"That right," said Rhef looking the scaly kobold in his reptilian eyes, "I'm in charge so let got through the plans together, but don't worry it won't affect what you've completed so far."
"What a relief, "said the kobold, with a sigh of relief, "nothing worse than trying to take this stuff down as it built to last any attack. My name Snick by the way Ms."
With that, the two went off into a comer of the cavern and started to discuss modification of the plans. As Rhef outlined her ideas for what she wanted, Snick would listen attentively and nod his head and make a few practical suggestions that got Rhef thinking and smiling with what they could accomplish together.
When they had finished the initial outline of the labyrinth, both were beaming with what they could accomplish together.
--
"But is it going to be clean after they have finished making bedding," said a squeamish Symania as she watched the room full of goblins and kobold making bedding and furniture for each of their rooms the adventures would be living in.
The workroom was a hive of activity with many types of cloth being produced out of the walls as if being fed through slots in the walks. The raw materials were taken to different work stations, that Symania had helped design, where goblins and kobolds were shaping and cutting into patterns that were then assembled into the items the adventures need for their living quarters.
"I'm made them all wash their hand, "said Hidden-Caverns in a soft voice that he had found calmed Symania, as one of the sowing goblins picked his nose and wiped it on the bedding, "hum it probably best if we wash everything after they've finished making it."
"Good idea," said Symania as she went over to the work station where some of the kobolds that were cutting and caving wood for furniture.
She watched the caving of the chairs that were being made by the industries Kobolds, as they caved fine details into the backrest of each chair. Symania had designed the chairs with the help of the dungeons imaging system and was now ensuring the work was done properly. The design she had the dungeon creatures making were all very plain, with a few artist embellishments that she had added, but she was used to a lot of more elaborate designs before she had started her adventure. None of these designs would have suited the dungeon rooms she was setting up for each of the adventures, so she had contented herself to limit her imagination.
Looking around at the work that was progressing in the room, she saw the same goblin wipe it nose again on the bedding and thought will at least that Rinaldo bedding he won't care.
--
Grikius was feeding Apollo some scraps of meat that the dungeon had to provide for him. He noticed that Apollo was starting to fill out a bit more from being the small puppy he had first found and taken as he is familiar. The dog would eat whatever was presented to him, and more if he could find it, and as usual, Grikius was keen to indulge his familiar by feeding him.
Grikius was close to the control room taking to the dungeon Hidden-Caverns looking through the dungeon's stats and how they changed what it could do.
"Ok, "said Grikius as he picked up a notebook that he was writing in information for analysis later, "I've figured out how your intelligence stat work, it is that the higher the valve, the more energy per hour you have. This allows you to create more monster and do other things that take energy. The next stat I want to talk about is knowledge, so what does that do?"
"The greater my knowledge, the more levels, of the dungeon I can sustain. It also has the same effect as your knowledge stat as it helps for me learn any more skills that I need to do anything that you humans can do."
Grikius scribbled more notes, next to his analysis of shop prices in the town as it was his habit for keeping track of prices. During his youth as soon as he could read and write, he kept lists of this and that for comparison. This had made it very easy for him to understand prices when he had helped out with the store and now when he was buying for the team of adventures.
"The final, stat that you have is Charisma," said Grikius as he looked down," what does that do for you?"
"I think you're going to like this one," said Hidden-Caverns with a tone that spoke of a smile, "it dictates the amount of gold that I earn every hour. At the moment I'm gaining one hundred per hour, so I've collected about two thousand gold at the moment."
Grikius looked quickly up from his notebook as if the two thousand gold coin had been put in front of him, as his eyes went wide.
"Were rich," he said in a reverent tone of voices.
"Wait for a second," said Hidden-Caverns in an amused voice, "before you spend it all in your mind, at least. All the money is needed for rewards for humans when they start using the dungeon and killing the monsters for me."
"I thought that you killed all the wild monsters with traps or monsters that you have created?" said Grikius in screwing his eyebrow in an expression of curiosity.
"As we set up, the dungeon it will initial have to work the way you describe it, but for more efficient long-term operation, I need to pull in both human or other species adventures and monsters, into the dungeon levels we create. Then pit them against each other on the levels allowing both to gain experiences if they win. If the monsters win, they get to be higher level, but if the adventures win, then they get the experience and money or other items that I generate.
"The advantages to me and, now you, are that we gain experience no matter what happens. Ever bodies happy, the monsters get mightier if they survive, and the adventures get experiences and rich. The best part and the reason why dungeons were created is that it takes the majority of the battles from off the surface into the dungeon, allowing the human a level of peace in the surrounding area. That is why the ancient wizards with the help of the gods created dungeon to provide human a rest from the constant monster attack on the surface, but if adventures don't attack the monsters in the dungeon, the monsters will return to the surface. The wizards added the encouragement of gold to entice the hero's down to get rich. When we're fully up and running, that gold from the charisma stat will be used for prizes for killing monsters."
"Oh," said Grikius with a frown, "that sounds all very sensible. I bet their more way to make money from operating the dungeon."
"Don't worry," said Hidden-Caverns in an upbeat voice, "all the dungeon master I know off from my memoirs are very wealthy and powerful."
"How do you know all this information?" said Grikius giving his begging puppy more food.
"I've all the memories from past dungeons that have existed in my lineage," said Hidden-Caverns.
--
The rabid fluffy bunny was creeping slowly down the stone hallway. It could feel the smooth, hard stone under its feet as it crept along. To the rabid rabbit, the corridor height was immense, but to a human, the ceiling would have only been about a foot or two foot above head height. The rabbit sniffed as it smelt the slight trace of a human up ahead and increased its pace, as its instinct took over its mind.
As it hooped forward it suddenly brushed through a single spider's web that was at its head level; the rabbit would never have noticed the web except that it touched its sensitive nose as the strand broke. Out of nowhere sharp metal spikes shot out from the walls, floor, and ceilings in a cress-crossing pattern across the corridor, as if a steel grid bisected the corridor. The rabbit was thrust up into the air and then push down all at once as it was impaled by several steel rods with sharp spikes, splattering blood and bit of fur everywhere.
As the spikes pulled back into the holes in the wall, they had been thrust out of, the rabbit's body fell onto the floor and was surrounded by a glowing white light, as it was absorbed back into the dungeon. Hundreds of little spiders scurried out of the holes in the corridor that the spikes had slid back into, and started to weave webs covering the holes, some the spiders produce a stance that stretched across the bottom of the floor of the corridor attaching it to the triggering mechanism for the trap that was a small stone on the surface of the wall.
When all
the holes had been covered but one, the spiders crept back through the last hole and then covered them from the inside. From the now clean corridor, it was impossible to see that there were any holes that could indicate a trap. The spiders reset the firing mechanism with bands of spider silk web used to fire the rod when the trap was triggered again.
Rhef smiled at Snick as they had just seemed one of the simpler traps work from start to finish.
"We'll done Ms., "said Snick with a return smile," the use of the spider to reset the trap is brilliant."
"Yes, this advantage of setting and forgetting is great as it will require little maintainers," said the smiling Rhef, "hopeful we can transfer this idea to the bigger trap."
The two walked back down the corridor and into an open area that construction was still ongoing in. The cavern had been expanded significantly now, as a floor upon floor of the labyrinth has been, shall we say, extruded by the rock trolls. Rhef looked at the three-dimensional puzzle that she was helping to create and tried to imagine the complexity of the maze.
"Let have a look at the how the central room is going shall we," as she started to climb up temporary scaffolding that the kobold had erected to gain access to the different floors.
Chapter 4 Defenders
Rinaldo had just impaled another one-foot tall Gremlin with the tip of his sword and was kicking the dead body of on to the floor of the tunnel. Ceras and Rinaldo had been taking turns gaining experiences for the last few days as wave after wave of the monster had attacked the dungeon. All were low level, but Hidden-Caverns indicated that the level of monster would increase as time went on.
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Gremlin
2
2
12
-
Mechanics
“Don’t you two morons dare let those little mechanical devils into my dungeon,” shouted in an anxious voice Hidden-Caverns that seemed to deafen them, “do you realize how much havoc a case of the gremlins can cause a dungeon. They will get into all my system and destroy anything that they can get their grey little hands on.”
Ceras smiled when he heard an over the anxious tone of voice, from Hidden-Cavern, as it differed from his normal know-it-all voice that he was so often used to talk to Ceras with. Ceras was half tempted to let one of the grey large eared monsters pass him to see what would happen to Hidden-Cavern, but as his life relied on the dungeon now, he resisted the urge by touching one with his staff and releasing a fireball to burn it to death.
The two-man moved back down the tunnel to rest for a while as they had finished off this wave of monster, positioning themselves behind the now ten banshees, that were backup for defenses while the labyrinth was being completed.
“I though Hidden-Caverns was going to have a royal fit,” said Rinaldo with a laugh.
“You’d be worried if you had a case of the Gremlins as no other dungeons will talk to you.” said Hidden-Caverns, “it like have lice, which I suspect that you are well aquatinted with.”
As the two started arguing, Ceras decided to look at his experiences; he had gained over the last few days.
XP 13 of 15 too level 6 Wizard (Task required for progressing from Apprentice to Journeymen completed)
Smiling to himself, he relished that he was very close to the jump from apprentice to journeymen with all the monsters he had been killing, in defense of the dungeon, he had nearly gained the experiences. The only thing he wished for was to have access to the library to develop some more spell, but he had been going through the general spell book, he had bought in the town, when things were a bit quiet, copying out some of the more mundane spells this book provided. Ceras reviewed his spell list to check on what he now had access to:
Spells
Spell Effectiveness:
Name
Mastery
MP
Effects
Fire touch
Apprentices
25
25
Produces a flame to cause damage
Frost touch
Apprentices
25
25
Produces Frost to cause damage
Light
Apprentices
10
Attaches a white light to any object
Heal Touch
Apprentices
5
25
Heal anybody you can reach
Eye in the sky
Apprentices
10
Allow you an aerial view of the area around you
Staff enchantment
Apprentices
-
Storage spell
Apprentices
-
Immobilization
Apprentices
Max MP
Immobilizes an object
Cook
Apprentices
5
Cook a meal
Wash
Apprentices
2
Washes body and clothes
Tidy/Clean
Apprentices
3
Complete all the house work for you
Fire/Ice ward
Apprentices
25
25
Creates a fire or ice ward to damage anybody crossing
Looking at Rinaldo who was now clean, whether he liked it or not, he smiled thinking that the wash spell was deferentially worth learning, just forever bodied comfort. Ceras was just about to close his eyes to get some much-needed sleep only the suddenly be awaken by a loud voice.
“Up you get,” shouted Hidden-Caverns in a tense voice, “we have an incoming orc war band attacking the dungeon, let me show you the stat for each of warriors:
Name of Monster
Level
Agility
HP
MP
Skills
Orc
10
5
150
-
Head butt
Orc War-band Leader
13
5
200
-
Head butt
"They've got really high stats," said Ceras as he looked at the information presented to him, "we'll need some help to deal with them. How many are there?"
"Let's just say lots, enough to cause the dungeon some serious problems," said Hidden-Cavern in a nervous voice, "lucky the labyrinth is close enough to be completed for it to be of use. I want the two you to act as bait for the group of orcs."
"Why do you need us to act as bait?" said Ceras in an untrusting tone of voices as he spoke to the dungeon with Rinaldo nodding beside him wanting to understand with a look of uncertainty on his face.
"It will help to draw them into the sections of the labyrinth that have been completed," said Hidden-Caverns back to them," and it will give me a chance to test the different traps. I'll guide you through so you won't get into any trouble. You better hurry as there just entering the entrances, the spiders won't hold them for long."
Ceras looked at Rinaldo, who nodded his head in acceptance to be live bait; the two started to run through the rocky tunnel downwards toward the entrances of the labyrinth. When he arrived, Ceras saw the as he expected to just passed, the stone carved archway of the entrances, was a reception room, with six doorways leading off it. All of them blocked with slabs of stone. The stone blocks that the room was made out of was fully polished granite glowing slightly with sparkles of light, from his magic light, he had lighted the cave on the top of his staff.
In the stone pattern were magical symbols that had been carved into the stone surface, giving a strange power to the walls to resist attacks from creatures or adventures. In the center of the room's floor was a mosaic with a pattern set up like a chess board but each square had a different color and symbol as it was a puzzle to gain entrance to the labyrinth.
/> "Hit the three color that is light up." instructed Hidden-Caverns as he voice seemed to echo in the chamber, "and don't hit any other colored squares as you'll set off some of the traps."
As Ceras and Rinaldo ran into the chamber, Rinaldo pointed out holes in the ceiling that had been placed above the chess board, as if something would pore down people inside the room. On the large mosaic chest board, three of the squares were glowing as the dungeon indicated which ones to hit to proceed forward into the labyrinth. Ceras press two of the squares while Rinaldo hit the final one, and a grinding noise came from the slab on the far left of the room as it rolled to the side revealing the shape of a circle.
The exit lit up, indicating that they were to proceed into the dark corridor beyond. The two boys heard heavy footfall from the tunnel behind them, making them increase their speed toward the exit of the reception hall to the labyrinth.
As they passed through the large doorway, the stone circle started to roll back blocking of the exit. The last view of the chamber Ceras saw, was of orcs rushing in, they were approximately human shape, with bowed legs and long arms, of varying size. He thought that they were all generally ugly and filthy, with prominent fangs and facial features tending toward the grotesque (generally a mixture of the ape-like and pig-like) and large scars on their bodies. Their skin was a shade of green, grey, black, brown, or sometimes red or sandy tan. One of them had a body of a spider; he was chewing on as he was tearing apart its bone with its large pig-like teeth. One of the larger orcs just noticed the door closing and saw Ceras spying at the group of invaders. Running across the chamber, he managed to smash into the stone slab with a heavy thud, but it fully closed before he could try to stop it with his groping hands.
Dungeon Master Page 4
