The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  He thought about the many battles he’d been through. Conversely, he’d fought relatively few duels. That was a point for Whirlwind. On the other hand, with the enchanted weapons he would wield again sometime soon, hitting someone four times in a second with Strike Wheel might be enough to fell even a high-level opponent all at once. Richter thought it through for a few more seconds, then made his choice.

  Congratulations! You have learned the Combat Techniques: Weapon Maze and Strike Wheel. Continued use of these techniques in battle will allow you to advance both to more refined states, including but not limited to: increased damage, decreased cooldown and additional effects.

  Having the combat techniques brought him a sense of comfort, even crawling around in the bowels of the earth. He kept walking and checking the last of his prompts from the Mausoleum.

  Here was something he hadn’t even considered. He knew a sizable portion of the lich’s army had gone through the portal to his Dungeon, and he knew his people had defeated them. What he hadn’t thought of was the effect it would have on the Dungeon itself. Their energies had been greedily consumed by the Barrow of the Chaos Serpent and put to good use.

  Congratulations! Your Dungeon has reached Levels 4, 5, … and 14. Your Harbinger has grown stronger and now has a minimum level of 34

  Know This! Every 5 levels creates a new entrance to your Dungeon. This is normally randomly placed, but your Dungeon Keeper can assign the locations at his discretion.

  Know This! Upon reaching level 10, your Dungeon may now serve as a portal into the Labyrinth. Do not tread these paths of power lightly!

  Know This! Upon reaching level 10, your Dungeon has begun to create its own dimension. It is no longer completely bound to the location it occupies. As such, occupancy of the Dungeon is now unlimited.

  For reaching level 14:

  Dungeon Point Bonus: +14% Dungeon Points generated each day

  Harbinger Bonus: Monsters and Traps +24% harder to detect

  Item of Power Bonus: +24% Bonus to Monster Health

  Your Dungeon has earned a total of 6 physical floors.

  Mean Level of Dungeon Monsters is now:

  Floor 1: 8-17

  Floor 2: 12-20

  Floor 3: 15-24

  Floor 4: 20-28

  Floor 5: 25-33

  Floor 6: 30-38

  Dungeon Experience: 1,339,614/1,700,000 until level 15

  Richter cheered internally to see how much stronger the Dungeon had gotten. When that bolt of pure destructive energy had flown through the portal, courtesy of the Exile Rakshasha, it had done more than just destroy every undead creature. It had also flooded the barrow with pure energy. While much of that power had been lost to destruction and entropy, some of it had been siphoned off and converted into Dungeon Points. Only the sheer magnitude and intense purity of the energy had allowed that to happen, something that would most likely never occur again. The Exile’s power, coupled with the massive reaping of undead, had both catapulted the Dungeon in levels and helped fulfill some of its Motivations.

  The Dungeon was also strong enough to allow passage into the Labyrinth now. He didn’t know what making its own dimension meant, but, with an excited flutter in his heart, he thought it might be a TARDIS-style situation.

  He would have to wait until he got back to find out. Besides, there was plenty more to be excited about now. The next prompt was accompanied by the sound of a hundred people celebrating in Richter’s ears.

  YAAAAAHHHHH!

  Richter of the Mist Village, you have achieved the impossible! In less than one week, you have advanced your settlement to Level 4 of your Adventurer Specialization. For this amazing act, your settlement will gain a Mythic bonus.

  Congratulations! You have progressed the Adventurer Specialization of your settlement to Level 4. Having access to a Dungeon has inspired your people: “Adventure is in our blood!”

  +250 Morale, +100 Loyalty for having access to a Dungeon

  Specialization Level: 4

  Dungeon Master Bonus:

  +40% Attack and Defense while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +40% Chance to find Nodes

  +30% Trap Detection while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +20% Movement and Attack Speed while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +10% Attack and Defense for your Dungeon party while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  Settlement Bonus:

  +40% Dungeon Points from any source

  +40% Dungeon Loot Generation

  +30% Dungeon Resource Growth

  +20% Ambient Mana Seepage

  +10% Ambient Mana Refinement

  For each Treasure Chest rank, up to +5% occurrence

  Leveling Conditions:

  Generate 11,153/10,000 Dungeon Points

  Add 481/7 new Beasts to the Dungeon Bestiary

  Add 3/3 new Rooms

  Consume 7,928/500 creatures

  MYTHIC Bonus: The Barrow of the Chaos Serpent will receive the Blessing: Reliquaries of the Labyrinth

  Richter shook his head. He had no idea what the mythic bonus meant, but Randy had basically creamed his shorts over the previous epic-ranked bonus. When the Spy had seen that the Dungeon would get a Master Node, he’d been rendered speechless. Sadly, there was no information about what this blessing entailed. He would just have to look forward to learning more when he made it back home. The other bonuses were great too. All the individual bonuses he got as a Dungeon master were cranked up. What’s more, anyone he was adventuring with in a Dungeon now got a boost to attack and defense as well.

  The bonuses to the Settlement were also cranked up. The Dungeon was making more points, loot, and resources. It was also seeping more mana into the surrounding lands. According to Randy, that would make it more likely for valuable herbs, resources and rare magical creatures to appear in the region. The mana refinement vastly accelerated the overall process in a way that the chamberlain had tried to explain, but Richter just hadn’t followed. By which he meant his mind had wandered off. He promised himself that he’d pay more attention in the future… again. One thing he did understand though was that the Dungeon would be making more treasure chests now.

  Randy had told him that treasure chests were the holy grail of Adventurers. Most Dungeon loot came from the reliquaries, small objects that appeared when a monster was slain. It didn’t happen every time, but it happened often enough that countless people risked their lives on a daily basis in pursuit of them.

  There was also the possibility of finding hidden caches throughout a Dungeon, especially when lairs were cleared out. The treasure obtained from the first two options was nothing compared to the loot that came out of a chest though. Both in quality and quantity, the treasure from chests was of a substantially higher grade.

  When Richter had asked how likely it was for a chest to appear, Randolphus hadn’t known the answer. He’d only known that there were different chest ranks that followed the same order as items: common, uncommon, unusual, scarce, rare, epic, mythic and legendary. Randy had said there could very well be even higher-ranked chests, but in his one hundred years of life, the highest-ranked chest he’d ever personally seen was rare.

  The highest-ranked chest that he’d ever heard of anyone finding in his lifetime was epic. The discovery of that one chest had sparked a war between three countries. Richter had been surprised by that, but the Spy had explained that while Dungeon loot was normally limited to the treasure the Dungeon could generate, treasure chests were filled by the Labyrinth itself. Put simply, the Labyrinth had no definable limits, and neither did the treasure it could create.

  Even though Randy didn’t know the incidence of chests appearing, that was only because he had never had access to a Dungeon Keeper before. Talking to Roswan had given more information. One of the primary powers of the mustached elf’s Profession was to influence where a Dungeon invested its points. As soon as he’d heard about treasure chests, he’d had Roswan check what it would take to make chests appear
more often. It would be a great boon to the village after all.

  The conversation had ended there. Roswan had looked up the likelihood of the lowest-ranked chest appearing each day, and it was less than 1% for even a common chest. The Dungeon Keeper could allocate 10% of the Dungeon Points generated each day to any one thing without substantial penalties, but even using all ten, the needle had barely budged. Now it might be different, seeing as how the number of DPs/days had increased drastically, and the fact that there was now a one-in-twenty chance of a chest appearing each day was something worth getting excited about.

  Richter was already in a slightly better mood after reading how the village’s specialty had reached level four. He was absolutely shocked by how great the bonuses were, but he soon realized he ain’t seen nothing yet!

  YAAAAAHHHHH!

  Never in the history of the Tamorith continent has anyone accomplished such a historic achievement! In less than one week, you have advanced your settlement to Level 5 of your Adventurer Specialization. For this amazing act, your settlement will gain a Legendary bonus.

  Congratulations! You have progressed the Adventurer Specialization of your settlement to Level 5. Your people are drawn to the call of Adventure and extremely grateful for having access to a Dungeon: “Adventure? It’s our way of life!”

  +500 Morale, +250 Loyalty for having access to a Dungeon

  Specialization Level: 5

  Dungeon Master Bonus:

  +50% Attack and Defense while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +50% Chance to find Nodes

  +40% Trap Detection while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +30% Movement and Attack Speed while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +20% Attack and Defense for your Dungeon party while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  +10% Concealment and Perception while in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth

  Settlement Bonus:

  +50% Dungeon Points from any source

  +50% Dungeon Loot Generation

  +40% Dungeon Resource Growth

  +30% Ambient Mana Seepage

  +20% Ambient Mana Refinement

  For each Treasure Chest rank, up to +10% occurrence

  +5% Affinity for every member of your settlement in one of the Basic Elements

  Leveling Conditions:

  Generate 11,153/25,000 Dungeon Points

  Add 481/15 new Beasts to the Dungeon Bestiary

  Add 3/7 new Rooms

  Consume 7,928/2,500 creatures

  LEGENDARY Bonus: A God Node

  Richter’s excitement peaked again upon reading the level 5 effects. Once again, he’d been thrust into the jaws of danger, but he’d been proportionally rewarded. His life proved that power and danger were close bedfellows. The lich had been an existential threat to his village, to the entire Forest of Nadria. His allied army had almost lost, but it was also true that without the lich’s forces swarming through the gate, the Dungeon would never have been able to consume enough energy to advance so quickly. Because it had, his entire village would benefit.

  The chaos seed had no idea what a “God Node” was, but reaching level five of the village’s specialty had increased all of the previous bonuses and those had already been substantial. He personally had gotten a boon to Concealment and Perception while he was adventuring in a Dungeon or the Labyrinth. The possibility of treasure chests appearing had also doubled. What made his breath catch though was the last line of the settlement bonus.

  There was no other information, but it looked like the Dungeon’s ability to increase and refine ambient mana around it might actually increase the affinity of his people for magic! That meant more Life mages to heal, more aeromancers to cast thunderbolts, and maybe even more necromancers to raise the bodies of slain enemies to fight on behalf of the Mist Village. He just couldn’t believe it.

  His enchantments were able to make common men and women the equivalent of real soldiers. He couldn’t turn them into casters, however. A powerful magic user could be worth an entire platoon of soldiers. That power was reflected by the low likelihood of someone having an affinity for magic skills. There was almost zero chance of someone awakening a skill if their affinity for it was less than 50%. Usually, only one out of a thousand to ten thousand people met that requirement when it came to the Basic Elements. With this settlement-wide boost in magic affinities, the Mist Village could become a mecca for magicians. It truly was a bonus worthy of a legendary achievement.

  Richter was already resolved to make it back to the village. With so many amazing developments waiting for him, he was more excited than ever. He’d have to wait to find out just what the mythic and legendary bonuses meant for his village, but they were just icing on the cake. He would make it back to his people. He would make it back to Sion. He would make it back to Alma! The chaos seed’s resolve hardened to steel. It didn’t matter who or what was standing in his way. He’d get to this damn red dot, finish Xuetrix’s quest, and make it back to his people. And he would absolutely cut down any bastard dumb enough to stand in his way. He was Lord Mist. It was what he did.

  CHAPTER 23 – Day 151 – Juren 2, 0 AoC

  Richter cast Weak Find Water every hundred yards. The pulse would ripple out, but still found nothing. Walking through rough stone tunnels without shoes, the only sound his own breathing, was nerve-wracking. It also occurred to him that, short-lived as it was, every time he cast his spell the blue light of the casting broadcast his position. The only life he’d come across so far was a nest of carnivorous four-hundred-pound centipedes and a demon. He wasn’t super excited to get to know any more of the local wildlife.

  While he walked, he dealt with the very last prompt from the Mausoleum. He’d been saving the best for last.

  Congratulations! You have slain your second Mortal Enemy. Most beings live their entire lives without ever gaining this level of enmity. Few that do survive the experience. You have slain not one, but two creatures whose powers outstrip your own. For this amazing feat, you have earned a Mark!

  THOOMMM!

  You have received a Mark: Dread Executioner

  Know This, Slayer of Foes! Mortal Enemies cannot be created merely from anger or enmity. They must possess power greater than your own and devote their entire existence to your devastation. Twice you have been tempered in such a crucible, and both times you have emerged stronger. For this, you are awarded a Mark, and those who would dare attack you with malice in their soul will suffer accordingly!

  +100% Attack and Defense vs future Mortal Enemies

  Slay another Mortal Enemy to evolve this Mark!

  His first Mortal Enemy had been the rock giant. The second was the mauler. If only they could see him now. Thanks to the two monsters going out like a bunch of punk ass bitches, he was stronger than ever. In fact, if he ever got another Mortal Enemy, he’d hit twice as hard. All thanks to those two knuckleheads. Richter chuckled to himself. Thanks again, dickheads!

  He looked at the inside of his right forearm, and saw a midnight-black square appear. It had a grinning skull inside with the number “2” carved onto the skull. After a moment, it disappeared.

  His new Mark was the very last Mausoleum prompt, but he still needed to assign his Attribute Points from unlocking level forty-five. He didn’t want to waste time doing that until he dealt with his debuffs. As far as his Talent Points went, there was also no real point. As powerful as his Enchanter Profession could be, it had a serious weakness. It needed materials.

  He could do nothing without captured souls and powdered crystal. He knew the spell to make more soul stones. He might even be lucky enough to find a solitary creature that he could kill and trap. Without the powdered crystal though, he was stuck. He was a driver without gas, a sniper without bullets, an old guy without Viagra. He was boned… so to speak.

  With nothing else to do, and to distract himself from the gnawing in his belly and dryness of his throat, he examined the prompts he’d gotten since waking up in his skeeling shell. The first cam
e from his fight and flight from the ichorpede lair.

  Congratulations! You have reached skill level 3 in Unarmed Combat. +6% to unarmed combat damage. +0.3 to natural armor.

  It looked like ripping off the ichorpede’s pincer had earned him a skill level. Unarmed Combat was potentially an amazing skill because it also hardened his skin. Problem was, he could only level it if he didn’t have any other weapons in hand. Even holding a dagger and punching and kicking at the same time wouldn’t increase the skill. It was just kind of a hard sell to go into a life-and-death situation without weapons when his Profession was literally about making magic weapons.

  He pinched his skin, seeing if it felt any different than he remembered, but it looked and felt the same. Shrugging, he moved on to the next prompts. More skill levels greeted him, thanks to his bone club.

  Congratulations! You have reached skill levels 9 and 10 in Mace Wielding. +30% damage when using maces or clubs. Ignore up to 5% of an enemy’s armor.

  Congratulations! You have advanced from Novice to Initiate in: Mace Wielding. You have progressed down the martial path. Few truly understand the satisfaction of literally crushing the life from your enemies.

  Mace Wielding Initiate Bonus: Maces and Clubs weigh 10% less in regard to wielder. This is cumulative with successive ranks.

  You have received 2,000 bonus experience for reaching level 10 in the skill: Mace Wielding.

  The experience was helpful, even if it was a drop in the bucket at this point. The boost to the skill was also helpful, especially seeing as how his only weapon was a club. He could also see the initiate bonus being useful. Stamina drain in battle increased with exertion, and it was obviously harder to swing something heavy than it was to swing something lighter. This perk would also increase his attack speed while keeping the mass and overall weight of the weapon the same when it hit his enemies.