I was able to fit a changing roster of options onto each floor.
I had only seen two beings besides myself that were in the upper tiers, hinting at the fact that most people couldn’t get to that point. It made a certain kind of sense. As I had climbed the tower, the concepts became more abstract and powerful. At a certain point, a fleshy brain wouldn’t be able to turn away from the deepest desires of their mind and would suddenly wake up bound to a law.
I would bet money - if it had any value to me - that most people who got to those tiers blocked out the memories of the other things they had seen. Heck, I wanted to block out a few of them. Madness had been so… alluring. It had an innocence, a compelling sweet sound… but it had been full of rot and corruption. The dichotomy threatened to damage my mind if I thought on it too hard. No wonder the Madness cultivator, Xenocide, had been so strange. If he hadn’t started that way, going to places overflowing with madness just to study it and draw it into himself would undoubtedly do it.
Maybe I would make this into a rest room. Not a toilet area, but a pleasant and comfortable space. That sounded kind of ideal, and since I hadn’t made any areas for Mages, maybe I would do something like that here. Blocking the Mages from the workshops and training areas still made sense, but perhaps I could create some extravagant manors, giant personal workshops, and a pool! That would be nice, a small communal area so the Mages didn’t get all cagey and introverted. I snorted at that. Like I had room to think about others being introverted.<
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Also… I think that the keygems I make for this floor will be tied to the people that use them the first time. I want this to be the Mage’s Refuge from other people, especially the students at the academy. Oh, this will be fun. If I had hands, I would be rubbing them together in delight. There was going to be an undeniable surge of Mages trying to get to this floor as soon as it was found. With all the people that had been running here from the necromancers, all of the uppity Nobles and all the students… space on the surface was being rented at a premium. Manors deep in the dungeon? I can’t even imagine how they would react.
After dutifully expanding my influence over the course of six hours, I turned to my new project with gusto. With a thought, I made a precise cut in the stone by absorbing the minerals. Taking away was much easier than creating, so the structures I was picturing began to form quickly. It looked like giant slabs of rock were falling and vanishing, revealing stone frameworks for buildings that had been there all along. Oh, this was going to be fun!
Chapter Nine
Dale was back to training, which is all he seemed to do these days. Practice, meetings, and just a hint of harrowing danger from charging into an unknown dungeon with the intent to kill it. His Moon Elf instructor had nearly killed him outright when he learned that Dale had gone into the oceanic dungeon, and after doling out a severe beating, he had been forcing Dale to fight against monsters constantly.
This was monster number fifteen, and Dale was already coughing blood from the repeated body blows he had taken during earlier fights. The beast charged him, and thanks to having two swollen eyelids, Dale didn’t see this fast enough to dodge. He wasn’t sure what this creature was, but it had reasonably simple characteristics. It was all teeth and claws, had six legs, and was surprisingly light. The being hopped on his chest and started tearing into him, or at least, it was trying to.