Dungeon Spawned: Dark Dungeon 01 Read online

  “Is there anything you need, for your home? Or something else?”

  Ebony giggled and twirled her hair with a finger, “No, I’m good. Thank you.”

  Lila snorted in disgust, “She’s way too sweet for an imp, no wonder she was thrilled to get out of hell, they probably tortured her all the time.”

  “Be nice,” I said internally.

  Lila was astonished I’d suggest such a thing, but she didn’t reply.

  That’s when I felt a group of people come in range of my dungeon. There were three men with swords, a fourth with a nasty looking mace, and two in robes. Ebony raced back to the core room and to her room, not wanting to be caught out there with adventurers, although I wasn’t sure why. I felt a surge of excitement, this should be fun.

  The soldiers were all joking, and came in with an arrogant nonchalant attitude. The mages trailed behind a good ten feet as they descended the stairs and entered the first room.

  “What is this? Those are adventurers?”

  I was very much unimpressed, when the soldier in front fell into the crude pit trap, and impaled himself on several spikes. That didn’t stop me from feeling the rush of his life energy as it came to me, and it was better than the thief’s life had been, but not that much better. I was building my band layers as quickly as possible, but there was a lot left over which I used in a burst to finish up the fourth floor and a good piece of the fifth, using up the magic as fast as I could convert it instead of trying to store it. They still needed a lot of work, but the basic layout was coming along.

  Ebony shook her head, “No, those are soldiers, probably from the city. Make sure you leave one of them alive to report back, that should bring the adventurers.”

  The other soldiers were grim faced, and one of the mages said, “Be careful, let’s find that skeleton if we can.”

  The soldiers grunted and finally looked serious and cautious, which was somewhat of a relief to be honest. I needed one of them to live after all.

  As they moved into the second large room, the skeletons in the hidden niches in the first room came out and moved toward the backs of the mages, at the same time more skeletons were moving toward the three soldiers in room two.

  The mage spun around and raised a hand, a bolt of white light formed in his hand and shot out at my skeleton which fell to the floor. That would be an issue, undead were vulnerable to light magic, and slightly less to fire. They took normal damage from about anything else.

  I wasn’t sure where to watch, the other mage cast fire over the heads of soldiers and into a skeleton which started to burn, yet still stayed upright and closed the distance. By then, the light mage had taken out the second skeleton in the first room and turned to assist the others.

  The soldier with the mace was a menace, and he killed the flaming skeleton with one hit, and the still flaming bones went flying around the room. The other two soldiers swung at the two unharmed skeletons. Their swords cut through bone, but got stuck and embedded in the rib cage.

  They screamed as my skeletons slashed at their faces and necks, with sharp bone fingers.

  Another skeleton went down as white light struck, that light mage was starting to really annoy me, but even losing was kind of fun. That last skeleton though, struck again, this time his sharp bony fingers opened the soldier’s throat wide, and his life’s blood quickly flowed out.

  Another burst of life energy filled me, and I wondered if I’d grown enough to even start as a dungeon. Again, I chose to quickly expend the magic as I converted it, and finished digging out level five, and got the stairs done to level six in one large burst of magic.

  The soldier with the ugly evil looking mace shattered the last skeleton, and blew out a breath.

  “Fuck, that sucked,” said the soldier.

  I couldn’t agree more, I was going to leave one alive, not four. Still, they were only in room two, each level had eight rooms and the further in the more skeletons per room. Not to mention the long hallways. I checked the two corpses, but of course they didn’t have anything different. I couldn’t raise them though, not with people right there, and something in me doubted they’d leave the corpses behind.

  The fire mage said, “What do you think, a necromancer decided to make this its lair?”

  The soldier growled, “What else?”

  The light mage grunted, “Wait, I don’t think so. This is a dungeon.”

  The fire mage scoffed, “Right outside a ducal city? How is that possible, we would have noticed.”

  The light mage shrugged, “Not if it’s a baby dungeon. Look at the facts. The skeletons have loot, those coins appeared when they died. And look over there in the corner, is that nightshade plant? And over there I see healing herbs. Plus, can’t you feel that? The ambient mana is higher down here than it was upstairs.”

  The soldier asked, “Do we continue on?”

  The light mage shook his head, “I don’t think so. We already lost two in the first two rooms, let’s report back to the Duke, we have enough information. We should probably leave a guard upstairs just in case, but if it’s a dungeon so the undead shouldn’t wander out of it.”

  The fire mage sighed, “Very well, I agree now that I think about it, let’s go.”

  I sighed in disappointment when the soldiers took the bodies with them. No big deal, it didn’t take much magic to make them from scratch, not relatively anyway.

  “That went well, don’t you think?” I asked.

  Ebony replied, “Absolutely, it was a little hard for them, but adventurers should do better. I’ll finish up what I was doing now,” and the little imp zipped away on her wings.

  Even if no one else died, it would be less than a week before level six was ready and I could double the size of my dungeon. I decided to start working on the mobs now, and built a small unconnected room. The floor was perfectly smooth, and polished. I’d learned a lot of dark magic from Lila, but only one that would really help me populate those levels.

  Demon summoning and binding.

  I shaped the circles and the proscribed spell forms into the stone floor. I had no doubt that I could handle it, Lila was a very strong demoness, and I’d beaten her will with no effort. Whatever kind of creature of power I was, it was strong. A human would have major trouble just summoning and binding one demon to their purpose. But I could handle three floors worth of demons.

  Especially since I’d be summoning the weaker ones, except for maybe the last boss on level six.

  I double and then triple checked all the lines of the ritual before I got started. It took time and effort, but I filled the first seven rooms with various imps. Imps weren’t all that much stronger than skeletons or zombies, but they were far smarter. The combination of their magic, and various traps they could sucker the adventurers into, gave me a good feeling about it.

  At the suggestion of Lila, I summoned a minor succubus and incubus for the floor boss at level four, along with a couple of imps. There were also beds in the room, tables with food, and a water fountain with clean drinkable water.

  I didn’t really understand and was skeptical, but Lila assured me it would take a strong strength of will for a human to resist them. Since the demons were bound to me, they’d channel the life force to me instead of absorbing it themselves. They were still more than willing to do it, just for fun, and of course they could still absorb the loose but more concentrated magic of the dungeon in that area.

  For the fifth level I chose warrior demons. Not the real powerful kind, just the fodder of the demon hordes. They were a little stronger than zombies, much smarter, and much faster. Some even had rudimentary access to dark magic. For that floor boss, I chose a true demon warrior, and three imps.

  The sixth level wasn’t done being carved out, but I got the mobs done anyway. That way, when it was done all I’d need to do was move the mobs in, and then move my crystal and Ebony’s home down to the new final room while building a stairway between three and four. There was a lot to keep straight.
I’d also taken Ebony’s advice and made shortcut stairs to skip levels, only accessible from the lower level so people could leave quickly. Anyone trying to use it to skip levels down would find themselves buried in stone.

  The sixth level would be a deadly mix of the other two levels plus a demon mage. Groups of warriors, imps, a demonic dark mage, and a minor succubus just for a distraction, although they could fight well if cornered.

  The last boss of the sixth floor and the dungeon would be a similar grouping of beings, but one of the warriors would be pumped up with magic. It took me a long time to get it right, and I’d killed a lot of demons trying, but a trickle of earth magic, a lot of dark, and some fire seemed to do the trick. The demon was twelve feet high, had skin like stone, and was very strong. The fire magic allowed him to light his dark blade on fire, which was already enchanted to weaken an enemy and rot normal armor on impact.

  While the last half of floor six was building, I considered that there was a lot to control, and it took a lot of magic to maintain things. I decided to hold off on making the next few floors for a while, not sure if I could support it, and concentrated all that effort on building the layered bands of my crystal faster. Still, it was a painstaking process, and I couldn’t afford mistakes.

  Chapter Six

  Catalina spoke the last word of the spell, and a ball of solid air two feet in diameter, so thick it distorted what was seen through it, shot from her hands. The target was blasted into pieces, and the wall showed signs of a heavy impact.

  Daniel cleared his throat, “Princess Catalina, aren’t you supposed to be working on control?”

  She looked at him pensively, she was supposed to be working on control. She was a very powerful air mage, and the destructive stuff came much easier. She didn’t really have a problem with the small easy stuff either, it was the advanced complicated spells she had trouble with. Her magic would overpower the spells formation almost every time.

  To be fair, she was worried, and worse, she couldn’t even confide in the court mage. Two of the soldiers had died, but they’d identified the place as a new dungeon. That just wasn’t possible, her father had been clear it wasn’t one, but it was also a secret so they could hardly explain that to anyone. She’d heard mutterings when her father hadn’t immediately sent word to the guild about the new dungeon, since dungeons meant more money in the area, more taxes for the nobles, and an influx of people spending it, but he hadn’t known what else he could even do.

  She wasn’t sure either, it didn’t make sense, not based on what he’d told her. She’d offered to take a look herself and investigate with a few people she trusted, but her father had been horrified by the idea. She wasn’t sure how long her father could delay either. She’d considered just going anyway, but she couldn’t do it.

  She shut her eyes, and tried the spell again…

  “That makes no sense, he has to think about it?”

  Carlton didn’t know what to think about the duke’s behavior.

  “Sir?” Cary asked.

  Carlton sighed, “A dark dungeon could be a very good, or a very bad thing. We need to get the guild down here to determine if its stable or not. I can’t ask though without my own proof, and the Duke sitting on it makes no sense from a political or a monetary point of view.”

  Cary asked sounding even more confused, “Very good sir? A dark dungeon?”

  Carlton laughed, “Yes, that is somewhat confusing isn’t it? Seems the church of light should frown on a dark dungeon’s existence, doesn’t it? In truth, an unstable dark dungeon is a danger that has to be destroyed, but a stable dark dungeon is a boon for the church. A stable dungeon will consistently ramp up the danger level, so with a modicum of caution a group of paladins would know when to stop before they were overwhelmed and were killed.

  “Think of it this way, the only time paladins fight against dark magic is against dark magic casters and demons out in the real world, and they never know how hard it will be, or if there’s a trap around the corner ten times harder than anything they’ve faced before it. In a stable dark dungeon that isn’t the case, which means it’s a perfect training ground for young inexperienced paladins who want to become stronger with a minimum of risk. Do you understand now?”

  Cary nodded and said smartly, “Yes sir.”

  Carlton thought Cary was a good man, just a little too uptight at times.

  “Very well, gather up your partners and go check it out, verify the duke’s findings. If the duke doesn’t send a letter soon I’ll send my own to the guild. I can’t do that though unless we verify it ourselves.”

  What he didn’t say was that the duke had to be hiding something, he didn’t want to send a letter in case the report in the throne room was manufactured, or incomplete somehow. It just didn’t feel right that the duke was sitting on it. He shook his head, his thoughts were starting to go in circles.

  Cary said, “Right away sir, Selwyn and Diana have a kit ready.”

  “Very good,” he said, “You may go.”

  I could sense a building frustration in Lila, but I had no idea what the problem was. I’d asked her a couple of times, and she’d just snapped at me.

  “So, what are you up to this time, sexy?” I asked.

  I was a little bored, I was sure that would change when the adventurers showed up, but maintaining an empty dungeon was boring.

  Ebony gasped and blushed, even as she preened and posed for me.

  “Did you just call me sexy?”

  Damnit, how could I explain. It was a metaphorical slip of the tongue, because Lila kept calling the little imp woman that. Lila was also laughing at me right now. I supposed I could come clean with my dungeon imp, but I was hesitant to trust anyone outside the crystal prison with the information, even if I was her master right now, technically speaking anyway. She supposedly couldn’t betray me, but she was a demoness, even if pint sized.

  “Umm, yes? I certainly wasn’t talking to the undead knight.”

  Ebony grinned, “I see. Right, what am I doing? I don’t remember, you distracted me and... Wait! I was enchanting walls with my magic, to follow along with things. How else can I tell you how to improve, or suggest really since I’m your servant. Your sexy servant.”

  Oh gods, what have I done, was she flirting with me?

  Lila laughed throatily, “Yes, yes she is. You seem to be missing the required equipment however.”

  Well, at least Lila was in a better mood.

  Lila said, “I’m your sexy servant too, remember. Except, I’m going to go insane if… never mind, you wouldn’t understand.”

  “What?”

  Lila sighed, “Think about it, I’m a lust demon without a body or someone to fuck. It will drive me insane eventually.”

  I partitioned a part of my mind to consider this information, it was a part she couldn’t see, yet she could still see everything else. I did comprehend, a little, but I didn’t truly understand since I was a crystal without a sex drive. Still, there had to be something I could do. I just didn’t want her to know I was concerned about her. It seems dark beings were evil, or at least the demons were, which I’d decided I was most definitely not one of, and hadn’t ever been. Did that mean there were other dark beings who weren’t intrinsically evil? What the hell was I? Ugh, this wasn’t about me right now. I set this portion of my mind to figure out something that would help, and then got back to the real world.

  “So Ebony, how come you ran when those soldiers came?”

  Ebony frowned, and I wondered if it was because of the question, or because I didn’t call her sexy.

  “I’m a dark dungeon imp, in a real way I’m here to serve you, and from that I get power. If an adventurer ever caught me, they could bind me and force me to betray you, or give up all the knowledge about dungeons that I have. They aren’t supposed to know that dungeons are sentient, they believe a dungeon crystal runs on instinct only. Plus, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “Thanks, sexy.”


  Ebony beamed at me.

  Yup, that meant she was unhappy I used her name before, not the question. I guessed that I’d better use the pet name from now on.

  My partitioned mind which was still working on the Lila problem seemed focused on the mind trap spell, a dark spell where the victim was stuck inside an illusionary world in their head to live out their worst nightmares. I wasn’t sure why that torturous spell would help, but then I started to break it down into its component pieces and reassemble the spell to be something completely different, although similar at the heart of it.

  I tweaked it so that it was possible for the victim to leave the spell, I also changed it around so that the spell sucked the victim into an illusionary world to live out their deepest desires and fantasies. It seemed obvious to me now, if she didn’t have a real body, I’d have to trick her into feeding that lustful part of her nature. Not really trick her since she’d know it was happening, but provide an alternate way.

  I really didn’t want to share my prison with an insane sex demon. It wouldn’t be real, but the spell would make it feel real, and convince her it was real. I hoped that would be enough.

  Before I could reconnect my partitioned mind and tell Lila about the spell, we got three party crashers at the top of the dungeon. I decided to put it off for now, I wanted to watch this, and if necessary direct my undead since they may have been tough, but were also stupidly straight forward.

  Diana said, “Hold on a minute, let me check for traps.”

  Cory said, “It’s just an empty room hon.”

  Diana snorted in disbelief and started to cast.

  Selwyn said, “Cory, empty room in dungeon equals trap. Remember that.”