by Hugo Huesca
1 Batblin camp - hidden.
1 Training Facility
1 Spider den - hidden.
RESEARCH INSTALLATIONS:
0
SACRED GROUNDS:
The Seat.
PRODUCTION:
0
DEFENSE:
Small dust trap.
Low-quality defensive spears.
Batblin sentries.
Spider sentries.
Avian Mercenary.
DUNGEON UPGRADES
None.
It looks much better than the last time I checked, Ed thought. Of course, “much better” just wasn’t enough.
He summoned a bunch of drones and ordered them to dig a chamber at a lower elevation than any other room, under the central spot of the dungeon. The rest of the empty spaces he’d need he had already pre-built the day before.
While the drones worked, he focused on dungeon upgrades. Dungeon upgrades worked exactly like talents did, but upgrades were bought with gold instead of experience points.
Since he had no gold, he could buy no upgrades, but he noted three of them that he’d need to get at some point.
Drone Permanency (50 vyfaras) - The Dungeon Lord can root a certain amount of drones to the ley lines converging under the Dungeon Seat. Instead of having to replace these drones manually, they will automatically respawn inside the seat chamber when destroyed and will return, to the best of their abilities, to the task they had been assigned before their unsummoning.
Divination Scrambler Tower (100 vyfaras) - The Dungeon Lord gains the ability to build towers outside the dungeon. The Scrambler Tower emits a divination-disrupting field around a large area, greatly hindering all divination attempts lower than Heroic ranking.
Netherworld Portal (100 vyfaras) - The Dungeon Lord gains the ability to build portals directly connected to the Netherworld, a Dark dimension filled with inhabitants willing to rent their services to the Dungeon Lord.
Of the three, the Scrambler was the most urgent, because Ed’s main line of defense for the dungeon was that Nicolai didn’t know where it was located. Lavy had assured him that dungeons had a natural resistance to low-level divinations, but high-ranked spells could override that resistance. Advanced-ranked spellcasters were expensive to hire, and not exactly common in Undercity, but Nicolai had resources and was determined.
The drone permanency was simply too useful to ignore. A permanent, re-spawning workforce that could handle tasks day and night without rest? Yes. Ed could use them to reset traps, maintain food, scout for plants, tend to farms, and even expand his dungeon.
The last one, the Netherworld portal, was a great risk. Just because its inhabitants were willing to work for Dungeon Lords didn’t mean they’d be willing to work with Ed, or that he’d be willing to work with them.
But he needed expert tutoring. Lavy was a starting Witch, so she lacked books, knowledge, and tools for her research. Alder needed teachers to help him come up with new bardic utterances, and Ed himself needed teaching about magical items and, more importantly, the kind of Dungeon Lord-exclusive talents that he could buy when he had the appropriate skill ranks. It’d be irresponsible not to at least check if the Netherworld natives were useful.
Two hundred fifty vyfaras was a lot of money. Alder had told him that a single vyfara bought about twenty-five loaves of bread. A man could sustain himself on a loaf of bread a day, as long as he also had some occasional vegetables and meat. That made for eighteen vyfaras a year, at minimum, to feed a man. So the three upgrades cost as much as sustaining more than a dozen peasants for an entire year.
No wonder Dungeon Lords act like they’re royalty; they have to be to sustain this kind of expenditure.
Thinking about food reminded Ed of his projects. He headed for one of his pre-built rooms, a rectangular chamber about as big as the main hall.
Using his Evil Eye, Ed visualized one of the dungeon designs, which appeared in front of him drawn in bright, arcane lines. According to the description, the Feeding House would let him take a bit of the pressure off of his scavenging parties, but to what amount he wasn’t quite sure.
A line of drones brought him the necessary materials from storage. They piled them in the center of the chamber and formed a circle around them. Planks of wood, hills of dirt as tall as Ed, small amounts of straw, and a couple disgusting piles of batblin guano.
Okay, let’s do this, Ed thought. He willed the room into existence by focusing on the Seat’s ley lines and drawing power from them.
The magic of his Mantle activated, and he felt his heart jump inside his chest as a current like static electricity filled his veins and muscles. His fingertips itched and his Evil Eye surged in intensity for a brief instant.
At the same time, the drones began dancing around the materials in a fevered craze, a series of jumps and cartwheels without any evident purpose. They smashed against each other, stomped on the ground, returned to their original spots, then started over.
The materials levitated straight up, like gravity had ceased to work. Dirt and guano smashed against the roof and began circling and expanding toward the edges, which prompted Ed to leave the room, since he was allergic to the possibility of raining manure.
From the tunnel, Ed saw the materials melt and form a dense brown cloud that covered the ceiling. The itchiness in his fingertips grew in intensity, and gained heat not unlike placing his hands over a candle.
Tendrils of brown mist extended from the cloud and rained over the chamber like a thousand monstrous worms. The mist spilled in those spots they hit and gained substance, first liquid and then solidifying.
The chamber’s floor was flooded by the liquid mist, which gave way to an ever-growing layer of wet dirt, so dark it was almost black. The scent of batblin guano was replaced by the smell of farms in the countryside, deep and penetrating, not entirely pleasing to Ed’s city-grown nose, but not disgusting, either.
In the center, a thick tendril of mist transformed into a yellowish pile taller than Ed. Half the drones jumped to it and began giving it form with their hands, spitting here and there to better polish the material. Slowly, a wooden house gained form. It lacked windows and had a wide, singular aperture with no door.
Chicken den, was Ed’s first thought. But from where would the chickens come? Besides, this den was bigger than the usual version he had seen in movies and documentaries. An extended human family could live comfortably inside the enclosure.
Another two chicken dens materialized to each side of the first one with help from Ed’s drones. The cloud of mist diminished until it was barely there, and then what little remained rained over the dirt with thick, dark raindrops that smelled of cow manure.
The drones looked at each other with wicked grins of pleasure, satisfied by a job well done. A pair of them high-fived by a corner. Three of them ran toward the dens and jumped inside.
Seconds later, the three of them stood in front of Ed, carrying in their hands spotted eggs as big as a basketball. They presented the eggs to Ed and, using gestures, pleaded for permission to eat them.
“No!” said Ed instantly, which earned him reproachful looks and two raised middle fingers. He didn’t care because he was too busy freaking out. “Did the Mantle just create fucking life?”
If he could create life from nothing, that was it. Good game, well played, but he had won it already. He’d defeat Kharon in a couple days, easy, no sweat involved.
The possibilities extended in his mind in glorious flashes: magical bio-engineered viruses that only killed mindbroods, microbes that ate rock and secreted gold, monsters that would make gods weep in fear, living mountains that served as dungeons, dragons… dragons with lasers attached—
The middle drone offered Ed a sealed parchment letter with a scarlet stamp. Ed took it as his daydreams dissipated. The stamp was engraved with an open eye halfway devoured by a disembodied mouth—Murmur’s symbol. Underneath the eye rose a pyramid with two curved horns growing from its sides.
Under the pyramid, the words “St. C & T” were stamped in official-looking typeset.
Ed brought the parchment into the light of a nearby torch.
I wonder if people can engrave runes in parchment, he thought. He decided to take the risk; the letter seemed to be a part of the dungeon room design.
He opened it. He didn’t die. Carefully, he took the parchment out—it was a yellowish piece that exuded dignity and elegance—and read it:
Dungeon Lord’s Stupendous First Hell Chicken Farm Kit
A St. Claire & Tillman Financial Services quality product.
In proud collaboration with the Archlord Alaric Everbleed Trust for the Pauperized Dungeon Lord and with the unholy blessing of his Dark Majesty Murmur.
Made in the Netherworld. We support local nefariousness.
To His or Her Ominousness, Lord or Lady Edward Wright of The Haunt.
We are pleased to present you, free of charge, with one Dungeon Lord’s Stupendous First Hell Chicken Farm Kit. It contains all the necessary equipment to start and maintain a hell chicken population capable of feeding up to thirty humanoids.
Included in this kit are:
+Starting package of fertilized hell chicken eggs.
+Starting Imp Felonworth’s seeds to feed the chickens.
+Potion treatment (heroic rank) for both seeds and eggs, to maximize growth and encourage reproduction.
+Security runes (heroic rank) inside the dens.
Our hell chicken’s eggs are treated by our best Warlocks to nullify the hell chicken’s natural blood-thirst.
All drones are capable of performing the required regular maintenance of the farm. Detailed instructions can be found in the back of this pamphlet.
For best results, chain a minimum of 3 drones to your farm using the Drone Permanency upgrade.
Important. Ignore at your own peril:
+Third-party tampering of the security runes will void the guaranty.
+Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are the hell chickens to ingest meat of any kind.
+Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are the hell chickens to come into contact with water past midnight.
If you wish to abandon your dungeon, make sure to stop regular farm maintenance AFTER you have vacated the premises, NOT BEFORE.
We at St. Claire and Tillman do not make ourselves responsible for the immediate and absolute consequences of ignoring these warnings. We fucking told you.
We wish you success in your cruel endeavors. May your nights be warm and pleasing to the Dark,
St. Claire & Tillman Financial Services.
Other products in the Dungeon Lord’s Starting Kits line:
+Dungeon Lord’s Murdertastic First Torture Chamber Instruments Kit
+Dungeon Lord’s Impious First Sacrificial Altar
+Dungeon Lord’s Fabulous Creature Modification and Forced Evolution Lab
To receive the best deals and news on our upcoming products, please subscribe to our mailing list—
“SO I CAN’T CREATE life at will,” said Ed. He put the parchment down and instructed the drones to follow the instructions to the letter.
Probably for the best. I only toyed with the idea for a minute, already going mad with power.
On the other hand, the mystery of the letter was enough to overshadow the disappointment. St. Claire and Tillman, of the Netherworld. Even though he knew it was dangerous, Ed’s desire to take a look into that place intensified.
“We can feed thirty people with this farm,” he said aloud as he studied the eggs that the three drones had carefully placed in the soil in front of Ed. That was, once the hell chicken population was up and running. Who knew how long that’d take?
And he’d need at least other two farms the size of this one to adequately support his current population, plus other real farms. The problem was, winter was almost upon them, and the sunlight grew weaker and weaker with each passing day.
He wondered if there was a type of enchantment he could use to grow potatoes underground. He had a passing understanding of hydroponics, and bet that he could try his hand at them if he figured out magic assistance.
“We’ll need to breed the hell chickens for a time,” Ed told the drones. “I guess St. Claire and Tillman aren’t giving us any more free packages, are they? Very well, then we won’t eat our chickens unless it’s unavoidable.”
He set the rest of his original team to create two additional, similar chambers next to the first, and gave mental orders to the rest of his drones to gather the materials to build the dens and the soil.
Movement at the corner of his vision drew his attention. It came from the eggs. The light of the magical torches nearby shone upon one of them, revealing a swimming figure inside, with a shape that Ed couldn’t define at first, but easily bigger than a chihuahua—or a normal chicken.
It turned out that when St. Claire and Tillman said “accelerated growth,” they meant it. Seconds after the egg started moving, its surface cracked.
A couple drones entered the room and brought Ed a pair of wooden spears, answering the mental command he hadn’t even realized he made. He grabbed one spear and left the other at arm’s reach.
The cracks grew larger, and tiny pieces of egg fell down to the soil. A tiny claw burst out, followed by a creased, pink finger. Ed grasped his spear firmly and considered calling for Kes.
How stupid are my friends going to think I am if I ask for their help against poultry? he thought. And an instant later, How stupid will they think I was if the baby chicken kills me?
Before he could will a drone to fetch the mercenary for him, the egg split open and tipped over. Thick, transparent fluid splashed into the soil, spewing a tiny cloud of smoke as it did so. A shape emerged from the egg, clawed its way across the soil, and wandered briefly around the vapor cloud. The silhouette had a vague chicken-like complexion, but its proportions were all wrong. The neck was too large, the legs too big. And it had arms with claws that pawed at nothing.
Ed aimed his spear at the shape as the smoke dissipated. The hell chicken studied him with eyes round as dishes and the color of blood. It had no feathers, because it was a newborn, only pink skin with black veins slithering under the muscle. Its beak was curved like that of a bird of prey, and it was serrated.
“Ain’t you the cutest,” Ed whispered. Lavy was going to hate them.
The hell chicken moved its head around like a confused dog. “Bawk?” it asked Ed. As it did so, its beak opened for a fraction of a second to reveal a mouth filled with rows upon rows of needle-sized fangs and a black, worm-like tongue covered in yellowish saliva.
Like all rational persons in the presence of teeth like those, Ed took a step back. The hell chicken studied him again with those shining red eyes, then lost interest and smashed its beak into the ground.
As the monster scurried around the farm, Ed realized he had been holding his breath.
“A pleasure doing business with you, St. Claire and Tillman,” he said as he took a last glance at the parchment. Then he examined the tunnels, which were all that stood between the Netherworld poultry and the Haunt’s inhabitants.
The other two eggs outside the den shook once more. Distant bawks came from inside the dens. Dozens of them.
“Reinforced doors, at the very least,” Ed said aloud. “And a metal fence. Hell, let’s see if I can get the Mantle to make barbed wire.”
He gave the instructions to his drones. It was going to be a long day.
Your Dungeon Engineering has increased by 2 ranks.
10
CHAPTER TEN
DUNGEON IMPROVEMENT
“Here, taste this,” Ed told Heorghe.
The blacksmith examined the clay cup with evident mistrust, holding it, but without drinking.
“Ah, of course,” Ed grabbed the cup and took a long sip. “See? Not dead.”
The blacksmith drank, winced, and put the cup down a little too violently. “This is the most disgusting, cheap, morally atrocious ale brew I’ve ever tasted, and
let me tell you—I once partied with a kaftar cackle back when I was younger. Wetlands, Edward, where did you get this dung-juice?”
“Courtesy of St. Claire and Tillman,” Ed said with a shrug. “Part of their quality product, Dungeon Lord’s Decadentaculous First Home Brewery Kit. It came with the malt, barley, and so on, already prepackaged. I only had to have the drones add the mix into the machinery.”
“It honestly tastes like a batblin pissed in it,” said Heorghe. “You planning to torture prisoners by making them drink this?”
“Just a side project while the hell chickens grow,” said Ed off-handedly. “That’s not why I wanted to see you.”
“Did you just say hell chickens—”
Ed pointed at the new, recently created tunnel behind the Seat chamber. Its rough rock stairs disappeared under the floor. A couple drones labored on installing a reinforced gate made of cheap iron bars around it, to keep people from stumbling in.
“If you have time, I’d like to hear your professional opinion on something. Follow me downstairs.”
Heorghe twisted his lips at the thought of going inside the tunnel, like he feared that a horde of hell chickens awaited him at the end.
Which was ridiculous, since all the hell chickens were safely tucked away in their own section of the Haunt, now separate from everything else by a series of reinforced gates, barbed wire fences, and barbed wire fields, all constantly patrolled by dedicated spider warriors.