“An acidic rotting zombie!” one of them screeched in fear. “It’s a tier 4 undead. Run for your lives!” The noise instantly caught the undead’s attention, and it lunged at its former companions.
The closest man pushed the zombie away then screamed as his hands began to melt from the slightest touch of the monster’s rotten flesh. He was still screaming when the zombie sank its mouth into his neck, only stopping its scream after his flesh melted into a new zombie.
“Summon demons!” the three remaining men chanted, and six tier 2 imps appeared from midair summoning circles.
“Silly humans, demons can’t save you,” the pixie woman giggled. “But thank you for the treat. Dinner and a show.”
The imps attacked with fire magic, but the melted zombie flesh did not ignite. Instead, the rotting bodies released fumes of poisonous air as the fire burned them, decaying the very space it touched. The poison traveled quickly into the lungs of the remaining warlocks. Choking, the three men collapsed as their bodies rotted from within, dispelling their demons with their death.
The pixie let out a contented sigh as she inhaled the fumes, sucking them into her stomach as if they were fine wine. When she was satisfied, she gathered up the remaining poison into a ball and stowed it away in her dress. The lady examined her five new zombies with pleasure.
“Hm, not quite enough,” she murmured. With a final snap, the white fire within the lead acidic rotting zombie increased in strength, followed by its four fellows. The zombies shuddered as they evolved. The first zombie transformed into a tier 5 Rotten Zombie Wizard, and the other four became Rotten Zombie Soldiers. They gained armor and weapons molded from their own flesh, and their bodies became stronger, faster, and harder to destroy.
“Go, seek out any members of the Empire and kill them!” she ordered, “Increase your numbers, and rain a plague of undeath on the fools who dare attack my precious Claire!”
The five zombies turned around and ran into the depths of the forest.
Pleased with her work, the lady pixie turned to face the moon. She let out a contented sigh as the moonlight hit her, soaking into her skin and replenishing the magic she’d used. Creating a tier 5 monster was rather overkill, especially given the cost, but the pixie felt neither regret nor annoyance. After all, the worms had something to do with her daughter’s disappearance, and that annoyed her. In the midst of her moonlight shower, the pixie tilted her head, as if listening to an unheard voice.
“Bring me back,” she ordered. “No, she wasn’t here. I couldn’t track her. One of the gods interfered somehow. Don’t worry, I’ll have the others look for her. I’ll find her, even if she died.
“After all, we’re family.” She smiled, creating a white flame in her palm. Examining it closely, one would see the flame was actually made of countless screaming souls.
“And family always stays together.” She winked at one of the souls who, only for a moment, looked like a pixie.
Chapter 1
Within the continent of Palos, inside a dense forest next to a mountain range, the sounds of nature were interrupted by a flash of light and small shockwave. The disturbance caused birds to screech and fly away while smaller animals and monsters ran for cover. The ground shook with unnatural vigor as the event abated, quieting down until the forest surroundings were left still as the grave.
When the dust settled, some of the smaller creatures poked their heads up and stared at the source of the disturbance. Within the trees, there was now a large cave opening leading deeper into the ground. Stalactites and stalagmites could be seen around the entrance and within, and a large worg skull was embedded in the center of the opening arch. A few mice approached cautiously, drawn to the coolness emanating from the cave.
“Nooo!” a voice erupted out from the cave, scaring the mice into fleeing once again. For, this cavern entrance was no ordinary cavern entrance. It was the entrance into a dungeon. At least, it had been.
*
Darkness. It filled the void all around it. It had name, Doc. Yes Doc, my name, not it. But is it?
So hard to think. So hard to breathe.
Accept it. I don’t need to breathe. What is breathing? Another rush of confusion. Blurry images pass through my mind, or soul, or both.
A voice, so familiar. Her voice, small purple dot. Not a dot, a pixie. Claire, friend, teacher, helper.
A warning, more advice, and danger approaching. Not enough time, had to do it. Had to leave.
Then, nothing. Worse than blackness, the nothing. A vacuum, a void, a nothingness, an oblivion. Everything gone, everything stripped away from it, me. I, I am Doc. I am a dungeon.
What is a dungeon?
Awareness is returning. The nothingness has vanished. I am here, or maybe there. I am somewhere again. But there is no one here with me.
There is no one within me. No, that’s wrong, yet right. I’m me, but without something. A core, a center. There is a hole in me. I don’t know how to fill it. The nothingness, it’s residing there now. It scares me. It fills me. It wants to become me, and I it.
I refuse, I rebel, I thrust it out! Be gone from me!
*
Doc’s consciousness slammed back into existence, his mind a jumble from the soul-shattering ordeal he’d gone through. Though he was only a spirit, he could feel the sensation of cold sweat slithering on him.
“I’m never teleporting again,” he promised himself. “That was horrible. How are you feeling Claire?... Claire?”
Doc looked around but saw no sign of the purple dress-wearing pixie he’d come to know as his partner. Rather, now that he took the time to examine his surroundings, he found that his room seemed a lot smaller than he remembered. In fact, he almost didn’t recognize the dungeon heart room with the cracks and the holes and the... wait.
Feeling an overpowering sense of dread, Doc used his consciousness to examine the dungeon.
“Nooo!” the consciousness of the dungeon wailed. “My power, my levels, my dungeon!”
Doc was a dungeon. Specifically, Doc was the sentient spirit of the dungeon that came into being after a soul stone changed into a dungeon heart crystal and birthed him. To protect himself, Doc’s mana could manipulate the ground around him, allowing for the creation of a great underground labyrinth known as a dungeon.
As with other naturally occurring dungeons, this one had come to possess its own morals and ethics through its existence. Named Doc by his partner, this dungeon with little more than a year’s worth of life under its—rather, his—crystal would be considered a youngster amongst his peers. His heart crystal, the core of his underground labyrinth and the host of his spirit, stood at a proud three inches high and one inch across while being completely purple. It floated in the center of his heart room, the last floor of his dungeon body, and was the only source of illumination within the cavern. However, contrary to its look, Doc’s dungeon crystal was not very bright. Instead, it was dull and almost powerless, and the heart room was a complete mess.
“How could this have happened?” Doc asked himself as he beheld the horror of loss. “How could I have lost so much?”
Doc’s dungeon was no more. Of his 26 carefully crafted floors, only three floors remained, including his heart room. His top floor was a strange fusion of the original two floors: a single pathway leading to the larger floor that was now a single, large cavern covered in the rubble of broken walls and collapsed ceilings. The mines were completely destroyed, as was his ooze slime boss. The second floor was in relatively good condition, though it had many new openings leading to the floor above in its maze-like structure. In terms of monsters, most of the bosses were alive, though fairly injured, and all the slimes were scattered around the two floors. The elemental slimes were all missing.
Beyond the physical loss, Doc could also feel that his mana level was largely depleted. Without mana, he wouldn’t be able to make substantial changes to the dungeon, create monsters, or, probably worst, stay awake. He felt like a large bowl th
at had been cracked and could no longer hold enough water in it, a distressing situation.
However, the most important thing was that Doc was alone. He hadn’t been alone since the first week of existence. Where was Claire? Where were his close minion friends?
“Claire, where are you?” he called out in vain, but no one answered. “Girls, Anadine, Rowen?” Still no one answered. Fretfully, Doc extended his meager senses, but he could find nothing beyond his slimes. His crystal dimmed as the light of hope fell dim.
“Is this all my fault?” Doc whispered mournfully. “Did, did I kill everyone?” It was a horrifying thought.
Despair arose within him. Before it could claim its due, however, Doc felt a tug in his mind. A familiar sensation, the mental bond he shared with the other sentient creatures of his dungeon.
“Summon us, summon us,” it seemed to whisper to him.
“Come out, everyone!” Doc cried out, irrepressible joy overcoming his despair.
In a flash of light, five figures tumbled into existence. Doc wept as his friends came back to life around him.
“Doc, you fool!” Claire the dungeon pixie wailed. “Idiot, brainless oaf! Why haven’t you learned a thing in the year we’ve known each other?” Claire was Doc’s pixie partner, the one who had helped guide him through his first year of existence. She was the one who had given him the name ‘Doc,’ and it was her guidance and teachings that had assisted Doc in growing into a strong and wiser dungeon.
Dungeon pixies were a rare species of underground pixies that bonded with a dungeon crystal in exchange for information and knowledge. Claire herself was a bit special. While her family lineage concentrated on fostering undead dungeons, she took on the traits of her father, an earth pixie, and despised the smell of the undead. Partnering with Doc had allowed her to confront the tragedy of her father’s death, so the two were very good friends.
Between the two of them, they had gone through many hallowing experiences and come out on top stronger for it. Whether it had been adventurers, demons, an attack by another dungeon, cursed fleshlings, or invasion, they had managed to survive and grow stronger from it. However, it appeared the current situation was the newest boulder in their path, and one that was not so easily overcome. The others quickly picked this up as well.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Rowen the lich slime asked, his grey and white slime body vibrating in concern. “Why can’t I change my body?”
“The same for me,” Anadine the wandering slime boss added. “It appears I am unable to reform my human shape. How strange.”
Rowen and Anadine had joined the dungeon later, both under extraordinary circumstances. As a former princess, Anadine had been traumatized by a sinister plot and had used her Chosen powers to grant her soul to Doc upon her death. She had been reborn a monster, only regaining the memory of her human life very recently. Due to this, and Doc’s rescue of her former family, Anadine was eternally loyal to the dungeon spirit. Overcoming her past trauma resulted in her personality mellowing out from the eager soldier she had originally been, resulting in her becoming relaxed and calm on the surface. While never outright mentioned, she appeared to be a member of the mimic slime family.
Similarly, Rowen had been a slumbering prince retrieved from an invading undead dungeon. The centuries spent within the dungeon had resulted in his slow transformation into an undead, thus upon his rescue he was only half human with a monster core growing inside him. After pledging allegiance to his savior, he had his undead half temporarily removed, allowing him to wander amongst other humans until he sacrificed his life to save his special and important friend. He too was reborn within the dungeon as a monster, specifically a lich slime. His personality remained as prideful and negative as it had been before, though he privately abhors his new body as his bones are made of slime and are thus squishy.
Normally, both slime bosses could take on their more natural appearance, a blue slime woman in slime-made armor and a slime skeleton in robes (slime-made), but they currently were unable to. They were instead stuck in the form of a normal slime, albeit slightly larger and a different color than Doc’s standard purple slimes.
“At least you two are awake,” Claire sighed in relief.
“Yeah, but looks like The Twins are out,” Rowen observed. He stared at the sleeping pile of fur in the corner of the room.
Aisha and Ayla, otherwise known as The Twins, were the first outside monsters to join Doc’s dungeon. The two were twin worgs, wolves who had evolved into monsters. They were the only survivors of their pack after an adventurer attack, and their mother had brought them to Doc. Her skull was the one overlooking the dungeon entrance. The two were in their puppy form and sleeping in a ball together. Half the time, Doc couldn’t remember their individual names, so the moniker of The Twins stuck.
“This is all because Doc used too much power!” Claire rubbed her face in exhaustion. “That teleporting ability followed your instruction to the letter Doc; ‘Take us as far away from those demons as far as possible.’ We likely shot across the entire world and think of how much mana that cost!”
“It’s all gone,” Doc sighed. “My floors, my monsters, the mines. Everything I worked so hard for.”
“It could be worse,” Claire refuted. “When you teleported, everyone here was stored in your astral bag. If you had lost all your power, we would have been trapped there forever! The mental bond doesn’t work through dimensions. I had to use an emergency artifact to even send the summoning message to you!”
“I’m sorry,” Doc said, “and I’m really, really glad you’re alright. I was scared I’d killed all of you.”
Claire sighed, “What’s done is done, I suppose. I hope you learned an important lesson from this. Alright, let’s view the damages.” With a flick of her hand, she cast a spell that reformed the magic blue box that displayed Doc’s abilities.
Ability
Description
Teleporting Glyph
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Locked
Inscribe a glyph on every floor that allows adventurers to move from one floor to another easily. Must have cleared the previous floor to be able to move to the next floor. Groups are restricted to the lowest level conquered by a member
Additional Race
Tier 1 Ability
Able to create an additional race to the one held. Increases dungeon diversity
Upgrade Monsters III
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Locked
Grants the ability to improve monsters by unlocking next evolution level.
Current Monster levels: Slime tier 3
Instances
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Locked
Able to create parallel realities within the dungeon, allowing for more adventurers to enter the dungeon at the same time
Environments
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Able to create new obstacles in the form of environmental hazards.
Trap knowledge II
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Locked (II)
Able to improve and add to existing traps by using mana. Current trap types available: pitfall, aerial, launch, ceiling-fall. New trap types: spear trap, trigger trap
Mana Stones
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Locked
Throughout the dungeon, places naturally fill with ambient mana. Now, those places will condense into mana stones that can be mined
Puzzle Knowledge
Tier 1 Ability (Acquired)
Able to create simple puzzles on floors that test knowledge, imagination, and intuition
Dungeon Aesthetics
Tier 2 Ability
Locked
Able to change dungeon tunnels and rooms into new forms. Current form: Underground Labyrinth
New form: Dilapidated temple
Requires Environments to unlock
Dungeon Room of Traps
Tier 2 Ability (Acquired)
Locked
Unlocks the ability to create a room filled with moving parts with set requirements on how to leave. Requires Trap Knowledge II and Puzzle Knowledge to unlock
Dungeon Room of Worship
Tier 3 Ability
Locked
Unlocks the ability to create a shrine room on any floor. Shrine rooms are a safe place from monsters and hold altars for a particular deity. Requires Dungeon Aesthetics, religious icon, and approval of chosen deity.
Note: The Dungeon will receive a small percentage of faith magic created in the shrine
Dungeon Nursery Room
Tier 3 Ability
Locked
Unlocks the ability to grow new plants not seen before in the world. Requires Environments III to unlock
Locked
Locked
Rowen let out a whistle as he read through the information. “Wow, Doc,” he muttered. “Except for your monsters, environments, and trap powers everything else looks locked off. What’s happened, Claire? Did he really lose all his power?”
The blue box shuddered mid-air then abruptly shattered, startling everyone in the room.
“The dungeon is in more disrepair than I thought,” Claire sighed. “To put things simply, Doc used up most of his stored mana. It’s like when a bonfire is depleted of wood, it gets smaller and produces less light and heat. Without mana powering his dungeon, Doc’s crystal has locked most of his dungeon abilities away as a safeguard from completely running out of power. The abilities he lost used most of his daily mana, and The Twins required more to be used as non-slime bosses than you two. Of course, both of you have had your powers restricted as well. You won’t be able to rely on Doc for a power up now.”
“Locked... locked doesn’t mean lost.” Doc observed with hope. “Claire, does that mean I will be able to recover usage of my abilities once I regain enough mana?”
Dungeon Wars Page 2