A Dungeon’s Survival

Connie

Once I'd finished getting a feel for my new Crystal Munchers, I pivoted from experimentation to design as I got back to work on the cleanup and expansion of my Dungeon as a whole. By this point, the place had already been put most of the way back together. I'd sealed up the new opening I'd made for the Onikuma's entrance, drained the tainted bog water before refilling it, and patched up almost all of the other destruction the Hero's party had wrought. All that remained amiss was the first room, which I'd intentionally left in shambles.

Admittedly, the destruction there was bad. The stone walls in there that I used to block lines of sight and accommodate vertical ambushes from my monsters had all been reduced to a mountain of rubble. The actual walls of the room weren't much better either. Considering how resilient Dungeon-reinforced stone was, the fact that it had gotten to this point at all was horrifying, a sentiment every adventurer who'd attempted to enter my home since seemed to share.

The sight alone had put anyone off from so much as attempting a delve over the past few days, something I'd been taking advantage of. That was the reason why I'd yet to patch it up. I'd been using it as a deterrent to keep unwanted guests away until I was ready for them once more. It had been a nice respite, one that had allowed me to get a lot done, but as I took in the view, I knew it was time for that break to come to an end.

This place really is in shambles isn't it? I idly thought to myself as I got to work, beginning to clear out the rubble and reconstruct what had once stood in its place.

As I worked, not only did I continue to take in the sight, I also found myself gaining a deeper appreciation for the extent of damage done. Though I didn't see it in action, it was clear that the spell that mage, Ivan, had set off in there had to have been insane. I utterly refused to think about what would've happened had something that powerful been loosed closer to my core. I had little doubt the collateral damage alone could've shattered it on accident had it been in the same room as the magic. It was a reminder as to why it was so important that I kept it out of reach from delvers. That same destruction also served as proof of my beloved snakes' tenacity.

Every time I looked at the ruins around me, I struggled to imagine how Vie and Pee could've possibly survived being at the epicenter of such a powerful explosion of frost. It made me proud to see just how far my first pair of awakened monsters had come. It also perfectly illustrated the level of danger we now faced.

This time, our opponents had been special. They were elites, some of the most promising individuals at their level, and a step above and the kind of adventurers I could normally expect to come knocking. They were the exception, not the standard, yet they weren't the strongest there was. They weren't even the most powerful people I'd encountered.

In spite of the danger that the group had posed to me, I had little doubt the old alchemist turned local baron that ruled the territory around my home could put up more of a fight than they had. It had been his work, a concoction that had previously backed me into a corner, that had served as my final trump card, after all. Going up against the Hero's group had been an intimidating battle, but ultimately, it had been one I could take, if just barely. That man, however, I feared like no other.

Fortunately, I didn't see a confrontation with him anytime soon being likely. Similarly, even if I knew there were more powerful people out there than that last group, I doubted I'd have to face them as enemies for the time being, not so long as that girl, Fable, kept her word. That was no reason to get complacent, though. More powerful enemies were out there, and eventually, I was sure they'd find their way to me. Not preparing for such a thing would've been folly, so to that end, once I'd finished restoring the shattered terrain of my first room back to something both ordered and defensible, I wasted little time in redirecting my attention toward improving what I already had.

With no more than a thought, my perspective shifted, bringing me back to the unfinished pit room where I'd confronted the Hero less than a week prior. Despite me referring to it as the, “pit room,” it didn't contain a pit of any sort, not yet anyway. I'd taken measures to remedy that over the past couple of days, digging out a second room underneath it and carving away the edges of the floor to form drop-off point, but it still had a long way to go. I wasn't here to continue my work on that project, though.

In time, I would dig the pit as deep as I could, making the fall as lethal as possible in the process. I would also continue carving out holes in the ground around the ruins I'd constructed on the floor above that drop-off, as well as hiding them under the dense layer of foliage that covered the room. Those were a longer-term goals, though. What I was doing now was something much quicker and for reasons that didn't directly relate to the room itself. I was checking to see just how useful one of my most recent gains could actually be.

In the aftermath of the last raid, I'd taken two level ups. That had gotten me to level twenty and allowed me to awaken Rose, granting her both sentience and immortality so long as I lived. I'd rushed to that point so that I could do so, but so far, I'd only chosen one of the perks that had earned me. It, much like the mana crystals and related monster I'd been experimenting with, was something I needed to better understand before I could decide on the other perk. Rather than focus on the room itself, that was what I was here to do.

Turning my attention toward a small area where the floor met the wall, I began shaping my mana, forcing it into new terrain. Where I directed it, a layer of white began to coat the stone. It was ice, and it was part of my new environment.

[Environment: Frozen Wellspring

Description: You can incorporate aspects of a frozen wellspring into your Dungeon.

Effect: Allows you to summon and modify various types of snow, frost, and ice.]

Personally, I had no idea what a frozen wellspring was supposed to be. Neither had I consciously been aware that there were different types of snow, frost, or ice, for that matter. All I had known when I'd picked the perk was that it was the only remotely usable option I'd been offered, the others being a useless object and a monster I had no need of. With that being the case, I'd taken it, even if it seemed like it'd be detrimental to a Dungeon that specialized in plants and cold-blooded reptiles.

Despite now having the perk, though, I had no intention of making an icescape anywhere within my Dungeon. As dangerous as that could've been to invaders, the trade-off wouldn't have been worth it in my eyes, but that didn't mean I couldn't still make use of the environment in other ways. As for how I go about doing so, I had a few ideas.

By slicking surfaces with ice, I hoped to make my walls even more difficult to scale than they already were. I also planned to freeze patches of the ground near holes and pits to create natural traps. The idea was to ensure that there was no secure footing anywhere in my Dungeon that I didn't want it, and for a room that was already designed to use gravity as weapon, the potential was immense. For any of that to matter, though, I first needed to get the hang of using my new materials. With that goal in mind, I summoned a Horned Draco.

The monster lizards were adept climbers. They weren't as good at it as some lizards from my old world had been, some species like geckos having even been able to climb even vertical glass walls and ceilings with ease, but they were still the most capable climbers I had. That made them the best options for my tests.

With the monster now present, I quickly began forming a ramp out of stone next to the identical one I'd just made out of ice. Then, once it was complete, I had the lizard try climbing both. The results were what could be expected.

Even at a steep angle, a Horned Draco had no problem climbing a regular incline. As for an icy one, things got slightly more complicated there. Something being made out of ice alone didn't intrinsically make it impossible to scale. What it did do, though, was make it a lot harder to.

At a shallow angle, the lizard was able to walk right up the frozen slope. Unlike with the stone one, however, it didn't take anywhere near as steep of an incline to turn a ramp impassible. That was what I'd been hoping for but still needed to make sure of. It confirmed that slicking my walls with ice would benefit me, so the task went onto my to-do list. It wasn't the only thing I had in mind for the new material, though.

Next up was the slip test. After cleaning up my frozen ramps, I coated another patch of stone, this one purely on the ground, with frost and summoned a Trenti to try standing on it. The creature's foot barely managed to connect with the surface before its feet flew out from under it. The sight was comical and proved the concept's effectiveness. There was just one problem: the ice wasn't subtle.

To remedy that, I, at first, tried covering it up. I used plants to obscure the patches of frozen stone from view and gravel to coat it. Neither solution gave the results I wanted, and both had problems.

While both methods did hide the ice to some extent, neither hid it fully, and they both ended up providing some degree of traction for the one stepping on them. Once I'd realized that, I began thinking back on ice from my old world. Back there, it hadn't been uncommon at all for people to slip and fall in the winter, so I figured there had to be something that I was missing. The problem was, it had been a long time since I'd actually experienced ice, at least in any meaningful way.

I had, just like anyone else, slipped and fallen on my butt a good number of times as a kid. That I chalked up to carelessness more than anything, though. The problem was that slipping on ice hadn't been been an issue for me in a long time. Ever since the accident, minding my steps had no longer been a concern. That meant I had to dig deeper as to what made ice so dangerous in the first place.

Sure, people could carelessly decide to walk across ice and slip, but that wasn't all. I knew people who'd been caught off guard and slipped when they thought there was nothing there. I'd also heard of car accidents where people who hadn't seen ice on the road had still lost control and crashed because of it. The answer I was looking for was in one of the different types of ice I hadn't consciously realized existed. What I needed was black ice.

Black ice was nearly invisible. It formed on concrete and asphalt, on driveways, sidewalks, and roads. It was the most dangerous type of ice I knew of. The problem was, I didn't actually know much about it. Because of that, figuring out how to make it ended up being a long, tedious process.

For hours, I tried over and over again to create this treacherous form of ice. I tried making it fast. I tried making it slow. I willed it to do things other than what it was, and while I did manage to change its constancy in ways, I didn't manage to make it invisible in the way I wanted.

That made me think back more to the times I'd heard of black ice. It was never on the first day it snowed, neither was it exclusive to snowy days. Back in school, one of my teachers had slipped on it the day after a heavy rain. There had been no snow then, just water and an exceptionally cold, fall day. I made that my new starting point.

First, replicate rain, I told myself.

I had access to water. I even had a bog full of it. In the first place, all ice was was frozen water, so why did I need to make it from scratch? Following that line of logic, I doused the floor with water only to see it begin to flow in a single direction. At that, I paused.

Well, I guess I haven't exactly been using a level. It makes sense my floors would be a little crooked. Eh, whatever. That's not important right now. Next, freeze it.

Pushing the unnecessary thoughts from my mind, I tried making ice once more, but this time, I only froze the water that was already there. The results didn't disappoint me. The ice looked completely different.

I don't exactly get it, but I'll take it.

Instead of the frosty white ice my efforts had been producing up until now, the substance before me was clear. It didn't match the ground around it, not perfectly, but the dark spot looked more wet than anything. It was less noticeable by far, and after I changed the color of the ground around it to match, it blended in perfectly. All that was left was to test it.

Go, step on it, I told my mindless Trenti, and it obeyed.

A moment later, it was airborne once more, flailing about helplessly. In that moment, if I could've smiled, I would've. This was definitely going to be useful. More importantly, though, it was the last thing I needed to make my decision.

[Please select a perk.]

[Environment: Desert

Description: You can incorporate aspects from a desert into your Dungeon.

Effect: Allows you to summon and modify sand and mundane vegetation. Any vegetation you summon subsists off of mana alone.]

[Monster Upgrade: Mana Crystal Efficiency

Description: All mana-crystal-related monsters gain improved mana transference rates between themselves and mana crystals.

Effect: All of your monsters that naturally subsist off of mana crystals gain the ability Crystalline Mana.]

[Kirbyan Talon

Level: 1

Cost: 80 DP

Health: 45 (75)

Stamina: 45 (75)

Mana: 90 (150)

Stats: FORT 9 (15), VIT 9 (16), STR 9 (16), END 9 (15), SOUL 9 (15), MIND 9 (15), WILL 9 (15), COM 9 (15), DEX 9 (15), AGI 9 (15)

Skills: None

Abilities: Kirbyan Form, Inheritance

Description: An avian brood parasite that mimics the form and innate magic of the one who raises it. Mother Kirbyan Talons slip their eggs into the nests of the most powerful bird monsters they can find.

Upgrades: Professional Amateur (+1 to every stat), A Walk in the Park (+5% to DEX and WILL), Too Close for Comfort (+1 to every stat), Deathtrap (+1% to every stat), Forceful Eviction (+1 to STR), Toxic (+1 to VIT), Kill Zone (+1 to every stat), Mass Grave (+1 to every stat), Raid (+1 to every stat), Great Raid (+1 to every stat), Generalist (+1% to every stat), Grand Raid (+1% to every stat), Regional Lord Slayer (+1% to every stat)]