Dungeon Lord (The Wraith's Haunt Book 1)

by Hugo Huesca

  Ed looked at his three minions and scratched his head.

  “One day, I hope we can build dungeons that fit all those descriptions,” he told them, and he meant it. He liked the idea of treasure and fortresses, and the chance to have a magical laboratory made his eyes wide with desire. “But for today, I think Klek’s got the best idea. We cannot grow in power if we’re dead, and last night we almost got murdered by spiderlings. I say we make sure our foundations are solid before trying anything too flashy.”

  “Said by the man who, an hour ago, used a drone in the middle of a fight to block an exploding arrow,” Alder muttered.

  Lavy sighed and said, “Women don’t like men who play it safe. But suit yourself. I’ll live a happy life if I never have to see a horned spider again.”

  “I agree with the angry lady,” Klek said.

  “That’s settled, then. Let’s start by talking about experience points,” Ed said. He turned on his Evil Eye and carefully read the slew of notices that he had accumulated since the fight with the spider cluster.

  You have gained 35 experience (0x hundreds of spiderlings, 25x spider warrior, 10x surviving the encounter with the spider Queen). Your unused experience is 41 and your total experience is 207.

  Your attributes have increased. Spirit +1. Endurance and Brawn +1, conditional on two good nights’ rest.

  Your skills have increased. Athletics +2. You learned Untrained Combat +2, Dungeon Engineering +1.

  There are new talent advancement options for you:

  Resist poison (25 experience) - Allows its owner to resist poison. Higher levels include a resistance to venom.

  -Basic status allows the owner to resist non-magical poison as if they had Endurance of 15 and were in optimal conditions (clean, well-fed, rested)

  Energy Drain: Constant. Very low.

  Resist environment (20 experience) - Allows its owner to perform and survive in threatening environments for prolonged periods of time.

  -Basic status allows the owner to survive in extreme environments such as a tundra or a desert, even if they lack proper protections.

  -The owner will last 1 extra day in a moderate environment, 1 extra hour in a dangerous environment, 1 extra minute in a lethal environment such as freezing waters.

  Energy Drain: Constant. Very low.

  Spellcasting (40 experience) - Represents the owner’s magical ability.

  -Basic status allows the caster to use and learn all basic related spells of their domain. Extra ranks improve each individual spell’s characteristics, such as range or damage.

  -Allowed spells: 1 basic per day + 1 basic spell due to Dungeon Lordship.

  Energy Drain: Active. Varies per Spell.

  Perception (20 experience) - Allows the owner to experience an improvement to their attention to detail and memory. They can see things that would normally pass undetected.

  -Basic status lets them see as if they had a Mind of 15 and a Spirit of 13 and they were focused, clear of mind, and well rested and fed.

  Energy Drain: Active. Moderate.

  Alert (30 experience) - Allows the owner to perceive incoming danger with an almost supernatural sense.

  If there are any signs or clue in the environment that the owner could’ve seen by paying careful attention, he will notice even if he’s distracted.

  Energy Drain: Constant. Very Low.

  “Interesting,” said Ed after he was done reading, “how I’m worth twice as much experience after two days in Ivalis, but it took me more than two decades to earn the first hundred experience points.”

  “Did you ever kill a spider your own size, back on Earth?” asked Lavy.

  “No.”

  “Well, there’s your answer.”

  It wasn’t just the experience. Even the skill increases were hard to understand—not that he was complaining. Increasing his athletic capacity was a matter of exercise applied constantly during a long time—it shouldn’t be enough to run for his life a couple times to increase his athletics skill, much less his endurance attribute.

  When he voiced his doubts, Lavy explained:

  “Skills aren’t always the direct representation of your capabilities. Specially during the Basic stage, they can also represent your knowledge. In any case, they are important in unlocking talent options and spells, and to be allowed to use certain magic items. Your attributes, on the other hand…those are a direct representation of your capabilities. You’re raising them fast because they were undeveloped already, and you’re smoothing over deficiencies from your life in your world. Anyway, if you desire to become a spellcaster, you should focus on Mind, Spirit, or Charm. Let your brutes and your mercenaries get their hands dirty.”

  “That’s a fantastic way to get killed by a stray arrow,” Alder pointed out.

  “Powerful mages have little to fear with pointy bits of wood,” said Lavy.

  “I can name a hundred mages, including Dungeon Lords, who died by way of pointy bits of wood.”

  Ed gestured at his companions to stop bickering and focused his Evil Eye on his list of new talents. Alert seemed quite attractive in keeping him alive, and it was a constant talent, not activated—which would defeat the whole purpose of it. But he had just enough experience points to buy spellcasting…

  He would have to be extra cautious until he gained enough experience for alert. At the rate he was earning his points, though, that probably meant waiting an hour or two.

  His free points vanished, and he was the happy owner of new, mighty arcane powers.

  A new sensation overpowered his tired senses almost instantly.

  Ed felt his body tingle as something akin to static electricity surged through it, delved deep inside his skin and muscles, caressed his bones, then went even deeper, and Ed’s consciousness followed along for the ride.

  He wasn’t standing inside the cavern next to the two bickering humans, he was floating in a warm, vast eternity, with atoms as big as a star occasionally shining in the distance.

  He was a gazelle in a sea of yellow grass, grazing peacefully while the Sun warmed his fur.

  He was the lion jumping over the gazelle and tearing its throat out.

  He was an alien scholar spending nights unending with his many eyes focused on the pages of his books, trying to learn the secrets of the universe.

  He was the eldritch abomination hiding in the folds of reality next to the scholar’s seat, waiting for the fool to whisper the incantation that would unleash him upon the unsuspecting world.

  The visions gained speed and rushed so fast in front of Ed’s mind that he was barely aware of them as they passed him by. He saw pyramids, robed figures, chants and star-maps, unknown plants, and warring tribes.

  They all made sense. They were all connected by a simple fact. They could all be explained by numbers. Numbers would never lie to him. Atoms weren’t the building block of reality, numbers were. To understand them was to gain the power of a god, and it was all within Ed’s reach. He extended his hand to the Objectivity, to the blinding light of knowledge—and just like that, he was back in his body, which was lying in the ground of the cavern, shaking softly, with the faces of Alder, Lavy, and Klek looming above him.

  His mind was so confused that he mistook them for alien beings before he recalled that that was how humans were supposed to look like. He whimpered softly.

  “So,” said Lavy, “you just went ahead and bought spellcasting, didn’t you?”

  Ed nodded weakly, still shaking.

  “We would have warned you, but it’s common knowledge that Objectivity can be an…interesting experience. You saw the numbers?”

  He nodded again.

  “The first rank is only just a taste,” Lavy went on with a smug look, but not without sympathy. “You get to see more with each new rank. It’s said it can be an addictive experience, but also an enlightening one. Archmages are quite the eccentric fellows.”

  Ed mustered the strength to stand up, and Alder helped him along.

&
nbsp; “When I bought mine,” the Bard said, “I saw the millions of ways you could make music by mixing two chords. Bards think what you see is an experience deeply related to your own soul. If you don’t mind me asking, Edward, what did you see?”

  “Agh…” Ed said. He coughed to clear his throat and tried again. “I was a lion eating a gazelle. I was also the gazelle.”

  “Uh,” said Alder, after a pause where everyone just stared at each other. “Ominous.”

  18

  Chapter Eighteen

  Advanced Dungeon Building

  After Ed had recovered from the purchase of his new talent, he paid attention to the new screens that his Evil Eye pointed to him.

  You have learned the basic rank of Spellcasting, skipping the normal requirements thanks to your Dungeon Lord Mantle. Your affinities are: Enchantment and Control. The Healing affinity is forbidden to you, due to your association with the Dark.

  Your Mantle allows you to learn two spells. You will know them automatically. You can choose from:

  Arcane Bolt - Rend. The caster unleashes a bolt of kinetic energy, strong enough to incapacitate or kill at higher Spellcasting ranks.

  Ghostly Visage - Illusion. The caster creates a ghostly image that only a single target can see. The image is simple, and no bigger than a normal human being. It will disappear if the target’s Spirit or Mind is strong enough to resist it, or if otherwise interacted with.

  Duration: 10 seconds per Spellcraft rank.

  Eldritch Edge - Enchantment. The caster adds a magical flame to the edge of a weapon. This flame makes the weapon magical for the duration, allowing it to bypass weak magical defenses and mundane ones.

  Duration: 1 minute per Spellcraft rank.

  Minor Order - Command. The caster forces a target creature to follow a simple order, as long as said order is not immediately against the creature’s moral code or presents a threat to its life.

  The creature can resist the spell with the Spirit attribute opposing the caster’s own Spirit.

  Duration: 5 seconds.

  “I like having magic already,” he muttered. After the shock of his vision had passed, he had decided he had quite enjoyed it. Numbers did make sense, he had always thought so. It was part of the reason he had gone into Computer Science during college, and why dealing with people like Ryan had been so hard on him.

  It was also the reason why he enjoyed choosing spells and talents so much.

  “I like arcane bolt,” Lavy suggested, when he explained his choices to his companions. “A magic user shouldn’t have to enter close-quarters combat. Besides that one, I’d take minor order.”

  “You can do a lot of fun things with ghostly visage,” said Alder. “But it’s very limited—only a single target can see it. Bards like to use it to impress people at taverns, though you could also make a black screen appear in front of someone’s eyes during combat. I would choose that one, and minor order. Both should let you move enemies around, keep them away from you.”

  “I like minor order as well. But ghostly visage is more up your alley, Alder,” said Ed. “I won’t take arcane bolt, though. The description says it’s non-lethal until I gain more spellcasting ranks, and besides, I only have two spells per day. That limits me to two targets at most. I prefer eldritch edge. It lasts an entire minute instead of a single attack, so I can do more with it.”

  “It will also force you to get into close combat,” said Lavy. “Be careful. Heiliges specializes in martial prowess, and a mercenary like Kessih would make mincemeat out of any of us in a second. More so because you don’t have any defensive spells.”

  Ed nodded, but he didn’t change his mind. A warrior could simply dodge the bolt and then close in for the kill, and he would be more defenseless than with the meager protection of a sword or knife.

  He chose minor order and eldritch edge for his spells, and he enjoyed the tingling sensation that followed, similar to the one before his vision, but without the hallucinations. Instead, he was suddenly aware of the appropriate ways to cast his new spells, their limitations, and their basic uses. The new knowledge simply appeared in the back of his brain, like it had always been there and he had merely forgotten about it for a while.

  Ed extended his hand, steaming with curiosity, aware that his body was charged with enough magic to cast the spell he wanted right there. He itched to use eldritch edge on his knife, see what he could do with it, but he had to resist the urge. With only two spells per day, he had to avoid being wasteful.

  Instead, he summoned all the drones he could muster. They appeared at the same time with dry puffs of mist, eight of them, counting the ones he already had created before.

  “Let’s get this started. First of all, we need to dig deeper,” he said. “Right now, anyone can walk right in and kill us. So we’re going to move the Seat farther in, and we’re going to hide the dungeon’s entrance.”

  He gave the drones the mental commands and sent most of them to dig a tunnel deeper into the rock. The ley lines that he could see with his Evil Eye gave him a natural idea of where to dig and where not to, almost like studying a topographical map with all the relevant information, so he selected a place that wouldn’t cause the cave to collapse on his head.

  “You two,” he told the remaining drones, “go outside and gather resources. We need wood, and lots of it. Don’t take down a tree close to the cave or that’ll signal to everyone that we are here. Gather branches or something, you’re the experts.”

  He left the remaining one to be his personal advisor, in the same way he had used the drones to guide him to his dungeon or to teach him how to create it in the first place.

  “Lavy, you mentioned a while back that we could transmute one type of resource into another,” he said while the drones set about their tasks. “What about rock?”

  “Nice try, but it has no value,” said Lavy. “Find marble, and you could use it. Wood may work, but you won’t like the exchange rate.”

  Ed nodded. His drones came with a natural understanding of minerals. They could tell the difference between rock and carbon, for example, just as he could tell what places he could dig and where he couldn’t. So, he would order them to mine when they weren’t working, try to find useful minerals, mainly iron.

  In the meantime, he thought of traps.

  Focusing on the ley lines while thinking of rooms and traps allowed him to see faint designs like a drawing from a not-very-talented medieval monk. Pits with spikes at the bottom, collapsible ceilings, even pressure plates. And the rooms were simple ones, too: living spaces, a training room, a small holding cell, and spaces to store and prepare food. Some of those rooms included equipment, and they came with a natural understanding of what resources he needed to create them.

  I couldn’t see them before, Ed recalled as he studied the designs. Is this the dungeon engineering skill at work? I wonder if I can extend it by using my own ideas for designs.

  Maybe he should have been an architect, or an engineer.

  He went to the collapsed tunnel where he had crushed the spiderlings the night before.

  “Reinforce this, turn it into a wall,” he told his drone advisor. “In fact, we’ll reinforce all the rock, first order of business. I don’t want any more surprises crawling out of the walls.”

  The other drones worked fast, but digging a tunnel with the dimension he had in mind took a while, and he and his companions started to get hungry.

  “The cloud will hunt for you,” Klek assured him. “But…ask them to get you something fresh.”

  Since Alder or Lavy didn’t have a better idea, Ed followed Klek’s advice and set Drusb and the remaining batblins to hunt for rabbits or gather berries. They had some survival ranks, so he was fairly sure they wouldn’t pick anything too dangerous.

  While he was out of the cave, Kes returned.

  The mercenary was covered in sweat and was carrying a backpack made of pelts with her. She passed by Ed without acknowledging him and went straight to Alvedhra
, parting the group of batblins that was protecting the fallen Ranger.

  Kes examined the other woman, grunted approvingly, and muttered about the venom already losing its strength. “They were newborns. Barely enough venom between the lot of them to kill a batblin. Had they been just a few weeks older…”

  Ed glanced at the bite he had on his left hand. It merely itched uncomfortably now, and his fingers were a bit numb, which could’ve been either the cold or the venom’s leftovers. His back ached painfully, but that had nothing to do with his bites there.

  “What will you do?” he asked Kes while she took out a clay pot from the backpack.

  The mercenary put two fingers inside the pot, and they came out covered in a greenish concoction made of grounded leaves and other things Ed couldn’t place. Perhaps insect hides? Kes spread the paste on Alvedhra’s face, starting at her throat, focusing on the spots marred by the tiny spider bites.

  “This will deal with the bloating and clear her airways” she said. “The herbalist told me this many bites may have triggered an allergic reaction in Alvedhra. She could have died, but she is a Ranger. She has a good deal of toughness and resistance-related talents, along with minor regeneration. So, it’s only a matter of getting her back into Burrova without Gallio or Ioan suspecting that a Dungeon Lord helped her.”

  “Doesn’t sound like an easy task.”

  Kes finished her spread and took out another clay pot, this one covered by a lid of the same material. She took away the top, revealing a dirty-looking tea, still steaming, which she slowly, drop by drop, made Alvedhra drink. The Ranger stirred from her dreams and scowled.

  “It tastes like a sweaty rag,” Kes told her, “but it will make you better. Go on, drink.”

  Ed felt awkward all of a sudden, but when he turned to leave, Kes gestured at him to come closer.

  “Help me carry her to the side of the road,” she told him. “The herbalist is going to send her apprentice to ‘find her’ collapsed there, so they can take care of her without making Gallio suspect a Dungeon Lord was involved.”