Dungeon Annihilation 8

Morning Guys! So, for my classic or wooden tier, there have been some issues with finding posts due to PAtreon's layout. I will be going through all my post (dreading) and re-tagging everything so that it is clear. Hopefully, this will clear up a lot of the confusion. For now, here's a chapter. DR chapter should drop tomorrow unless something happens. 

Regan

A little over two months had passed since I had come to this world. Frankly, I was bored. After the adventurers came in the first days, no one else had tried their luck. Of course, I knew it was because the mortals had procedures to follow. I’d learned as much from my new guests. Thus, I was left with random critters and wildlife wandering in to pass the time.

Well, random critters and my now large horde of goblins. I now possessed close to three hundred modified goblins across the first five floors. I had my guests to thank for that. If they hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have had the mana to even start making more goblins. 

I did run into a problem early on in the captured goblins and adventurers needed food to survive. A few trips outside solved that. My summoned goblins didn’t need to eat, but eating saved on mana for maintaining them. With a bit of tweaking, I was able to get some of the wildlife brought in to start reproducing like fire. 

A rabbit born today could have offspring tomorrow. While studying the magic of the dungeon, I found that if the creature didn’t have a certain amount of intelligence it was affected differently than say a mortal. Either way, my goblins were well fed.

“Set, what are you doing?” I asked looking for the fairy.

“Just playing with the guests,” she sent back. 

I moved to her location and found her creating illusions of loved ones being put through various tortures in front of the adventurers. The combination of my questioning and Set’s playing had caused them to break several weeks ago. They still gave out mana even in a mentally disturbed state, so I didn’t care. 

“Come up to the seventh floor. I want your opinion on it,” I told her moving back up. 

From the top of the floor, it looked like a gothic cityscape stretched out in front of us. Locked in a near permanent night, the only lights were from windows along the cobblestone streets. Goblins similar to Pride roamed the streets looking for a prey to hunt. 

“Very nice, master. Can the adventurer’s go into the buildings?” 

“A few. Most are for show. Some of the buildings will offer objectives if you knock on the doors, but the sound made will attract a Hunter if you’re not careful,” I explained. “Welcome to the Gothic Maze. Where nightmares are real, and dreams are forgotten.”

“I am in awe,” Set said bowing in midair. 

“I found I can merge floors so I’ll be dropping this down over the cells and making it the sixth floor. From there, I will fuse floor six through ten into this with various different zones counting as the next floor. A party will have to get through each section to get to the eleventh floor.”

“Have you thought of a boss yet?”

“No, I want to use a template from the next monster I make, but I haven’t decided that yet.”

“It won’t hurt to wait until a few parties come through to gage them. Then you can decide to go stronger or weaker. It wouldn’t do to scare people off and starve yourself,” Set said with a worried tone. 

“I don’t think we’ll have any issues with people coming to the dungeon,” I said with a mental grin.

Set tilted her head. “Master?”

I moved her back to the first floor. “See that pouch. It’s full of coins. If some defeats the goblin, they get all that money. I don’t about this world, but money usually is the best breeder of evil and greed.”

“I understand. So being liberal with rewards will actually pull more people in rather than forcing stronger people in.”

“Exactly. I hated to do it, but these goblins are much weaker than my normal modified, but I have those on the fourth floor before the boss.”

I hated to decrease efficiency of something I created but if I left them as they were, I felt I wouldn’t get any of the weaker level adventurers after a while. I might get more mana out of stronger people but if I had one level two or a hundred level ones. I would eventually make more out of the hundred level ones as they would come in more often to get stronger.

Unfortunately, I had reached the limit of what I could do with my current mana supply. I was sitting at tier one level five. It looked like the mana required for a level went up by a tenth power. Unless I could generate more mana, I would be sitting at level five for a while. I was getting roughly fifteen mana an hour from my guests, but a hundred thousand would take me a while to fill up. Especially with me playing around.

I had plenty ideas for power generation. Set had told me that changes in matter give off mana. I could easily create a steam generator. It was just inefficient. Set explained the resource generation of a dungeon but I didn’t want to devote an entire floor to a mine. 

Thanks to Zombie, I had gotten some iron, copper, nickel, and a few other random materials. Everything I needed to make a stator for the generator. I needed a bit more zinc before I could create some solar panels. I hoped that some adventurers, dropped, some of the element. That would solve my problems. 

I looked outside while I pondered what to do. I felt my mana start to increase slightly as a rainstorm moved into the valley. A few such storms had helped me over the last few weeks. The random lightning strike also gave me a decent chunk of mana. I watched the water flow along the cracks of my stone walls and an idea sparked.

I went to my topmost floor which was sitting at floor fifteen right now. I could raise it but I didn’t have any idea what to put in it, and more so, I didn’t want to scare the adventurers into not diving. If I got stuck dealing with higher level divers. My cost of operation would go up accordingly.

On the top floor, I created a large lake. The entrance to the floor, which happened to line up with the entrance to the dungeon was the only place there was land besides land to the next floor on the other side of the lake. From there, I opened the walls of my dungeon to the outside. The water started to flow out in long streams forming waterfalls in nine lines along the wall of my dungeon. 

From there I went along the wall and add waterwheels that were connected to generators. As soon as they solidified, the water started turning the wheels. Soon, I felt electricity flowing from the generators. I didn’t have any place for it thus I attached it to the wall of my dungeon storing it for later. Because it was created via the generator, I was able to absorb it for its mana.

Soon, I was generating close to fifty mana an hour. It would only take me two weeks to level up if my calculations were correct. I hoped that some adventurers would finally come in to increase that speed a bit. Speaking of, I needed to get Set to go check on the village. It had been a few days since her last scouting mission. With a thought, she was already on her way.

~~~

Set returned a few hours later. By her expression I could tell things had changed at the village. Considering it was a grin, I knew it was in our favor. She flew up and over and entered the dungeon through the topless ceiling. I mentally added air defenses to my list of things to add to the tower. 

“I see you have some news,” I said.

Set gave me a bow. “Yes, Master. Several hundred new mortals have arrived in the village. I spotted construction in several places. I wager it won’t be long before some of the parties make their way here.”

“Good. We’ll go easy on the first few, but I want to capture the third party if possible. The more I can get locked away in the dungeon, the more power I’ll gain.”

“Ask and I shall perform,” Set said with another bow. 

“I’m glad you are my dungeon fairy. Your magic is quite helpful.”

“Your praise is undeserved.”

“Really. I want ten more of you,” I said with a laugh then stopped. “Can I make more of you?”

“I do not know. I have never heard of a dungeon having more than one fairy.”

I looked her over with my dungeon senses. She was formed from pure mana, a type that I only attempted to create once since being here. It was ridiculously annoying process. From there she had a dark tint, likely due to the dungeon’s alignment. After studying it for a few minutes, I shook my head. 

“Something is blocking certain areas of your make up. I might be able to see past it when I have more power, but for now. You get to be the unique monster of my dungeon.”

“I will try to meet your expectations, master,” Set replied but I could see a small smile with a fang poking out.

I guess everyone likes to be one of a kind. With that issue settled for the moment, I looked around my dungeon trying to decide what to work on. I was getting a decent supply of mana with the hydro generators, but that value would be cut in half when I go up a step. I need to get the most out of it before hand.  

A nice side effect of the waterfalls was a nice fog was forming around the tower really adding to the mood. I saw that my bottom floor was slowly getting flooded, so I altered the area around the outside of my dungeon so that it flowed down the cliff face easier. I was going to leave a path but decided the mortals could do that themselves. 

I was watching the water make its way down the cliff side when I noticed a couple dozen people emerge from the forest path leading to the village. They all had features from various beasts. A man with wolf features was leading the group with twin sabers on his waist. 

“Set! We have guests!” I called my little helper. 

“Do you want me to assist?” she said when she looked the party over. 

“No. I want an unfiltered assessment of the first floor. If it’s too easy, I’ll make it harder.”

“Understood.”

The party had some difficulty climbing the now wet cliff to reach the tower. They were about half way when one of the party members started using Earth… I guess it would be called terra magic to form a smoother path up to the entrance. After about three hours, they finally made it to the entrance. The pour Terra mage was completely spent. Him and one of other member stayed outside.

“Listen up! We have basically zero information to go on. Only thing is the first floor has numerous pillars with an almost guaranteed trap between them. The dungeon is using goblins, but we don’t know if that is its chosen monster as a horde of goblins entered but never left.”

“Any idea of payoff?”

“No! The two that managed to escape barely did so. The rest of the first party was lost in the dungeon.”

“Damn. A first party wipe, never a good sign.”

The wolf nodded to the speaker. “We work as a pack! We leave as a pack!” He finished his speech with a loud howl. There were two dog-based beastkin in the group and they also started to howl. A cat based beastkin that stood next to the leader smacked him over the head. 

“Would you please stop that!?” 

“Sorry, its in my blood,” the leader said rubbing the spot she’d hit. 

They formed up and walked up to the swirling red shadow that made up my entrance. The scout, a rat beastman, poked it with his dagger and the shadow receded showing the first floor. Wandering balls of light were the only lighting on the floor that only showed small sections of the floor.

The scout walked in and checked for traps then waved the others in when he found it was safe. The group of thirty beastkin walked in and made a perimeter. I was surprised that the second group I was going to have in my halls was a variable army. They split into two groups, and one group went straight while another moved along the wall. 

I wanted to wshitle. With this party in my halls, I was getting close to a thousand mana an hour total. I had to fight my urge to capture them. If they liked what they found here, they would be back. Hopefully, with some friends they wouldn’t mind missing. 

“Why are they splitting up?” I mumbled.

“Likely to gather information on the dungeon. One will find the straight path, while another will find any treasures,” Set said looking the parties over.

I mentally nodded to her and turned my attention to the party that was moving straight to the stairs to the next floor. They would be the first to encounter some of my goblins. They were set to be noticeable so I wasn’t surprised when the scout raised his hand calling the party to a stop. 

“Three goblins directly ahead,” whispered the scout. 

“Alright everyone! Maximum effort,” the leader said drawing his swords.