Dungeon Master

by Andrew Bardsley

  50

  Creates a fire or ice ward to damage anybody crossing

  87.5

  Deciding to try out the spells he put the spell books away on the correct shelves, getting a look of approval from the librarian who was doing her own studying and walked out of the library to one of the magical practice's rooms, the guild provided, that was free for him to use.

  Closing the warded door behind him, he was in a stark stone room with, burn mark all of over walls and ceiling, from the previous use of magic in the room. The sandy floor had a magical target standing at one area of the room that was shaped like a human and was the only thing in the room that was not damaged as it has magical properties that enable it to repair itself.

  Standing facing the target, within a few feet of it, he thought about the fireball spell in his mind and increased it to the maximum MP of fifty. Releasing the spell slowly with his mind, so he could see what happened, between his hands at first, a small flame started to circle as if was a firefly. Then it tails got larger and larger as if it was now a yellow-red glowing snake curling up into a ball of energy that suddenly was a ball of twisting fire.

  Ceras projected the fireball at the center of the target, and it flew across the short distance as if it was a bolt of light with a comet tail creating an afterimage in his eyes. Hitting the target, it burnt into the center of the dummy, and then suddenly exploded with all its magical energy englutting the target in the fire, as a hole burnt in the center. Amazed, Ceras walked up to the target and examined the hole where small fame was still burning; it was like somebody had scooped the inside of the target out, producing a large cavity in its chest. Cringing when he thought of the damage this would do to a living creature, he stepped back looking at his hands.

  For the next hour, he worked on the fire spell, by trying to modify the fireball for different effects on the target. Ceras found with experimentation that: when the fire was hotter, shown by its blue/white flame, it penetrated the target more and often came out the back exploding behind the target; a large fireball with yellow flames would not enter the target but cover the whole body in flames, transferring all the damage across the targets body giving an even burn; and distance from the target affect the power of his attack with the fireball.

  Happy with the fireball spell he started to experiment with the frost blast spell, again he slowly cast the spell in his hands, watching as at first fog of blue whiteness form. Parts of the fog started to condensed into white/blue shards of what looked like ice particle, which grows in size until the fog was all gone. He then projected the large particle forward toward the target, which was shredded into pieces as the sharp ice hit it. Looking at the target, there were multiple holes that for a person would have created a significant amount of damage and bleeding.

  Forming a new ball of fog Ceras concentrated on forming a large ice shard, and after a few tries were able to produce a single large shaft with a razor-sharp spike on one end, that produced a massive hole in the target as it ripped through.

  He then played around with the shape of the spike, seeing what effect he could have on the target. One of his favors was a blunt block of ices that he could use just to stun the target if he was careful with the speed it hit. Interesting enough when he produced hundreds of ices partials, he was able only to inflect surface damage to the target as if he was blasting away a layer of skin and flesh.

  Looking around the magical practices room, Ceras smiled happy with his new level of magical attacks, as he saw that there were some new marks that he had added to the overall room damage, but he still needed to develop more spell for combat, and he wondered if the dungeon could use magic.

  Walking into the cooler night air, he walked out of the guild building with his staff in hand, through the new deserted central plaza that was normal bustling full of market stalls that only had a few people walking, with clocks around their heads rapping up warm in the night's chilly air. His destination was to meet Grikius at the inn Ceras had first stayed at on his first night in the town, for an evening meal together and to listen to some music that has always been performed his late at night.

  Ceras passed down one of the side alleys from the square that was poorly lit by some magical lights on poles and walked humming to himself, avoiding the boxes and carts partially blocking the alleyway. After about five minutes of walking, he now found himself in a maze of alleyways that were had rubbish piled up on the sides of the cobbled pavements with bared wooden door guarding the house he passed. Due to the cold, there was also a sight mist in the air, that restricted his vision of what he could see in the distances.

  Ceras heard a scraping noise behind him, turning around he saw three men holding large knives and clubs about ten meters away in the dark alley shrouded in mist, turning his head so he could look forward to an escape route. Ceras groan as he saw another three man in front of him, as they stood up from behind crates, that was on the side of the dark alleyways, appearing in shadowy forms in the dark night.

  With the six men surround him, Ceras knew that he was trapped in a darkened alley with no direct escape route. As the men got closer, he could see the expression on their faces, as ones of madness, a sign that they had been through to many death and resurrection. Ceras also noticed that their clothing was a threadbare and full of holes and theses six people seem to be quite desperate, especially as he was in armor with a heavy staff weapon.

  Deciding to see if he could only incapacitate them, he formed a large ice block in his hand and shot it at the close's attacker. Because of the lower speed of the ice block, Ceras was able to see it fly and hid the man on the chest knocking him the ground with a loud whack. Next, he tried the immobilization spell on one of the men that was running forward to hit him with a raised club; the man froze in mid-strike as if he was a statue with eyes that were darting around in his head. Ceras now used his staff to knock the knives and clubs out of the next attacks hand and then froze them with the immobilization spell.

  Looking around for any other more attackers, Ceras found that he was standing amongst five status, in various attack positions and one man groaning on the floor in pain. Before walking off quickly, he cast a clean spell on all of his attackers at list ridding them of the dirt they had accumulation over time in the gutter.

  The inn was not far down a winding alley, which was only lit by the small amount of light from the window of houses and shops he passed. As he walked down the alley with its cobbles, Ceras saw the welcoming large white sign lit by a single magical light, with a blue boar painted on it. He was passing by the inn's wooden with white lime coated walls with a thatch roof that had an arch supporting a second floor leading into a central courtyard. Ceras walked into the courtyard happy to have at least some level of safety. He entered the large open door into the inn seeing the band playing and Grikius already eating at a table with his familiar beside him chewing a large bone on the wooden floor.

  Sitting down next to Grikius who ginned in welcome a serving lady came up.

  "Meat stew or the barley porridge?" she said with a smile at the younger boy who was smartly dressed for being but not like a rich obnoxious kid that was normal trouble.

  Ceras smelt the steam meat stew that Grikius was eating with gusto and said, "I'll have the meat stew please," as he passed over the copper coins.

  While Ceras waited for his food, he told Grikius about the attack in the alleyway he had just experienced.

  "As you said it seems like they were man driven mad by being sent for resurrection to many times," said Grikius between mouths of the dark meaty stew, that he was passing every now and then, to his dog who was asking for more food.

  "I wonder if there's anything that I can do about it?" said Ceras with concern for the people that suffered from the affliction.

  He did remember somebody talking about a magical spell that could help, so he thought of looking for one tomorrow when he bought some spell books.

  Now he started to listen to the band as they were pla
ying folk melodies with lutes and flutes on top of the wooden stage. His meal was brought to him with a tanker of weak beer, and he started to eat with the same gusto that Grikius had displayed a few minutes earlier.

  The rest of the evening was spent singing along to well-known folk tone with the rest of the crowd in the inn, until they arranged for the use of the loft for sleeping in, for some coppers. Just before going to sleep, Grikius was discussing his day with the dog snoring on his chest as he was just about to fall asleep.

  "I checked up on the quest for clearing the mine, and nobody seems to be interested in it. So. I've taken out the quest again and told the guild that it would take us a while to complete, which they seem to be happy to. I thought that his might give us some time to get the dungeon readily for human adventures," Grikius said with a sleepy voice.

  Chapter 7 Magical Books

  The morning light shone through the open window into the roof of the stables directly into Ceras eyes waking him up fully, even though he would have preferred to sleep for a bit longer, after a night of singing to the folk music in the inn last night.

  Grikius had already gotten up and had left to finish off his shopping for the dungeon, in the various shop that he could find what he needed.

  Above the odor of the animal, Ceras could smell the inn serving breakfast for its patrons and decided to join them, knowing that he had the money to pay for it now that he was a dungeon master. Having close to an unlimited fund would take some time to get used to, but as Hidden-Caverns indicated the dungeon would need the money for the human adventures when it was up and running. Ceras wonder how the money from the dungeon would affect the economy of the surrounding area with the influx of so much gold. As he had never lived near a dungeon, he had no clue on what their effect was on the kingdoms surrounding them, all he knew was that they were normal close to large cities, or maybe when he thought about it, the large cities were built next to the dungeons.

  Walking down the now busy street, that was so different from the dark and misty street of last night with a full belly of the portage; Ceras was winding his way through the crowds of delivery men and women carrying parcels to different destinations on their back or on small carts. Many of the shops and workshops were opening for business, as the store clerks unbarred the door placing well on display on the street. Ceras could hear the sound of metal pounding from blacksmiths as they produced all manner of the item with the blacksmithing class for display on the front tables of their shops.

  Looking at the apprentice working away sweating with the heat of the forge, Ceras knew that at some point in their lives most people settled down to one of the crafting classed after adventuring for a while, but now he was connected to the dungeon he wonders what his life would be like and if he would be forever adventuring as a wizard-warrior he seemed to be.

  As he passed a pretty serving girl with a bag full of laundry, Ceras noticed that this was not the first girl about his age that had been smiling at him when he passed them in the bustling cobbled stone streets. Wondered why he looked at himself in a polished metal shield display in a shop, that gave him a half decent imaged of himself. Now that he had decent clothes, that was clean, and with his large muscles that came from being a wizard-warrior he thought that maybe the reason they were smiling at him was that he was handsome, this made him slightly embarrassed but also excited at the same time.

  To test this out his theory, Ceras kept an eye out for any more smiling girl as he walked toward the magical bookstall, he was heading to on the main street before the central square. It wasn't too long before he saw some more smiles as he passed a few girls.

  Deciding to play with this new power, he found that if he looked them in the eyes while he was walking past, they would often blush and look away for a few seconds until they passed him. Except for one girl that only seem to smile more, making him blush with embarrassment and look away while she laughed. In this game of smiles, he was obviously just a beginner.

  Happy to get off the street he entered a small door with a sign of a magical book above it. He was first to meet by stairs leading up into the loft of the house the store was located in. The bottom of the building was used for clothing stores that had large displayers in the bay window of dress and other fashionable clothing that seem aimed a higher-class woman in the town.

  He was climbing the stair two at a time he some found himself in a musty smelling cramped store, full of book selves on multiple levels. Each of the shelves had a label indicating what type of magical subject book they held, and there was a sign indicating the level the spell books were for. As Ceras was just about to walk over to the journeymen section and old man who was sitting behind a counter reading cleared his throat.

  "Good morning, young sir," he said in a dusty voice as if it was from the pages of a dusty book, "how can I help you today?"

  Turning around to look at the storekeeper, Ceras smile and said, "I've gained my journeymen level in the wizard and need to buy some magical spell book for references, so I was going over to the journeymen section to have a browse of the book you have."

  "It also might be worth your while looking in the higher-level books as some they contain spell that can be used at the journeymen's level," the old shop keeper said helpfully and went back to reading his book.

  As Ceras walked across the wooden floorboard toward the journeymen's section, the wooden floorboards squeak as if they were tired with all the foot traffic they had felt in their time, as part of the store. When he was close enough to read the handwritten cards, indicating magical books in sections of the topic he found the following topics: fire, nature, levitation, cold, weather, battle magic, history of magic, magical theory, practical magic, magical wards, magical weapons, magical energy storage and many more.

  Ceras spent the next hour browsing the book in each section and to the ones he thought were the most compressive. He found the magical theory section the most interesting and had to prevent himself from trying to read it all in the shop. Soon he was in the master section, of the magical book store, selecting a magical theory book that was detailing a higher level. Finally, with a massive pile of books, he walked over to the clerk of the store who seemed to be smiling brightly with the potential sale of all the books.

  As Ceras put them down in piles on the counter, he asked the salesman, "Do you have books about dungeon?"

  The older man nodded his head and pointed to a general history section of the store that seemed dustier than the other section.

  "Over there sir," he said as he started to count up the cost of the books Ceras was about to buy, "there's not much call for a book about dungeon here as the nearest is hundreds of miles away."

  Ceras walked the squeaky wooden floor once more to find himself looking for a title that had a dungeon in its name. Running his finger along the spine of the books he eventual found on that was titled 'The Inner Workings of Dungeons.' The book looked old and was slightly damaged, but as it was the only one on the topic of dungeons, he took it back to the store owner to purchase.

  The store owner was happy to add another book to his tally, as he wrote on a scrap of paper with other number and total them all up for Ceras. He smiled broadly as he handed over the note, on a scrap piece of parchment, of the total amount that Ceras was spending as if it was his birthday. When Ceras saw the total, he was shocked, as he knew that magical books were expensive, but he did not think they were that expensive. Before becoming the master of a dungeon he would not have been able to afford even one of these books without saving for a while, but now it was little compared to the money he had at his disposal in the bag around his waist.

  Passing over the required coinage to the store owner, he noticed that the man looked shocked but happy.

  "I was expecting you to bargain more over the prices," the store owner blunted out before he could think about what he was saying, "next time you come back I'll give you a discount if you."

  Thanking the store owner Ceras put all his book into
his bag of holding to carry back to the dungeon as he was eager to study them. As he closed the door behind him to the book store, he decided to find Grikius and see if he was ready to head back to the dungeon.

  Chapter 8 Magical Dungeon Discovery

  Ceras was lying on his large comfortable couch, in his apartment, balancing one of the magical theory books on his chest reading about magical energy storage in humans and monsters. He found that most lower level monster, even though they did not use magic as a weapon, stored magical energy in their cores while humans it was diffused across the whole of their bodies. Some of the higher magical beings was similar to humans as they also were being that diffused the magical energies across their body.

  He was amazed to find that as wizards got more powerful, the density of magical storage got so great that the flesh started to be saturated with magical energy causing nodes of magical power to form that carried a higher capacity of energy. If you killed a wizard that was full of these nodes, a large explosion could result in causing significant damage to the surrounding area. He was not too concerned about his body at the moment as it only happened to wizards over the level of legendary.

  "I've been thinking about you being a wizard as well as a warrior, and wondering how he may affect my operation as a dungeon, "interrupted Hidden-Cavern in a thoughtful tone of voices, "if you've got some time could we do a bit of experimenting."

  Ceras placed his book next to the other books on a bookshelf that Symania has gotten the gremlins to make for him, with its dark wooden panel that could be a lock to secure the costly magical books.

  "I'm really interested to see if you can cast any magical spells," said Ceras eagerly to the dungeon, "but it best if we cast the spell where we won't cause any damage." As he looked around all the expensive items in his room that he was getting to be to enjoy, and he thought that Symania would not appreciate all her work being destroyed for no good reason.