A Living Dungeon

by Allan Joyal

  The girl rolled over, ignoring the fact that the water on the floor quickly soaked her clothing. “I need to do something about this,” she snarled.

  She sat up. The rabbit backed away as she glared at the mineral deposit. Water trickling through a crack in the wall continued to flow over the deposit as it made its way to the pool that dominated one side of the cavern.

  Faestari ignored this as she raised her right hand. The deposit broke away from the floor and flowed off towards the pool. It looked like it was going to submerge itself. However, just before entering the water it began rolling towards the stalagmite that dominated the room. The deposit joined the other minerals that comprised the massive formation, oozing into a small crack formed by a rivulet of water, sealing it.

  The rabbit approached Faestari tentatively, acting much like a living rabbit would. The girl looked at the stone creature and giggled. “I guess I give you more than just motion.”

  The rabbit just looked at her. Faestari looked over at the tunnel that had been the route the rabbits had used to enter this cavern. “Check the tunnel, but be careful,” she commanded the stone rabbit.

  It hopped away as she watched. She closed her eyes for a moment. Someone watching would have thought she had turned to stone, but a wizard would have noticed the whirlwind of mana reaching out and passing through the stone walls of the cavern. A moment later the mana returned and the child opened her eyes.

  “I might be able to fit five chambers like this one if I built them next to each other,” she said. “Daddy always insisted that I carefully plot out how I’d plant my gardens. Now I think I know why. How much did he know?”

  There was no answer. The stone rabbit that had been tasked to investigate the tunnel had reached it and carefully stuck his head inside. It backed out and then tried again, only to retreat as a cloud of powdered rock billowed out of the hole.

  Faestari noticed this and sighed. “It’s collapsed,” she said mournfully. “I’ll have to open up a new route to the surface. But not yet. I should get a few chambers put in.”

  “But my mother and that other man said I needed monsters,” Faestari commented. “Where do I find those?”

  Another rabbit hopped down from the alcove. It came over and bumped her with its head. Faestari looked down and giggled. “Rabbits aren’t monsters,” she said.

  The girl looked thoughtful. “Or are you saying I could make stone monsters until I find real ones?”

  The stone rabbit sat silently, but Faestari walked around. The stone of the floor smoothed in front of her allowing her to pace in a circle as her teeth worried her lower lip. “Should I try to create a full dungeon, or work a chamber at a time?” she asked the rabbit.

  “A dungeon would be hard. I have to learn to make the monsters, and adventurers could find it too soon. I’ll do a single chamber first. A small one,” Faestari said. “We’ll start just north of here.”

  The girl pointed to the north of the chamber. At that moment, the mana stone to the north of her gemstone was transferring mana to her. She giggled as she felt the mana flow into the stone.

  Faestari walked to the north wall of her cavern. Once there the stone flowed away from her. Her stone rabbit companion paused to sniff at the granite lining the short passage she created.

  “I know,” Faestari said with a sigh. “But I want to see the rooms I make, so for now, I have to open up the heart. But I’ll seal it in the future.”

  The rabbit ignored her as Faestari walked several feet down the passage. She was about ten feet outside the heart cavern when she stopped and looked around. “Here. I’ll make it the size of a small cottage for now. Then I’ll try to find monsters for it.”

  The stone in front and to her left flowed away from her. The new opening had a ceiling about ten feet above her head. The floor of the growing chamber was rough granite. The walls bowed outward just a little as they rose up in a rectangular pattern making the chamber a bit longer than it was wide.

  When the stone stopped flowing Faestari leaned against the wall looking at her new creation. “Now I need monsters and treasures,” she said.

  The light glowing above her head struck something shiny in the rubble that had built up in the far corner of the room. She walked over and found that she had displaced the remnants of an ancient lava pile. In the blackened rubble she could see several blue crystals reflecting the light.

  The rabbit hopped over for her and quickly dug out one of the crystals. It was roughly formed, but Faestari could feel the structure and smiled. “It’s a gem isn’t it?” she said. “But these are large. Too large for a simple room. Collect all you find and take them to the heart. The others will come.”

  Faestari walked over and started examining the new walls as the other four rabbits hopped into the newly formed chamber. They moved to dig through the debris. Periodically one would sit up and dash off to the dungeon heart as the others continued to dig.

  “I could fit many of these in the space I control,” Faestari said. “But making this probably shook the ground outside. There are only two other pockets within my reach. So the rock I move ends up pushing against the surface of the mountain.”

  Faestari closed her eyes and pushed her awareness into the mountain. Initially she was stopped by the limit of her control, but then she saw a way to slip outside. It would be as a spirit and she would be unable remain there long, but she was able to fly above the mountain and look down at the landscape concealing her heart.

  At first all she could see was a white surface. A moment later she realized that the mountain was covered in a blanket of snow. She willed her spirit to drift lower and could see that the snow lay a foot or so thick all over a surprisingly gentle slope of some nineteen degrees above level. The mountain had a good number of trees, but no large animals. Many insects, birds and squirrels roamed the snowy expanse, but the deer and other larger animals had abandoned the slopes for more fertile feeding grounds.

  She looked around, straining to see the village she had lived in for a short time, but could not see anything to suggest that the mountain was near it. Disappointed with the failure she drifted back down into the mountain, but feeling a bit more secure that no humans were nearby.

  Once Faestari had returned to the new chamber she had made, she looked over at the pile of rubble. The hard-working stone rabbits had cleared all of the crystals, leaving a black powder that coated most of the floor. The girl smiled and then looked at the walls.

  “I can make one more,” she said confidently.

  Faestari stepped towards the walls and then stopped. She walked over near the black powder and licked one of her fingers. She dipped the wet finger into the powder, then turned to the wall and, with her finger, started drawing a primitive series of circles. The middle one of the set of circles was the largest and contained two vaguely rectangular shapes, one in the middle and one just above it. Crossed lines separated the two shapes.

  Faestari had to dip her finger into the black powder several times as she started to add more shapes of different sizes. Sometimes she would add a mark pointing to the left or right. When she did she would move to that circle before resuming her drawing. Finally on the leftmost circle she connected a chamber with the border. “Entrance,” she said confidently.

  The shapes were all different sizes and shapes, but more than one hundred covered the eleven circles. The left most one had four smaller chambers set in a circle before an arrow pointed right. The largest circle contained a network of smaller chambers with four massive chambers along the southwest, northwest, southeast and northeast sections of the circle. Faestari looked down at a stone rabbit. “Think it’s too many?” she asked.

  The rabbit said nothing. Faestari looked at the map again and walked over to the eastern wall of the room. She put her hands together and then motioned them apart as if she was pushing vines apart so she could step through. The stone flowed and began opening a new pathway. Behind her, a new chamber began to grow as she walked forward.
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  Chapter 6: Welcoming the First Creatures

  Time passed slowly underground. Faestari would spend her mana carving out chambers based on the series of circles she had drawn in the first chamber. Her stone rabbits would follow, collecting any crystals that were revealed as the largely granite rock moved at her command. They also scrambled away with dozens of gold nuggets that were revealed when a large piece of quartz crashed to the floor after a room had been created.

  Still, Faestari was worried about how to populate the chambers. She was reluctant to open up a passage to the surface until she had more chambers ready, but to ready a chamber she knew she would need monsters and treasures. Finally she risked opening up a small tube to the surface from the heart chamber. It was no wider than her arm, but she somehow felt comforted when the tunnel broke through the surface of the mountain. The hole was carefully hidden underneath an overhang, but some fresh air began to filter down into the otherwise still air of the caves.

  The faint smell of the outdoors brought a smile to Faestari’s face. She noticed that the snow had vanished from the mountainside outdoors, and tall stalks of grass covered the clearings along the east and south faces of the mountain.

  Several wild flowers were blossoming on the mountainside. Faestari slowed her work on the chambers as she left her body in the heart of the dungeon while exploring the outdoors as a spirit. She soon noticed that the wind often came out of the east, blowing over the single vent she had created. She returned to the heart and formed a second vent tube that opened on the west side of the mountain. Within hours a gentle breeze could be felt in the dungeon heart as fresh air entered from the east and left through the new tube.

  The girl was sitting in the heart, enjoying the feel of the moving air when a long-legged spider drifted down and landed on her shoulder. She reached out with her senses and could taste the slight hunger of the tiny creature. Carefully she fed it some mana. The spider calmed and began walking down her arm, headed for the floor.

  Faestari noticed that the spider was still seeking food, but that the mana she gave was less than she was now receiving back from it. She cupped her hand and mentally commanded the spider to walk to the center of her palm. Once it was there she brought it up so she could look at it more closely.

  The spider looked to be a capable hunter. Faestari could sense that it was seeking insects it could pounce on and kill. She touched the venom sacs and was surprised by the potency of the creature. It was not large enough to bite through human skin, but the venom would cause agony if it was injected.

  “If only this spider was larger,” Faestari thought.

  As she finished that thought, visions flashed through her mind. She could see magical paths extending from her to the spider. Some of them would encourage the spider to grow larger. Others could make the exoskeleton harder or the venom even more potent. She could even attract other similar spiders and breed them.

  “How?” she asked the air.

  She quickly looked back at the spider. “So you want to be my first monster? You’ll guard treasures and threaten adventurers? Then come with me. We’ll find you a home and figure out a way to bring in prey to make you strong.”

  Faestari walked out of the heart and headed into the winding mix of chambers she had grown since meeting the other dungeon. She moved through six chambers before stopping in a long chamber. It had been grown in a crooked pattern, turning left then right and left again before ending at a simple passageway. The chamber had been lined with limestone and massive stalagmites rose from the floor, leaving only a small narrow path that could be walked.

  “This will be a perfect hunting ground for you,” she told the spider. It had already grown enough to barely fit in her hand. “You will be able to ambush adventurers. But I know you are hungry. Explore the chamber while I seek food.”

  Faestari carefully reached up to one of the stalagmites. The spider quickly jumped to the stone pillar and dashed out of sight. Once it was gone Faestari closed her eyes and reached out with her senses.

  To her surprise she could reach several feet farther than she could when she had originally planned the layout of the chambers. She now could touch the surface of the mountain in several points. Even more fortuitous was that a family of tree rats were using a hollow in her domain as a nest. There was a pregnant female due to give birth that night. She immediately opened up a tube to the hollow and summoned the pregnant rat. She could feel its puzzlement at the opened tunnel, but it entered and ran down to the chamber.

  The tunnel opened up at the level of the floor. The female rat moved a few steps along the wall and then lay down to give birth. Faestari ignored this as she reached out to the spider. It appeared around the base of one of the stalagmites. By now it was nearly as large at the adult rat. The hungry spider spied the birthing mother and stealthily moved near. Venom began to drip from its fangs as it prepared to pounce.

  “Just the babies,” Faestari said. “I’ll work on bringing in more rats later. I’ll also find you some family. You get this chamber for now.”

  The spider ignored her statement. Faestari reached out with her senses to confirm that the pregnant rat was giving birth. She touched its memory making sure that it would forget the babies and return to the nest on the side of the mountain.

  She started to walk back to the dungeon heart when she noticed one of her stone rabbits following her. It gazed up at her as she approached. “I think we have our first monster. We need a treasure for this room, perhaps something can be made from the spider silk.”

  The rabbit said nothing as one of the just born baby rats squealed in terror. Faestari flinched at the high-pitched cry. “At least the spider is fed,” she whispered.

  Faestari carefully made her way out of the chamber. When she reached the short stone passage leading to the next chamber she looked back. “I guess I should see if more spiders will enter,” she whispered.

  The girl began making her way back towards the dungeon heart. However, this time as she entered each chamber she looked around. She would walk along a wall counting steps often shaking her head once she finished. “I have to increase the size of many of the rooms,” she told the stone rabbit at her feet. “Many of these won’t work if I use spiders as the monsters.”

  She walked to the dungeon heart. Once inside she felt with her spirit, but found that no spiders had made their way down either tunnel. “I guess I need to coax more to enter,” she said. “But I probably need to make sure there is food.”

  Faestari walked back to the first chamber she had set up. The circles she had drawn on the wall were still there. She looked at them and then sighed. “I can’t use these,” she said. “The rooms are too small and I did not plan for needing rooms to feed the monsters, or to protect their young. I’m going to have to change things.”

  The rabbit at her feet nudge her leg. She looked down at the rabbit and it clawed at the wall as if it was digging.

  “What?” she asked. The rabbit moved to another part of the wall and dug some more.

  “Oh, you are reminding me that I can expand the circles? You’re right. I could, but I need to move the gemstone down. I don’t want my domain spreading out over the mountainside. That’s going to mean I have to lower other rooms and that takes a lot of mana,” she said petulantly.

  Faestari looked surprised. “But I can take my time. The heart can move now, and I can form some of the larger rooms I had planned. The one to the northwest is near that vein of crystal. I can set that up to capture sunlight and bring it down. If I bring down some soil, I can have an indoor meadow. There’s even that stream I could divert to provide water.”

  Faestari nodded and then started walking deeper into her network of chambers. She moved through two, but before she reached the one where her spider roamed, she turned to a blank wall and spread her hands. “Remind me to close this up later,” she said to the stone rabbit.

  The rabbit remained silent, watching as Faestari opened up a new passage. This one was muc
h narrower than her usual ones and she carefully slipped through the crack as the mountain rumbled.

  The ground at her feet was stable, but the stones of the wall and ceiling of the passage shook as she continued to move forward. Faestari ignored the few falling stones as the walls ahead of her moved away, allowing her to walk into a chamber that was six or seven times the size of the dungeon heart.

  The ceiling in this room was high. At first the floor was bare granite, but Faestari stood in the middle as a pair of holes opened in the ceiling. Dirt poured in and spread out, finally filling the bottom part of the chamber. A hole also opened in the north wall, and water began to pour out of it. The water landed in a sunken section of floor, creating a pool before tumbling across the room and leaving through a crack in the wall at the southwest corner of the chamber. Faestari looked at the chamber and smiled. “It will be perfect. For now, I’ll grow grass and grains, so that rats and other creatures can feed. The rats will feed my monsters.”

  The rabbit nudged her and she looked down. “Rabbits?” she asked. “We can’t really have any. They wouldn’t be safe, unless I wanted to make a room that was always safe. Can a dungeon do that?”

  The holes in the ceiling closed back up. The only sign that they had ever opened was the clear crystals that capped the former openings. Both glowed with a warm light as they bathed the room in reflected rays of sunlight.

  Faestari wanted to do more, but she felt tired. She could sense that the work on this room and with the spider had drained most of her mana. However, she also could feel the spider. As it fed on its second infant rat it provided mana back to her. She smiled.

  “The other dungeon didn’t lie. The monsters help me even as I help them,” she said.

  Encouraged by the new discovery, Faestari headed back to the dungeon heart. She needed to rest and to think on what additional changes she would need to make to provide more growth to her dungeon.