A Dungeon’s Survival

Cameron

“Calm down. We'll get through this,” my fairy unsuccessfully tried to comfort me.

I didn't give him a response. I was too busy trying to piece together a workable defense. That meant summoning monsters, raising and lowering walls, and implementing my unfinished ideas in whatever haphazard ways I could. It was messy, but I'd take it.

My vision flicked back and forth between various parts of my Dungeon as I bounced between different tasks. There was so much to do, yet I had no time. I began summoning a monster here. Then, I shifted some stone there. I started up Monster Customization on something, and before I even made any adjustments, I was already focusing on something else entirely. The work that needed to be done felt insurmountable.

As I scrambled to deal with it all, many things demanded my attention all at once. Trying to focus on it all wasn't something a mind could do, but I wasn't exactly human anymore, and to my surprise, the harder I tried to split my attention, the more feasible it felt. It culminated in my vision splitting in half. Suddenly, I could see two separate areas of my Dungeon simultaneously.

I paused for only a moment, not daring to halt my efforts for any longer than that in order to marvel at what I had accidentally achieved. It was kind of like having two computer monitors or other screens open at once with different things on each. I could keep an eye on what was happening with the invaders while still preparing in the background.

Convenient. Why didn't you tell me I could do this? I offhandedly asked Fabian as I sent him both sets of my vision.

With how my questions were normally answered, I half expected him to tell me that he didn't know it was possible, or he hadn't thought it was important enough to mention. Logically, I knew something like this was different from obscure achievements, too important and versatile not value information on. I wasn't sparing much conscious thought on the matter, though. I was too preoccupied, and as a result, I was caught completely off guard by what he had to say.

“Cameron, you shouldn't be able to do that.”

His answer gave me pause, but it was only for a moment.

Why not?

“Mortal minds don't function in a way that facilitates splitting your concentration like that. Natural Dungeon Cores can do it, but Dungeon Cores that used to be mortals? No chance, or at least that is what the documentation I read up on had to say.”

Well, I'm doing it.

I didn't know what to make of what I'd just been told, but I shelved that issue. I could worry about the ramifications of what it meant later, maybe sometime between me contemplating the achievement I shouldn't have, the unusable stats I shouldn't have, and my half-useless Summoned Hero title that was also something I shouldn't have as a Dungeon Core. More realistically, I'd throw it on the back burner and forget. The why of it wasn't what was immediately relevant to my continued survival after all.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I lost myself in my work as I chugged away, making sure everything was as perfect as I could get it. I couldn't affect my first room, but I was making sure every other room that no one had made it to yet was as good as I could get it. At the same time, I was watching the action and playing the role of commander.

Currently, everything was coming to a head at the intersection between the first two rooms. I had summoned a few Trentis on the other side of the tunnel connecting them, and they were taking turns blasting Spore Waves into the choke point. The multiple instances of the spell were enough to do something where a single use would be next to useless. Sadly, each forest goblin could only use the spell four times before bottoming out their mana.

That delayed my enemies, if nothing else. Since the tunnel was so narrow, only a few people were being hit with each wave, and that didn't stop them. The people behind them just pushed them forward without a care in the world. It was a madness that removed any chance of them evading, and even as it payed off, I found it disturbing to watch.

[Your Trenti (Level 1) has killed a Beastkin Thief (Level 6)! 1,440 experience gained.]

[Your Trenti (Level 2) has killed an Orc Mugger (Level 7)! 1,680 experience gained.]

[Your Trenti (Level 3) has killed a Human Swindler (Level 4)! 480 experience gained.]

[Your Trenti (Level 3) has killed a Human Hunter (Level 5)! 600 experience gained.]

Those were the unique messages. There were four duplicates each of the rest, interspersed amid the others in an almost unreadable mess.

[Your Trenti (Level 1) has gained 300 experience!]

[Your Trenti (Level 1) has gained a level!]

[Your Trenti (Level 2) has gained 350 experience!]

[Your Trenti (Level 2) has gained a level!]

[Your Trenti (Level 3) has gained 100 experience!]

[Your Trenti (Level 3) has gained 150 experience!]

The flood of messages as four of the invaders dropped dead was too much. It clouded my vision, and meant little to me in the moment. I opened up the System's options and temporarily disabled some of the notifications. By the time I was done, my four little mushroom casters were dead, and my enemies were continuing forward.

Admittedly, that strategy hadn't done much. I had traded my monsters' lives for my attackers at a one to one ratio, but I had lost a significant amount of ground while doing so. I had also barely made a dent in their numbers. I lost the trade in terms of mana too; absorbing bodies would get me those resources back and then some. That wasn't something I could manage as the unending tide of apparent crooks continued to rampage in my home. Their presence kept that stored mana just out of reach.

What are so many people even doing here!?

It was a rhetorical question filled with anger at my situation. I did not expect an answer, but I got one.

“The best guess I have is that a bandit group saw you as an easy mark, but any group of this size should be at higher levels. It doesn't make sense.”

Bandits?

I hadn't considered it, but with how scummy all of their classes sounded, it made some degree of sense. It was only an inference, but it was something I could work with. I just needed to figure out how.

I had a couple of ideas, but I didn't have the time to try them out. Instead, I focused on issuing commands. I watched as the ruffians ran across the bridge of stone in the dark. Their way was only being illuminated by torches. If I could just get rid of them, I'd be in a significantly better situation. That was a more pressing weakness that I could capitalize on then their backgrounds.

To that end, I waited until the right moment. Then, I ordered my Bloodthorn Vines to thrash out. The first plant on the path attacked only the individuals I ordered it to target. The people carrying torches fell into my spike pits. A couple were impaled, and the rolling boulder traps on both sides activated, finishing off one more.

I made a mental note to scrap those traps if I made it out alive. They were intimidating. That was deadly in it own right, but they were expensive and ineffectual. With next to no kills, they were begging to be either repositioned or replaced.

The uselessness of giant rocks rolling across spike pits aside, the vines had accomplished what I asked of them. Kills weren't what I was after, and my opponents lacked the same skill necessary to earn my grudging respect that the bug girl possessed. Many survived the fall, but it didn't matter. That also meant many fell, and it was the fall that I had been relying on, not the damage. They fell, and their torches fell with them. The path forward was plunged into darkness.

Yes! I cheered.

A moment later, the flames from one of the fallen torches took to the underbrush below. Quickly, it began to spread, and dim though it may have been, a faint light washed over the room emanating from the right pit.

Seriously?

[Achievement gained: Wildfire!]

[Achievement gained: Burn!]

That hadn't gone according to plan. I decided to scrap the bit of greenery I had at the bottoms of the pits in favor of a less flammable cover for my monsters when I got a chance. Still, the people down below on that side were coughing on smoke and burning, so I guessed that was a win? Their screams as their clothes caught fire and they were scorched were hard to listen to. I felt no small degree of guilt as I looked at them, terror on their faces. I tried to push those feelings away by telling myself it was self-defense that caused me to inflict such a fate upon them, but it was to no avail.

I kept moving regardless of my emotions. I couldn't lose the momentum. If that were to happen, I knew the only outcome would be my death. That I could live with, or die with it depending on perspective. What I couldn't accept was that that would mean Vie and Pee would die too. Fabian would be left alone, and there was Adraugon. As much as he annoyed me, I didn't wish a permanent death on the egotistical lizard, so I acted.

People had made it more than half-way across the path. The two Bloodthorn Vines continued to swipe at them, and they were dropping. The problem was in their numbers. They kept coming with no end, and for every one that got knocked to the pits below, another few made it past in the chaos.

[Achievement gained: Asphyxiation!]

I wasn't too worried about the people leading the pack, but I refrained from checking on my achievements regardless. It was more important that I capitalize on the mess in front of me. The achievements might be able to help, but it wasn't certain. It was better to focus on the certainties; they would give me better odds of surviving this mess.

The invaders leading the way didn't have torches. That reassured me somewhat. The next room was dark, so they couldn't get far without them. A few of them slowed in their charge, and it was enough to fill me with hope. I silently wished they would just turn back, that they would realize whatever they hoped to gain from killing me wasn't worth it. I wasn't so lucky.

One of the higher leveled individuals dove to the edge of the path and plunged his sword beneath him at an awkward angle. He couldn't have put much force into the blow, but it proved to be enough as the monstrous flower the weapon sunk into died. The first of my Bloodthorn Vines went down. Soon after, the second followed.

[Achievement gained: Discord!]

I didn't have a guess as to what had triggered the achievement. There was too much going on, and I was left with a mob all too happy to push farther into my depths. I wasn't having it.

I sent a mental command as the people with torches began to catch up with the front runners, and a vine struck down from above. It collided with a scrawny man, and he was sent flying face-first into a stalagmite. The monster I had hidden in the cave's ceiling continued to lash out, but there was only so much it could do.

The fire was burning out, and though my monster knocked more people down into the pit, the unintentional lethality was gone with the flames. Only one more attacker died from the spikes. Then, my plant's range became an issue. Its tendrils were only so long. The people it failed to knock down made it past, and those that it did send sprawling managed to climb their way back up at the end of the room.

I had options left to me. My Horned Dracos were primed to strike, and I had other monsters still, but I commanded them all to wait and conserve their strength. I didn't want to overplay my hand, and as the group pressed forward into the next room, I was certain I would be left with prime opportunities to strike in better places places to do so.