Dungeon Configure: Book One Dark Exchange

by Troy Neenan

  The other three men shook their heads and one managed a laugh before a curtain of thriving darkness fell on their heads.

  Ants the size of pinkies and spiders the size of an adult man's hand landed on the soldiers and began biting them. They scurried into their armour, hair, anywhere there was flesh, and they began to bite and sting.

  The soldiers screamed and tried to smack the insects away. From every bottle thousands of mosquitoes flew out, and out of every hole in the cave walls a mass of wasps came into the room, their wings angrily beating the air.

  Thousands of insects attacked the four men, who danced and swung their arms in a futile attempt to clean themselves. Their size, armour, and weapons were ineffective against the army that was injecting them with both poison and pain.

  The man who had been closest at the door attempted to leave, not realising that his back was covered in some of the most toxic spiders this country had to offer. The smallest of them leaving the greatest mark.

  He was about to step outside when he stepped on something fat and heavy. The slug exploded and concentrated acid blew into the soldier shoe. He ran out of the cave, fifteen hundred wasps flying after him. In the morning, he would lay face down on the ground, his eyes gone and his body so bloated from spider bites that he would not be recognizable.

  The venom burning through their organs, the other three soldiers were on their knees. The wasps had stung out their eyes and attacked their throats. They could no longer breathe; the pain that was now saturating their systems had gone beyond description.

  One of the remaining soldiers raised his hand to his lord, pleadingly. Their lord knew the arcane arts; surely this was nothing to him. Had the man's eyes not been swollen over he would have seen that his master had been the first to perish.

  ***

  From his control room, David had watched everything and really wished he hadn't.

  When the motherfucker had tried to molest Malaria, David had had enough. A push of the button; that was all it took for five wasps to squeeze into the pedophile’s mouth and start stabbing everything.

  The sick son of a bitch fought back at first. The douchebag tried to punch David's puppet back, but his fist only managed to sink into the Malaria’s modulating flesh.

  David looked at the fucking scumbag. Even for him it was hard to tell what was armour and what were flies and ants. It all seemed to mesh into one senseless black mass. If the man had been wearing white his boys probably would have noticed the scores of crawling insects that had been navigating his polished suit, trying to find their way inside.

  Black might have looked cool but it was a bitch to keep clean.

  David did not want to think what any of these arseholes could have done if they made it to a farmhouse or a school.

  As he contemplated on what to do with the points that he had just obtained he selected his latest monster.

  Name: Swarm golem: mimic variation.

  Race: Construct, insect, dungeon born.

  Rarity: Unique.

  Strength: Ambush, illusion, pheromones.

  Weakness: Fire, cold.

  Cost: 1200 DP

  Thousands of some of the most dangerous insects in Australia went into making this golem. At the heart of this construction, buried within the layers of poison bugs and spiders is a hell butterfly. The hell butterfly surrounds the golem in a glamour which not only masks its true form but attracts prey.

  It had been a fucking bitch to make. He then spent a second looking at his other creation.

  It had been a hassle forcefully opening the dead car battery, but the dungeon had done it through persistence and ingenuity. It then became a trick to combine his ants with the battery acid. At first he had thought it would create some electrical bug but the results had proved much more fun.

  Name: Bunker maker.

  Race: Insect, dungeon born.

  Rarity: Unique.

  Strength: Acid, biting, burrowing.

  Weakness: Fire, cold.

  Cost: 2 DP

  These ants have a sac filled with corrosive acid which they use to dissolve rocks and metal. When the sac is punctured, the pressurised acid squirts in all directions. While normal ants prefer to put their nests inside loose dirt, bunker makers prefer the security of boulders.

  David had been trying to duplicate a comic book hero's powers. Using his influence to control the ants and making them do tricks. It hadn't been until he had made his fifth cartoonishly large ant fist that he had gotten the idea to make a humanoid.

  The first attempts sucked so badly that they weren't worth discussing. It had looked like an undulating sack of meat and it had just been utter shit.

  As the days went by he slowly began to work things out using sticks as bones, using stones as markers for joints and then teaching the thousands of ants to bend one single joint. The problem was that the thing took a lot of micro-managing.

  Unable to handle the delicate movements required to keep the mound of bugs from breaking down, David was forced to do something that he knew that that he would regret. He created a hell butterfly.

  It turned out that the dungeon's fears of being backstabbed had been unfounded. Unless his hell bug reproduced, all he was going to get was a robot made out of magic, or DP, or whatever the hell it was. It also took a bit of searching but the dungeon was also able to unlock a programming function with the monster's behaviour.

  It wasn't anything too complicated. For anybody who has ever played RPG maker it was pretty straight forward.

  The hell butterfly acted like the golem's puppet master. She wasn't going to make it do somersaults anytime soon and all she could really do was stand there and look pretty, but it was a start. Maybe if he got enough points he could evolve it into a walking and social animal.

  A feeling like a barrel of concentrated red bull burned through David's body. “Woah!” he yelled. A surge of what could only be described as pure awesomeness caused the dungeon's avatar to float nearly a metre from his chair.

  “There can be only onnnnne!” David cried.

  As fast as this addictive feeling hit, it vanished. He landed back into his seat, panting and wiping the sweat from his brow. “What the hell was that?”

  He leaned forward, wondering if he had accidentally hit the orgasm button and wanting to hit it again. David's dungeon points had skyrocketed to 480. “Crap,” he said. That wasn't the end of happy hour because there was the sound of trumpets.

  You have earned the achievement: First Blood

  You have successfully killed several enemies before they knew what hit them.

  Reward. The first attack your minion does to an enemy does 5% more damage.

  David couldn't help but let out a “Wooo hooo.” He looked at the screen where the dead bodies lay and gave all four of his victims the finger, “Fuck you.”

  The dungeon knew that he should feel something other than smugness but he couldn't help it. He had never killed another living thing before, let alone another human being. Well, not unless he counted Barney and the two fairies.

  He frowned. Even then it had been just a little too easy. David had no idea what the hell butterfly truly was. She had just looked like a Disney character and he hadn't felt a thing about turning her extra crispy. He could have summed it all up to thinking that it was a dream, but not this.

  The dungeon's celebrating came to a sudden stop. He had just killed five human beings. He confessed that anyone with any sense would have done the same. Rabid dogs, feral animals, sharks, spiders; they didn't have a choice. This fucker and his team, however, they had made a choice and it had been the wrong one.

  Child molesters were the lowest fuckers on the arsehole totem pole. Thieves, mob bosses, murderers, and Essendon supporters could have some redeeming qualities, but not their kind.

  But still, David could not help but ask himself, “What am I turning into?” Not wanting to think more on the subject, he hit the collect button.

  The floor of his domain became like a
liquid, sucking up everything that could be harvested for resources. The meat, however, remained topside. His minions deserved a treat.

  It did not take long for the dungeon receive an email informing him that he had gathered some choice swag, which wasn't surprising. While one of the dick-heads had escaped, the other four had been carrying some nice medieval gear.

  David was slightly alarmed from the amount of shit that was on these arseholes’ trousers. In LitRPG books the main character never picks up a pair of slightly soiled trousers. Which is a little odd when you think about it? A man walks around a lot of spooky tunnels and suddenly gets mugged by a skeleton, you would think he'd brown his pants.

  While the three bodyguards were wearing steel and leather gear, it was the prick in black that caught the dungeon's attention. Suddenly, all delusions he had about giving mercy had vanished.

  Item: Ring of greater poison immunity.

  Item Type: Ring

  Rarity: Uncommon

  Grants the wearer immune to poisons

  Item: Ring of light resistance.

  Item Type: Ring

  Rarity: Unusual

  Grants the wearer a degree of resistance against light based attacks.

  Item: Temper

  Item Type: Ring

  Rarity: Mythic

  Created in the cauldron of Sect'yreal of the Delights, this ring transforms any pain the wearer has into pure rage.

  Item: Light necklace

  Item Type: Necklace

  Rarity: Uncommon

  Creates an aura of magical light.

  Item: Magic dagger of poisoning

  Item Type:

  Rarity: Scarce

  The steel of this dagger secretes the concentrated poison of a towcual. This poison first paralyses and then slowly kills opponents over days.

  Gold coins x 20

  Huh. David thought as he looked over the properties.

  According to the display the wasps shouldn't have worked. In theory, the jackass should have been able to gargle snake venom and walk away not feeling anything. David suspected that was the problem with theory and practicality. You might be able to handle a wasp's venom, but if you shoved enough of the things down your throat something was bound to get clogged.

  He shrugged, the guy was dead and that was all that mattered. Also, David personally profited off the death of a pedo, so that was a nice bonus.

  The rest of the knights' things were better off used as scrap material.

  David did notice something else. The douchebag's black armour had not transferred over to the storage bin. The hulking great suit lay there on the ground; empty and seemingly waiting for somebody to pick it up. There were also a few other items including the guy's sword.

  “What?” David clicked on the collect button again.

  Your inventory is filled.

  You cannot store this item.

  David looked at his storage bin. The thing was right; he was full to the brim, which was something that he hadn't been expecting. The last time his storage bin had been completely filled was when he first became what he was now. For some reason he had obtained a lot of random things. Swords, meat, a lot of plant stuff. Barny's, Morgan's, and mosquito girl's bodies had been used as fuel for the new gamer configuration.

  Now that his storage bin was full, the dungeon could have a bit more freedom.

  First, there were the bodies. There were two choices, David could turn them into DP or he could leave them for ant food. He rapped his fingers on the security desk as he weighed the pros and cons. It would be bad if somebody came in and found the bodies, but then again, he could bring in some more flies.

  He pushed a button and seconds later the dead, naked body of one of the guards was pushed out from the ground. The swarm golem looked at the body and lazily crumbled on top of it like falling tree.

  “Timmmmber!” David laughed as he watched thousands of creepy bugs land on the body.

  Done with that, he turned his attention to his DP counter. Again he was caught in the cross-hairs of a dilemma.

  Combining the points that he had managed to gather, the dungeon now had 780 dungeon points, which were staring the avatar in the face. He could upgrade or he could hoard the points. If he chose the latter he could potentially feed off the energy for years, building his collection of insects and casually getting into a position where he could live for centuries.

  David looked around at his small office. If he stayed here for any longer he was pretty sure that he was going to go insane. Now that he had the chance, he invested his points in the cheapest upgrade he could grab.

  You have unlocked simple traps.

  You have unlocked the following traps.

  Pit trap.

  Ant pit.

  Ant stalactite.

  Falling hive.

  Web wall.

  Acid drip.

  Mimic tool box.

  Snake pit.

  Devil's snare.

  Fifty points lighter, David now had a new tab on his building page. Clicking on it, the dungeon was now able to create traps far more efficiently. Only he couldn't do it in his first room for some reason, which was strange as he was able to make and use traps there manually.

  It had something to do with a taboo in dungeon terms like incest or bestiality. The dungeon avatar gave the screen a middle finger salute. If he wanted to drop twenty tons of solid rock on the next bastard who came looking for trouble, then that was going to happen. He glanced at his new arsenal.

  Pit trap.

  A 10 meter hole in the ground. Those who don't die immediately, slowly starve or die from injuries.

  Cost: 5 DP

  Ant pit.

  A 10 meter hole in the ground with bull ants and bunker makers at the bottom. Those adventures who survive the fall are eaten by ants.

  Cost: 20 DP

  Ant stalactite.

  Thousands of carnivorous ants amass into a fifty centimetre spike. When an adventurer passes by the spike drops on their heads.

  Cost: 20 DP

  Falling hive.

  A wasp's nest is suspended on a spider thread. When an adventurer passes by the hive drops, releasing a deadly swarm of wasps.

  Cost: 10 DP

  Web wall.

  Create a wall of sticky spider webs that slow a creature's movement.

  Cost: 20 DP

  Acid drip.

  A corrosive acid drips from the ceiling, burning through armour and flesh.

  Cost: 50 DP

  Snake pit.

  Create a 10 meter hole in the ground with venomous snakes at the bottom.

  Cost: 20 DP

  While the basic traps that he had managed to gather were both horrifying and awesome in a testament to death and cruelty, the dungeon had somehow been able to create two traps from the advanced section.

  Mimic tool box.

  Your control over insects now allows you to create a small box made out of biting and stinging insects. When an adventurer opens the box, a swarm of angry wasps break free and attack.

  Cost: 70 DP

  Devil's snare.

  Create a plague bush with a Devilweeper nest underneath. When a creature cuts itself on a thorn the entire nest of Devilweepers will attack and hunt down the party. The nest will not stop until every last Devilweeper is destroyed, or more likely, the other party is killed.

  Cost: 50 DP

  Chapter Eight

  “Jesus Christ, “David whispered to himself. Acid showers and fake treasure chests? He wasn't flapping around anymore. What's more, the dungeon didn't have to use his army to create any of the traps. All he needed to do was spend a few points and a big hole would appear like that.

  The dungeon looked to his upgrades and wasn't surprised to see that something new popped up.

  Standard traps.

  Create more complicated traps.

  Cost: 100 DP

  David wanted to get the upgrade but held back. It was still too early; he wasn't exactly ankle deep in door-to-door sal
esmen and Jehovah's witnesses. Looking through his other upgrades, he chose to expand his domain. 200 DP was a lot for just two meters, but he really wanted it out of the way. One button click later and David was one step closer his Bat Cave.

  The downside to his latest upgrade came as a shock, however. Since his stomach had grown so had the maintenance cost. Instead of breaking even, the dungeon was now losing two full dungeon points a week. Which was very, very bad.

  “Shittttt,” David moaned. He was just starting to catch up and suddenly he had to deal with this crap. He would have to bring in tens of thousands of flies and wasps to get back the loss.

  The dungeon's avatar bit his fingernails. He still had 530 points in the bank and had all the knights armour to play with. Going to his calculator, he reasoned that he had about five years or so until his eventual death, and that didn't factor in killing more intruders, or if his ants managed to bring back a cow.

  What was that saying? Spend money to make money? David needed to be smart about this. He needed to lure in something bigger if he wanted this fixed. He punched up his new swag. Steel was going to be useful in the future but right now it was just taking up useless space. DP was what he needed at the moment.

  He focused on the soldier's pieces of equipment. They were mostly steel and leather. They had some coins on them, but it was mostly copper with the odd silver piece in there. Maybe he could get some DP from it.

  A prompt came up.

  You may now research objects to determine what they are made of and if you can replicate them. Research requires time and not DP. While you are in this mode you will not be able to interact with your dungeon until the process is complete. Minions and monsters will continue to do specified tasks but you will not be able to direct them in combat.

  That was going to turn into a problem very quickly. The ability to learn more about an object, maybe even be able to duplicate it, could prove useful. If he got some explosives or drill equipment things could go faster. On the other hand, anything could happen. He could be knocked out for days and not know what happened.