Dungeon Spawned: Dark Dungeon 01 Read online

  Protection spells were a big focus for me, using dark magic. It would blunt the attacks of light clerics and paladins at the very least, making the third floor quite a bit more difficult than the first two.

  I was very busy, which was a good thing, it was keeping me sane. That, and Ebony, at least the little imp was talking to me still.

  Another part of me was looking into the idea of having an external body. I wouldn’t be able to fully escape the crystal, since the only body I knew how to make was mortal. I’d studied the dead bodies and was fairly sure I could recreate one, but it would only hold a small portion of my awareness and power, what I could squeeze through the small hole in my prison, and of course it would be limited to what the mortal flesh and bone could contain.

  So far, I hadn’t acted on that yet, not sure if that would help or hurt. It would be risky if I was discovered, I was supposed to be a dungeon in truth, not just in actions.

  The last part of my mind, the partitioned part of mind, was busy feeling sorry for itself, and alternatively longing for and regretting the connection I’d made with Lila. An intimacy that was both foreign and shocking, and that I both yearned for and feared to have again. At the same time, I was completely reworking the spell, even the core of it. The mind trap spell was meant to be torturous, and I’d come to the conclusion that the greatest desires and fantasies were just a bad as the greatest fears.

  Lila had been stuck in the spell, despite being a sex demoness, the sex part was only one aspect of her greatest fantasy. Her angelic existence, and service to a god had been another, and that fantasy and desire could never be sated, only constantly fed. She’d have been stuck in there forever in bliss if I hadn’t joined and eventually disrupted the fantasy, but I still felt guilty about it. I felt dirty for invading that part of her mind.

  It was a problem I hadn’t solved yet though, I could target sexual desire and fantasy directly, so a quick tumble would sate the spell, but that was too diffuse an idea, the spell could randomly latch onto virtually anything the target being had ever conceived in that direction. How could I be specific enough without targeting an extreme? That was my conundrum. I wanted to be ready when… if Lila recovered herself, her appetites would once again begin to grow uncomfortable.

  I must not make the same mistake, my intention had been to help her, not hurt her. I’d caused the very suffering I’d wanted to alleviate, perhaps I’d even made it worse. The guilt drove me to make amends in some way. Guilt, and desire. Despite what I had done, I hoped Lila and I would one day share that intimacy again. Which I knew was kind of screwed up, why would she want to?

  Ebony said, “Anytime now.”

  “Anytime what, sexy?”

  Ebony blushed, “Thinking out loud, you’ve been very focused the last few days. The guild should have been here by now.”

  “What will they do when they get here?”

  Ebony said, “Probably clear out the dungeon to test you, and then rate it.”

  Clear out the dungeon? That idea made me feel nervous.

  “What do you mean.”

  Ebony said, “They’ll send someone very powerful to test it, so they can rate it and let people know the difficulty. That way powerful people don’t waste their time coming until you get more powerful, and beginners don’t throw their lives away. They usually try to match the risks and rewards against talents.”

  I thought about that for a minute, and it made sense.

  “Ratings?”

  Ebony said, “There are ratings for adventurers. Initiate, apprentice, journeyman or journeywoman, adept, and master. There are five levels for each rating, but they’re only used to gauge progress to the next level, and not out in the real world as a rank. Further, they’ll assign the ratings per floor, most likely the first floor is initiate, an apprentice might get down to four, and journeyman is probably the overall dungeon rating right now for us.”

  “I think I follow, that seems simple enough.”

  Ebony giggled, “Not done yet. They rate the levels and dungeon by adventurer rating, but that’s just the first part. The second thing they rate is stability. Stability ratings for a dungeon start at unchanging, and end at rogue. Both of those are bad designations, stable is the actually the best sub-rating you can achieve and falls close to the middle, but closer to unchanging than rogue. It means you change things up to be interesting, so the challenge doesn’t get predictably stale, but on the other hand you don’t vary the difficulty too much when changing a floor.”

  “How could they possibly know that by clearing the dungeon once?”

  Ebony replied, “They can’t, except to check if your floors get increasingly difficult as they should, but part of the responsibility of a guild adventurer is to make reports, so the longer they delve here the more accurate the second rating becomes. They’ll leave a master here to read the reports and adjust the ratings. If I had to guess, your initial rating will probably be journeyman-assumed stable. Eventually the assumed part will drop off when they learn enough.”

  “That’s all set, sort of. Since no one’s gone past level one yet it’s hard to say. Speaking of levels, you ready to move? I finished up six a few minutes ago and it’s all set.”

  Ebony nodded with an excited look on her face.

  I finished off the stairway from three to four, just removing a small layer of rock to do so in this room. I considered just moving my crystal through the ground, but decided to take the crypt with me. It was familiar.

  The ground moved beneath the crypt and Ebony’s little home as we slowly sunk down to the last room on the sixth floor.

  I may not have been ready to grow yet, but I continued to do all I’d been doing to increase my understanding of magic, and improve the dungeon as it was now…

  Chapter Nine

  Catalina sighed and straightened her shoulders in determination, and then knocked on her father’s study’s door.

  The duke said, “Enter.”

  She took one more deep breath and entered the room. Her father’s study was a mini-library, mostly comprised of books related to ruling and wars, as well as the history of the Nysten Kingdom. Her father looked tired, and very stressed. This wasn’t going to be a fun conversation.

  He said, “What is it?”

  She smiled, “Revolt, any minute now.”

  He scowled, “That’s not funny.”

  She nodded sharply, “No it isn’t father, we need to act, and try to figure out what’s going on. The guild is on its way, the church is panicked, thinking you’re up to something, and our own nobles are looking at you like we’re picking their pockets.”

  He sighed, “And what do you suggest?”

  She said, “We can’t control this, we can only steer and mitigate. Welcome the guild and accede to their requests, then I’m going to go along with them and keep an eye on things, figure out what’s going on. So far everyone is convinced it’s a dungeon, so instead of trying to hide that, which we can’t, we need to go along with the stone’s plans until we can figure out what’s going on. Dragging our feet isn’t helping father.”

  He glared, “Go along?”

  Of course, he’d latch onto that part of her little speech.

  “Father, I’m too much like mother, this mission calls to me, so does the idea of growing stronger in battle.”

  The blood drained from her father’s face.

  “I’m sorry dad. But it’s true, she didn’t die adventuring you know, she died when giving birth to my younger sister. You can’t protect me from the world, you have to let me protect myself.”

  He growled in anger, “Don’t tell me how she died, I know how she died. I just want you to be safe.”

  She said softly, “I know father, but that’s not who I am. It’s not who you are, and it’s not who mom was. I am your daughter, heir and future duchess, and I am a mage who needs to go out and experience things outside of these walls.”

  He sighed and looked defeated. She both wanted to jump for joy, and felt
horrible at the same time.

  He asked, “What’s your plan?”

  She smiled, “Cousin Jerrold. He’s a fair warrior, and he has a couple of other people in his group who plan to go in the dungeon as soon as the guild is set up. A fire mage named Sienna, and a cleric named Suzy. It’s a good solid team, fire and air mages work well together, and Jerold is a beast with that axe. Plus, we’ll have Suzy in case anyone gets hurt.

  “My plan is simply to investigate the dungeon myself and see what I can find out, and also make friends with the guild and other adventurers, to see if they find or sense anything out of the ordinary. I’ll probably spend most of my time down there in the near future, once an inn goes up.”

  They wouldn’t have to build a huge town since it was only a half mile from the city, but she was sure they’d build an inn nearby for all the adventurers to stay in, and spend their coin, along with a market place for loot sales.

  She was worried about what the stone might be up to, her father had allowed her to read the old accounts and the thing was frightening. Truthfully, she was far more excited about getting out to finally stretch her wings, and regretted that it took something like this to make it happen. She loved her father, but she’d allowed him to smother her long enough. Duke or no duke, to be a good heir and duchess she needed to see the world and how it really worked, to understand her citizens and their lives and challenges, not be locked up in a castle with every need catered for.

  He looked up at her, “Do you really think you can find something that a guild master couldn’t?”

  She sighed, “Not normally no. But if the crystal does a good job at hiding and emulating a dungeon, I’ll be the only one that already knows there’s something to find. In short, I’m hoping they’ll assume what they see is real. They’re expecting it to be a dungeon, why would they do more than simply rate it?”

  He shook his head, “I don’t like it. But… you’re right, and you’re eighteen. I could forbid it, but I won’t. You are also exactly like your mother, so stay safe. She was always a little too reckless, I was constantly saving her.”

  She snorted, “That’s not what she told me dad, but I will. Be careful that is.”

  He said, “One more thing. This secret is between us. The other nobles and the church aren’t made up of fools, and they’ll wonder at your sudden freedom, don’t even tell your party your true purpose. I’ll be accommodating with the guild when they get here, and I’ll spread the rumor I was dragging my feet to prevent you from doing exactly what you’re going to be doing. They may buy my recent actions as one of a worried overprotective father with a stubborn daughter.”

  She laughed, “Good plan.”

  He grunted sourly, “Why so surprised, I am a duke after all.”

  She snorted, “Night dad,” and left the man if not pleased, at least not paralyzed any longer. His plan was a good one, but only because it was all completely true.

  A few days later she found herself in the throne room and studying the four master adventurers as they were introduced to the court.

  Donnell was an older man, and the leader of the group. He was tall, six feet five at least, and he’d be the one staying and running the guild for this dungeon. That made sense, since it was a retirement posting of sorts, Donnell was getting too old to adventure, though she wouldn’t want to challenge him or the wicked looking sword at his waist.

  Master Ember was the leader of the group going to rate the dungeon. She was a fire mage, and in her mid-forties at a guess, though still attractive. She wore red robes and looked very confident.

  It was the other two in the group that was a surprise. She’d never seen an elf before, and now she was looking at two of them. They were thinner and more willowy than humans, but not as much as she’d thought they’d be. Ari, was a female light mage who looked way too young to be a master, and the same for the light cleric, Bran.

  She thought it was smart that they’d sent two light masters to judge a dark dungeon, she just worried they might be able to pick something up. Hopefully that wouldn’t happen, and their mandate to guard the crystal wouldn’t be revealed. The crystal was the kind of power that wars were fought over.

  Both Ari and Bran were very attractive, young looking with extremely light blonde hair, blue eyes, and sculpted pointed ears.

  She started to feel a little uncomfortable, Donnell was a bit old and he kept checking her out. She knew she was attractive, but not so much that she’d attracted lecherous stares from old men before. Perhaps her father had hidden her from that kind of thing? She had long light brown hair, brown eyes, and a pleasing face. Her body was more on the athletic side, except for her breasts which were rather prominent for her frame.

  The duke said, “Welcome to Tenemin. Have you had a chance to review the dungeon?”

  Donnell replied, “Not yet, we wanted to greet you first, and ask about any provisions you may have before we get started.”

  The duke smiled, “You will need to pay a small tax to put up an inn and other buildings, but I have no objections to anything you build out there to support the guild, adventurers, and merchants. In fact, I’ve given this some consideration the last couple of days, and would be willing to sell the keep to you.”

  Donnell looked startled, “The keep?”

  The duke nodded, “The land has been empty for generations, and I believe it would make a good headquarters and healing area, once you fortified the entrance of the dungeon that is. The keep has several large rooms, a kitchen, and of course bedrooms on the second and third floors. It would also enable you to keep track of things, without your people even needing to go outside.”

  Donnell laughed, “I see, and how much does a keep go for nowadays?”

  The duke said, “To buy it outright is expensive, but if you wish to simply rent it I’m sure a price to satisfy all could be found. I’ll make my accountant available to you.”

  She looked away, suddenly annoyed, as Donnell checked her out again. She wasn’t the only one that noticed the old master’s preoccupation.

  The duke cleared his throat, “Is there a problem with my daughter?”

  Donnell blushed, “My apologies your grace, it’s just I haven’t seen so much magic potential in a mage in a long time.”

  Both Amber and Ari nodded, Bran looked like he was bored. She figured he didn’t like politics, which was fair, because she hated it too. Not that she had a choice as heir.

  The duke frowned, “I see, well then you may be glad to know she’ll be on site much of the time, she has her own group ready to face the dungeon once you’ve rated it and verified its stability past the first floor.”

  She looked back, suddenly much more comfortable, now that she knew he wasn’t being a creeper about her body, just her magic.

  Donnell bowed, “She will be welcome of course.”

  She barely listened to the rest of it, though she pretended she was listening. She was good at that. The guild planned to spend the night, and go down tomorrow to rate the dungeon. If at that time, it was deemed stable and didn’t need to be destroyed, they’d start building an outpost and getting set up. She imagined it would take another few days before professional adventurers started to show up, but her group as well as other locals would be lining up for a shot almost right away.

  She just hoped she was powerful enough for her group to get to the end, if the dungeon was too strong, how could she examine the crystal or look for inconsistencies? She knew she was a higher-level apprentice, and the court mage had assured her she’d be a journeywoman soon, but would that be enough? Then again, a stronger dungeon would help her grow as a mage much faster, worse case is it would take her a while to get there. She hoped.

  Chapter Ten

  Ari asked, “Do you smell that?”

  Ember said, “I don’t smell anything.”

  Ari smiled, “Exactly, I thought this was an undead thing, and the keep would stink. The air smells fresh.”

  Bran shrugged, “It wouldn’t be t
he first dungeon that keeps the air clear, outside of traps.”

  Ari nodded, “Yes, but usually not the ones full of undead. I’m not complaining though, it makes it feasible to use this keep as headquarters.”

  Ember pointed out, “It could be as simple as the fact that most dark dungeons don’t have air magic, so can’t clean the air.”

  Ember pulled out a device, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Donnell asked, “So you’re ready to get started?”

  Ember nodded, “This shouldn’t take long, unless the dungeon is larger than we believe.”

  Donnell grunted, “It’s right next to a city, there’s no way it went unnoticed for long.”

  Ember said, “Alright, let’s go.”

  I was a little torn as I listened. Lila had said the white and dark magic layers hid our strong dark aura, so all that was left was a dungeon aura from the outside banded layers. But these people were master clerics and mages, their job to judge such things. Would it be enough?

  It wasn’t like I had a choice, the only way I could ever figure out who’d put me in this prison, to find out exactly who and what I was, and the only way I’d ever escape, was to grow in power on the outside. The only real way to do that without taking hundreds of years, or perhaps thousands to slowly grow, was to emulate a dungeon and gain power that way, and thanks to Lila and Ebony I’ve been successful so far.

  Even if I could have grown in raw power on the outside slowly, being a dungeon was the only way to gain knowledge, spells, and control over magic. That was essential for my eventual escape as well, risky or not. Plus, I didn’t have a choice, as soon as I started growing I was detected, and Ebony found me almost right away.

  Even that made me feel guilty, as I was hiding a lot of things from the sexy imp. Not only that I wasn’t a dungeon, but of Lila’s existence. Of course, it could be argued I was a dungeon. It was what I was doing, wasn’t it? Still, what would happen to her when I escaped, even if it took years.