Dungeon Born

by Dakota Krout

  I loved being the first to discover something, it made me feel smart and pretty.

  “Great! Hopefully, it’ll hold until you are ready for people to come back in.” She congratulated me while reminding me that the clock was ticking.

  Door now in place, I got down to the serious business of breaking into the D rank. I tried starting the process where the Essence was churning on the outer rim of my gem, but it interrupted the flow of Essence entering from outside. If I tried at the end, where it was being pulled and processed by the Chi spiral, it blocked the flow.

  I broke through my pride and finally asked for assistance.

  Obviously, she had been waiting for me to ask. “You need to find the smallest part, which doesn’t affect the rest, and begin there. It should pull Essence from the rest of the Chi spiral as a thread that is the same comparative size as the thread coming from the Essence into the Chi spiral.”

  Mentally moving deeper into my Chi spiral, I reached the exact center where the Essence was no longer processing, only spinning. Holding that miniscule amount of energy with my mind, more of an idea than an energy source, I began rotating it the reverse of the remainder of the accumulated Chi. My mind almost broke in pain as my very being was twisted counter to the rest of my soul. Somehow, I was able to stabilize the first position in its new rotation before forcing myself to continue. I should note, all the Chi I contained was a single thread from the center to the outer edge, if I stopped working, I would need to begin again with this first bit. Spinning it in the opposite direction did not break this thread, but instead stretched it further, making it even thinner and well refined.

  From that point in time, I needed to do two sequential areas along the thread simultaneously. Obviously harder and more painful than just one point, it was required in order for the energy flow to properly continue. This continued, one spot along the thread, then two. One, then two. Each distinct position along the line was slightly larger than the one previous, and I needed to take frequent breaks to ensure all the preceding spirals were turning at the same rate. I have no idea how a flesh and blood body would be able to survive this process, I was in intense pain and my body did not actually have nerves. Maybe pain of the soul was the same no matter what type of being you were?

  In a constant state of breaking down the Essence, I held each pattern time and again until I was certain I would be able to do so naturally with minimal concentration before I moved to the next. Eventually, I came to the end of the Chi. I was very excited at the prospect of completion until Dani sent me a sleepy reminder that I would need to do this with my Essence spiral as well, the outer edge that stored and drew in loose Essence.

  Forcing the changes onto the swirl was easier now that I had figured out how to properly mold it, requiring less concentration to achieve the result I wanted. Still focusing intently on not making mistakes, I reached out, and along the spinning Essence I made tiny vortexes that hungrily pulled power from the one previous; until finally I came to the start of the spiral. The start of the spiral pulled loose Essence from the world around me. Luckily for my sanity, the pain of this process was far less than working on the Chi spiral had been, being so far from the center of my soul.

  Until I was able to subconsciously hold this pattern at all times, allowing it to become a natural process for me, I would need to manually spin every single vortex, at the same rate, along the whole thread. Holding the pattern in shape was using an exorbitant amount of Essence, allowing me to see why this particular breakthrough was so difficult. When I asked Dani how I was doing time-wise, she let me know that I had been focusing for four days, still faster than she expected.

  I complained, projecting an image of a brain turning into ooze.

  “You don’t have a brain.” She reminded me somewhat insensitively.

  I quickly scanned my area to see if there were any obvious problems.

  “Good, people tried breaking in a few times, but I think they are now just waiting.” She seemed smug about our door being un-breachable.

  I checked my Essence levels, which, though depleted, I found that I still had plenty to work with.

  “Excellent! By the way, congratulations on your new D-ranking!” She cheered me enthusiastically.

  If I could blush…

  “Pretty much. D-rank six and above require greater knowledge, but I think at this rate you will get there soon.” Dani glowed warmly, showing her approval.

  Reaching out to the Essence contained in the Cores around me, I slowly and carefully pulled it in, rejoicing at the greater amount of Essence that I was able to take into myself. Still being careful as I did not want to disrupt the new energy pattern I had spent days creating, I collected every single drop of Essence they contained. One by one the dancing lights in them went dark, their accumulated Essence flowing into me. I quickly felt bloated, each of the Cores had held nearly half the amount of energy I had been able to contain while I was in the F-ranks.

  When they were empty, I still had not increased in rank, but was now energized enough to move a large portion of the area I held influence over. Daily, I had slowly extended downward, but had never taken the time needed to move the stone in the area, simply extending myself. The area I could now open up would – slightly – more than double my size horizontally, and allow me to have another entire floor added vertically.

  Now ready to begin, I followed Dani’s instructions and began ‘correctly’ moving the stone while absorbing the vibrations, so as to not cause deadly destruction I would not be able to capitalize on. Luckily the process was not quite as slow as I had originally worried about, creating a buffer zone was simply a matter of willpower, so within a day or two I was able to add three more rooms on the first floor, and a total of eight on the new second floor.

  I increased the amount of tunnels as well, obviously the old layout was not working at the best efficiency for slowing adventurers. Instead of just one tunnel connecting all the rooms, I now had many tunnels that connected to either each other, nothing but traps, or a room that didn’t allow for access deeper into the dungeon. You would never know if a room connected without first exploring it, because each of the tunnels connected at opposite ends of the room, having a sharp turn that you could not see around. Some of those turns did indeed allow people to venture deeper in, but the majority were eventually dead ends.

  I left the rooms and traps on the first floor mainly alone, not bothering to alter them too much. One major change on the first floor was a vain attempt to alleviate the annoyance created by people poking at my walls by moving the iron vein into the entry room. Minor pun there, sorry. This wasn’t so much an attempt to help prospectors as a way to provide raw materials so people could mine the ores and turn it into new items for me to study.

  Moving on to the lower floor, I placed traps with highly pressurized acid pockets that would blast into the air at high speed if the thin stone covering them were disrupted. I had found that even if an item were destroyed by means other than me breaking it down with influence, as long as the destruction happened in my dungeon I could obtain the pattern. Therefore, I was unconcerned if armor and weapons were damaged or destroyed by my etching solution. At a few of the dead end tunnels I placed large slabs of stone that could be dropped, trapping the occupants in a room containing light drippings of acid, which would turn into a downpour when people were trapped, or could possibly explode if exposed to open flame.

  Everything I made was of course an attempt to gain as much Essence as possible, but I liked to reward intelligence and ingenuity, so I always added ways for these traps to be deactivat
ed. I wanted people to continue coming down here, after all, and with a reputation as a place where the smartest and strongest could almost always prevail, people would always assume they were among the ranks of the ‘certain survivors’. Finally done with the cosmetic and trap changes, it was time for me to try and upgrade my Mobs, then make a Boss monster for the lower floor. I kept the Bloody Bane as the floor Boss of the first level as I didn’t really care to make him a common Mob, to be frank he seemed a bit... lackluster. After all, the entire time he had existed, he had never managed a kill!

  I looked into what I had available for Mobs. I could try to upgrade my Bashers, but what would they grow into? I was uncertain if pouring Essence into them was the correct way to go about things here. Maybe I should just use what I had, fill up the dungeon with a large number of Mobs and wait for inspiration after opening the door. Hang on a second… the door? The door! Of course! When the bloodmoss had absorbed Essence and infernal energy, it had naturally evolved and gained vampirism-style abilities. With my ability to move corruption, could I build Mobs in the style I wished?

  Nothing to do but try! But where to start? First, I created a few of my Bashers and made them hold still so I could... experiment on them. Which kinda feels creepy to think, but it had to be done! They were all at the second rank of the F series, so I had some room to grow them. I decided to start by attempting to increase one's ranking by infusing it with air corruption and Essence. I poured a bit of each into the Basher, and it started to noticeably grow. I added more, feeling confident with this plan, when the poor thing gave a startled squeak and exploded into a bloody mist, which slowly settled on the walls and floor, scraps of fur and bone plopping wetly onto the other bashers in the room.

  The other Bashers were now fidgeting, desperately trying to fight the compulsion I had placed on them in order to run away.

  “Well, that was dramatic. What, ah, what just happened?” Dani seemed far too calm for the literal bloodbath that had just occurred.

  I exclaimed wildly. Did my voice sound shrill there?

  “That’s odd, if you are just giving it Essence it should have easily and naturally assimilated it.” Dani was now concerned.

  I confessed innocently.

  “Oh, that makes sense. It seems like a sound plan at least… Hmm. What did you use?” Dani inquired in a calm tone.

  I walked her through the process I had attempted, followed by the obvious end result of the test.

  She considered what I had done, then offered an explanation, “Your Bashers don’t normally have much Air Essence in their makeup do they? Maybe that one’s body rejected it. Or, maybe you just added too much taint too quickly. Try again, but add less taint at a time.” Dani declared, settling in to watch.

 

  “Why not?”

 

  “It’s a figure of… Yes, try Air again Cal.” She slowly exhaled.

  Selecting another one of the bashers cowering on the floor amongst the gore of its brother, I again started adding Essence; slowly this time. As before, this one started growing rapidly.

  “Stop!” Dani ordered. I did, waiting for an explanation. “Look, the amount of corruption almost overtook the Essence it can hold! That is probably what happened with the first one, are you adding corruption and Essence at the same rate?”

 

  “Try a smaller amount, maybe... one part tainted to four parts pure Essence?” She directed. We continued on the same rabbit and it started growing again, albeit slower. When it had gained enough to get to F-rank six, I stopped adding Essence and waited for a result to become apparent. As I had hoped, it gained an elemental ability!

  I exulted in our success.

  Dani was a bit more impatient. “What does it do?”

  I looked at what the bunny could now do,

  “Ooh, cool! That means when it attacks, it’ll hit an area in an arc in front of it. Since it is air based, it’ll likely create an intense gust of wind with each hit that will form the arc. Even if it misses, the air may extend and successfully land an attack!” Dani told me triumphantly.

  I was excited to continue my experimentation.

  Water corruption had yielded no effect, and I was loath to try infernal. We moved onto earth, where our effort rewarded us by granting a new ability.

  I breathed, awed by the form of the new Basher. Nearly double the size of its fellows, the thick muscles and tough bones were now also hidden under plates of what appeared to be stone. This could be considered a tanking unit, the member of a group able to take the most damage.

  A tank type unit was fairly common, for instance the knights in the groups that came into the dungeon, with their thick armor and big ol’ shields, were a good example of a tank. By having one of these as a Mob, I could have my other Mobs focus on attacking and hope that this creature would remain the main target of adventurers because of its size and formidable appearance.

  Next, we tried adding the Essence of fire to the pattern of a basher, but each time the Basher would scream and spasm on the floor until it died. A few tests of this determined that no matter how diluted I made the combination of fire taint and Essence, I could not make a successful prototype. With some trepidation, we decided to move on to infernal taint, as we were running low on options and infernal was the most plentiful in my arsenal, after earth corruption of course. This we were more careful with, going very slowly so we didn’t accidentally create an uncontrollable demonic animal.

  Again stopping at F-rank six, we watched as the animal started panting heavily; It began shuddering, almost having a seizure. I watched its bones grow longer and denser, becoming harder than even the Earth-type Basher. The nub of bone on its head grew, expanding longer and tapering into a sharp point. Its growth slowed, but it had gained a dark, solid horn. The muscles on its back legs strengthened, though fully grown its size was roughly equivalent to the air-tainted basher.

  I was a bit let down. The last creation felt so anti-climactic!

  “No, it did! Look at the horn!” Dani shouted.

  I looked, and examining it, saw ‘Hardened: Armor piercing’.

  Dani toyed with a few ideas, finally conceding. “No idea. Maybe it combined with its own natural Essence to produce it?”

  I had already turned my mind to the next attempt I was going to make. Not waiting for her response, I turned my attention to the next Basher and began the process. I tried to regulate the celestial taint moving through it, but unlike the forceful joining that had been obvious with the other types of taint, this basher absorbed celestial taint like a sponge. Instead of a one to five ratio like the others, this type ended up gaining closer to one part celestial, three parts Essence, significantly more than the others.

  Cutting the flow of Essence off at the F-rank six, I watched as the Basher twitched, absorbing the Essence flowing into it. Unlike the obvious pain the others had gone through, this one almost seemed to be writhing in pleasure. The fur along its body turned blond, nearly golden. Its body actually shrank a bit, unlike the others who had more than doubled in size. Its muscles reconfigured, gaining fast-twitch muscle, good for sprinting and fast reactions; whereas the others had gained tough, slow-twitch muscle for endurance and strength. The nub of bone on its head turned pure white with golden threads moving through it, looking like a vein of gold in a slab of marble.

  “Well it l
ooks adorable.” Dani cooed.

  I whooped, We obviously had different priorities.

  “I think so, it may actually be a stronger version of the healing ability we’ve seen. It’ll likely take a lot of energy to heal, so I don’t think it’ll be able to do it very often. I mean, look how tiny and cute you are!” She was talking to the bunny now, who rubbed at his face with his front paws.

  Of all the taint we had accumulated, the smallest amount we had was by far celestial.

  I lined all of my new Bashers up in the room, and made them race to the end of the room and back in a test of speed. The earthen, armor covered one was obviously the slowest, he also could not turn very well at speed, as shown when he rammed into the wall and shattered a large chunk of granite before turning around with no apparent damage.

  “Damn!” Dani whistled.

  The Air and infernal type were near matched for speed, the infernal winning simply by the length of its horn. In terms of top speed, none of them were able to match the celestial type. It took off, bounding to the end, jumped off the far wall to conserve momentum, and returned to its spot before the others had made it to the first wall. When it stopped, it sank to the floor, exhausted and panting heavily. This little guy was a sprinter, not a marathon runner.

  It was almost time to reopen the dungeon, so while I wanted to run some more experiments, we needed to finish up.