by Dakota Krout
Dale spasmed, and his eyes popped open.
I whispered to him apologetically.
“So you are up and about, then?” Dale thought at me as he got to his feet.
“You’re a B-ranked dungeon, then?” accused my original dungeon born.
I playfully ordered. Dale started to glare, but then his eyes glazed over for a moment and he acquiesced, slowly nodding. This is new. Interesting.
“Dale, are you alright?” Adam asked the blank-faced Dale.
“Yeah. Sorry, something came up.” Dale looked at his worried friends blankly.
Adam nodded. “I figured it was the dungeon. I felt its attention on us like a weight as soon as you collapsed.” The weight of a watchful glare increased at these words as if to confirm their validity.
Dale heard muttering in his head,
They started discussing which direction they wanted to take. Standing at the entrance to the labyrinth, they were looking at the four doors that each opened into a different tunnel. Remembering from past experience that it didn’t matter which path they strode, they started walking, going through the ‘fire’ door. Too bad for them; I had been making changes whenever I got bored. As the door shut behind them, fire corruption started to thicken the air. Now, the fourth floor was a time trial as well as a maze. Pass through quickly or suffer.
“Is it getting hot in here?” Rose was fanning herself. “Or is it just me?”
Hans waggled his eyebrows at her. “Oh, it is you. It is also getting a bit warm, though.”
Cue the fire traps! A blast of flame spurted from the wall in front of them, splashing across the wall parallel to its point of egress.
“Wha!” Tom jumped back, swinging his hammer at the sudden light. Sorry, big boy. That won’t hurt fire. The next flame sprayed out, and soon, a consistent pattern was followed by the flames. So numerous were the traps that the entire fire portion of the tunnel was lit up intermittently. The air began to rapidly heat, sucking away breathable air. Among the flames, Coiled Cats were sometimes revealed, flickering into and out of view.
“All of this overnight?” Adam looked at the lightshow with wide eyes.
Hans–oddly–was the only one to notice the seriousness of the situation. He spoke in a tone full of urgency. “We need to get moving. The fire in the room is producing corruption, and wind Essence is rapidly depleting. We need to go or the flames won’t be what kills us. We will just stop being able to breathe.”
After Hans spoke, the others paled. As much as the blistering heat would allow them to while their facial capillaries opened, at least. They tried to simply dash through to the end of the hall, but the intermittent flames forced them to stop and retreat several times as their hair started to burn. It took a few minutes, but Rose suddenly perked up.
“They are moving in a pattern!” she gasped out through a dehydrated mouth. The others looked at her in confusion, until she pointed at the fire. “Three, two, one… fire!” As she said ‘fire’ roaring flame shot from the wall and floor. Rose kept talking. “Two, one…” and the way was clear. She kept staring as the flames appeared and vanished.
“Here we go. Move forward when I tell you to!” Rose moved, and the others stepped forward with her, careful not to move until she spoke. There were several repeated patterns, then she suddenly yelled, “Back!” They lunged backward just as a flare appeared, and shot forward again just before they would have been incinerated. They made it to a clear platform at the end of the hallway and had to choose which way to go.
“Good job, Rose. You really saved us there!” Dale smiled at the slightly singed archer. He looked around, intending to speak again but instead frowned. “Where is Hans?”
There was a moment of panic as the others didn’t see the eccentric assassin, but he suddenly strolled up to them, flames parting around him without issue. He looked at their stricken faces. “What? I’m a C-ranked fire cultivator. This level of heat can’t hurt me. Actually kinda tickles, I guess.”
“...Then why were you so worried?” Rose growled at him.
Hans smirked at her. “I can’t do everything for you. If you couldn’t work out a simple repeating pattern, how could you call yourselves assass- …Err… adventurers?”
The others stared at him for a few moments. Rose made a rude gesture.
“Well, that’s uncalled for,” Hans grumbled, looking around for something to fight.
~ Minion of The Master ~
Two very unremarkable men stepped out of the portal into Mountaindale, eying everything–and everyone–around them cautiously. They casually strolled through the slowly growing city, taking note of any interesting landmarks. The roads were straight, which was beneficial to moving around but unfortunate for those with weak constitutions, as the wind at this altitude had nothing to slow it down. The men eventually gravitated toward the tavern after taking note of the looming steeples of the church and spitting.
After the normal grumblings about the door being open to the wind, the men slowly ingratiated themselves with the drinking people, buying drinks and hearing gossip. They were interested in all news of the place, from the start of the dungeon town to the new rumors circulating about trade agreements. When Amazons were mentioned, the two men paled and made eye contact. Eventually, they had wrung their conversations dry and left. Without a word, they made their way to the shimmering, humming portal run by the Portal Guild. They paid the fee and stepped through. Halfway across the continent, they hurried past other people and swiftly made their way to a safe house.
The men hustled along the winding tunnels under the house, eventually coming to a place that caressed them with insidious Essence. They smiled; the infernal dungeon had been expanding at a prodigious rate. They bypassed various undead as they delved deeper. Skeletons, rotting zombies, drifting wraiths, and towering abominations simply ignored the men. Traps were stepped around, and they soon found themselves kowtowing to The Master.
“Report,” his sonorous voice rang out.
“Master, all is as we expected it to be. There have been recent developments, but as expected, the dungeon has been acting erratically. Various plans to help it recover have been brought to the council, but apparently, nothing is working to balance the thing’s mind,” the first lackey reported succinctly.
The second lackey began speaking as soon as the other stopped. “There is talk of trade dealings and alliances between multiple factions. Dwarves, High Elves, Dark Elves, Barbarians, and Amazons have been seen speaking together amiably.”
The Master quietly digested all of this information. “I see.” His silence after these words stretched for a long time. “Yes. I see. We will need to hurry along before they do something… foolish. I need three teams assembled. If the dungeon is imbalanced, it will not need too many of our resources. Are you certain of your report?”
Lackey number one nodded. “I am, Master.”
“Good.” The Master gestured, and a person appeared near him. “The first two teams will include a summoner each. Their job will be to cause havoc and disrupt the town. While the forces are concentrated above, attempting to contain our threat, the third team will go after the dungeon’s Core. A ‘normal’ five-man team. I want at most one lower-ranked Mage to accompany them. Any more will raise too much suspicion, and they may be found out before even entering the dungeon. Bringing the dungeon’s Core here intact would please me, but destroying it is acceptable. Is this understood?”
“Yes, Master. To hear is to obey.” The Mage The Master was speaking to flickered, soon vanishing from sight.
Dani–who was trapped on an altar just beyond the conversation–wept bitterly at this confirm
ation of Cal’s mental state… and her impending loss.
~ Chapter Twenty-Two ~
I looked over my storage rooms, pleased with the results of the last few days. When a Core was too full of corruption to be able to absorb more, I put the dull stone in here, switching it out with a fresh one. Before my ascension to the B-ranks, the elemental Cores like earth and fire had by far outnumbered the more ethereal ones, such as infernal and celestial. Now, those two rare types were catching up! Oil is awesome!
I was focused on this area because I was about to start flooding a contained space with these corruptions then drop items into the fumes and see what stuck. I began, and soon, I had six small chambers filled with a thick, deadly-to-life miasma. For hours, I dropped various materials and minerals into these rooms. As I had expected, almost everything was a dud. A few things took in a bit of the taint, but nothing was even comparable to what I already had access to.
I was getting annoyed, so I started throwing in common, everyday usage minerals. Iron? Useless. Dirt? Nope. I threw in platinum and got a strange reaction. I focused in on the material, and saw that a little bit of it had absorbed a huge amount of earth corruption, relative to its size. I tore the platinum apart, looking for what was different. This coin was an exact replica of what Minya had given me, and as I looked closer, I saw that it was an alloy, a mixture of metals. I pulled out the strange metal and analyzed it closely. I had seen this before, I realized, but only in conjunction with other things. Osmium. This was the most dense metal I had ever had the pleasure of finding, and it was sucking up enough corruption that I wanted to test a larger portion.
I stopped dropping other things, just so I wouldn’t get distracted, and made a large ingot of pure osmium. It took a surprisingly large amount of Essence due to its density, which was about double what lead was! I dropped the bar into the small chamber and was amazed by how quickly it took in corruption. It left a blank space in the air it passed through as it fell, taking the taint in fast enough that the corruption couldn’t refill the area instantly. It hit the ground, and the swirling fumes were quickly pulled into it without my assistance. Soon, the room was clear!
“Found what?” Dale’s voice interrupted my glee. “What are you doing, you psychopath?”
“You found something interesting?” Minya’s voice sounded in my head.
“You found Minya?” Dale seemed very confused. I ignored him, focusing very hard on bypassing him and only talking to Minya.
“I can!” Minya spoke excitedly. “Let’s test the range of this. We will start really far away, I’m on my way to the portal now.”
On that note, I was struck by a sudden idea.
“I can still hear you! This is excellent! Could you hear me before you tried to talk to me? Can you hear me now?” She seemed happy. Good. Happy meant safe.
“Legendary metals or weapons… hmm.” She thought for a bit and got back to me, “Well, different factions have something that they use in their own way. Humans discovered that opals could enhance infernal essence collection. Elves use some kind of glass that they refuse to share the recipe of, which does something they won’t share.”
“Right? Hmm, Dwarves use Mithril when they can get it but have something they use in their furnaces that makes them hotter than any other kind of furnace. Maybe that is worth looking into? Orcs have a weapon they revere that is green, like really shiny old copper, and-”
“Yes, it is called ‘Orichalcum’. We call it ‘mountain copper’ usually, because we can only get it off their corpses, and they come from mountainous areas. It is pretty rare.”
I had made orichalcum, it seemed.
“The church leaders all seem to wear some kind of golden artifact, I don’t know if it is actually gold or not. I think it is just for show, but somehow they are always stronger than others around them. I think there must be more, but I can’t seem to think of any others right now,” Minya finished her stray thoughts. I thanked her and moved on with my experiments.
I would keep on with my research, but as I was underground it was important to get the osmium spread through the dungeon. There was a lot of earth corruption generated each day, and if I didn’t collect it the taint would get as dense as the Essence in the air. No one wanted that.
The tendrils of osmium flowed out from my Core room, slowly grinding through the rock. It took almost a full day, but at the end, I had veins of the material for the corruption to flow through. I opened the veins up to the air, and quickly, it was easier for everything in the dungeon to breathe. The lower levels were much more affected by the change, and I was getting a steady stream of the corruption delivered.
Feeling better about my life decisions, I decided that it was time to create the Boss of the fifth floor. The fourth floor was getting much more dangerous, but I wanted the fifth to be terrifying for even those that came prepared. To that end, I started making monsters. I had absorbed the vials of blood Minya had brought me and needed to create the creature they correlated to. Realistically, I was unsure what they would turn out to be. I knew their names and capabilities, but what about their personalities or habits?
Soon, I had a swarm of various creatures I had never seen before. I quickly eliminated all of the herbivores and non-predatory species, and was soon left with only a few options to choose from. I had my Cats wipe them all out and started trying to create combinations. I looked, measured, and tested, often having to call in a few Mobs to destroy the failures. I literally could not let them live if they were imperfect in their pattern. My law was absolute about this, and it seemed to have a strong obsessive need to always be correct. At the end of my experiments, I had a single monster that was entirely unified in its purpose and design. It was beautiful.
All that was left was to design the arena it would use for battle. I already had a circular room, so I made it utterly flat. As a defensive advantage for my Boss, I added tunnels under the floor. They were long and curved, with one entrance per exit. I tried to think of anything else I could add in to help him out, but looking at his towering, imposing form made me shrug. He really didn’t need a greater advantage. A bit of poison dripped to the floor from my Beast’s mouth, pitting the rock as the acidic toxins came in contact with it. Yeah, this guy was ready. He was all sorts of set.
Since I was done with what needed to be done, I took the time to create some distractions and cosmetic changes on my new floor. There were levers in the room that would open windows in the ceiling, allowing daylight to pour in from above. Along the roof and halfway down to the ground, I made a mirrored surface that increased the brightness of the room a hundred fold–but only if the lever was pulled and the light was allowed to enter through the crystal windows above.
The extra light could be helpful, in theory, but it would hamper the people using it more than they would realize. The room was filled with fog, not steam, and the light would make it very difficult
to see through. I still expected the lever to be pulled, simply as a natural response to, well, a lever existing. Most people will pull an unknown lever or push a random button, just to see what happens. Even if they knew what it did, there was a good chance of it being used. Humans prefer light, even if they had been in a dark dungeon all day and it would destroy their night vision.
They would likely also think it would help them destroy the Boss, and this could distract them from actually fighting. My new Beast was waiting hungrily for challengers, so after a few finishing touches, I created the stairway. The fifth floor was open for business.
~ Minion of The Master ~
Stepping into this frozen mountain air was disgusting to the bronze-skinned man from the southern isles. He looked around at the people cheerfully moving around and crossed his arms. Someone walked into him, causing him to stumble and glare at the boorish man who had done the unthinkable atrocity of touching him.
The filthy man that had run into him turned. “Get outta the way, ya stupid shit. Standing at the exit to the portal like a fishy! Never seen a portal before? Need a hand getting up? Do you have any raspberries? Look at that, it's a male. Wouldn’t have guessed it with the hair and purty face!” The flow of words slowed as the man squinted at him through ragged, matted hair.
“Oh, a necromancer, eh? Well, good for you. Not too many people these days are willing to do things the hard way! I hope you aren’t planning to do anything stupid. Though I suppose if you decided to cultivate in an ‘illegal’ manner, you wouldn’t be as stupid and ridiculous as to go to a place swarming with cultivators. Have fun, youngster. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!”
The bronze-skinned man watched in horror as the filthy–old?–man walked away from him, intermittently skipping and humming. How had he been able to see that he was a Necromancer? Only his cultivation ranking should have been noticeable, but as an A-ranked summoner he had long ago been able to hide his affinity. He began to worry that this was an ill-fated mission, but as the rest of his people started coming through the portal, his resolve solidified as he issued orders. The Master’s commands would be followed.
