A Dungeon’s Survival

Connie

In spite of everything that'd gone terribly wrong in recent times, it felt like things were finally turning around for us. We'd managed to go an entire week now without any major incidents. Maybe that was a low bar to set, but it was also a welcome change of pace. Considering my luck, however, I didn't fully trust it.

I was sure something was about to explode in my face spectacularly the instant I lowered my guard, but I had to keep going nonetheless. If I let the fear of what could go wrong stop me from capitalizing on the opportunities available to me, it would only make things worse when they did. That was why I kept moving, shifting priorities and taking advantage of everything that I could. It made for a chaotic workflow, but progress was being made thanks to it.

More than anything, though, I had Noctis to thank for our most recent advancements. While it was true that the books he'd been able to gather couldn't perfectly replace Fabian, it was undeniable that they were useful, and beyond that, Noctis was capable of so much more. Sure, he didn't have a clue how to run a Dungeon or about any of the other things Fabian had been able to advise me on, but outside of that, he'd proven far more versatile in the information he could gather than my fairy had ever been. In many ways, I was still left to fumble about blindly, but where it counted most, his eyes and ears outside of my Dungeon were exactly what I'd needed. Within days, all thanks to him, I had a firmer grasp of my situation than ever, and my Dungeon was on a clear path to improvement.

A large part of that had been thanks to the general knowledge he'd been collecting. While it wasn't anything of particular importance, it was still useful to have. Paired with what I'd already known, it was enough to start painting a fuller picture of the situation around me. Geography was a perfect example of that.

Conceptually, I'd already been aware of where I was, but knowing something and understanding it weren't the same thing. From the beginning, I'd known that I was in the Abustine Kingdom in a world called Reflia. I'd also been told that I was near the kingdom's border with an empire by the name of Drulin. Additionally, I'd long since overheard from my delvers that the nearby town was called Firmsoil. In the end, however, all that amounted to was a bunch of names, and I hadn't had the context necessary to assign meaning to them.

Now, things had changed. The names that had been as meaningless to me as those of countries on the opposite side of my old world now had relevant context. They now had meaning.

Taking Firmsoil as an example, it was a town, but where was it? I'd known it was nearby and the kingdom it was a part of, but that was the extent of my knowledge from before. Now, however, I knew it was located in a forest to the far west of the Abustine Kingdom, a forest that marked the kingdom's border with the empire. What about the kingdom, though?

As it turned out, it was on the smaller side as far a countries in my old world were concerned, but compared to the other nations on this continent, it was above average and located toward the northwest. As for Drulin, the neighboring empire, it was the largest country on this landmass. It was also more than ten times larger than Abustine in terms of occupied land.

I'd learned all of that from a few maps that Noctis had recorded memories of but dared not to steal from the Adventurers Guild. Of course, that hadn't been the extent of his espionage. On top of searching out important documents, he'd also been listening to the people, gathering bits and pieces of information from them. Meanwhile, I'd been putting those pieces together, and now, I had a blurry but functional understanding of the local politics that was hindered only by the fact that the baron turned out to be that alchemist I was scared of.

Because of that and my unwillingness to have Noctis go anywhere near him, a lot of my information was unfortunately coming to me third-hand. It was still enough for me to get a general idea as to what was going on, such as how the town was rapidly expanding and moving toward an adventurer-driven economy, but nothing specific was forthcoming. Also, every detail overheard had to be taken with a grain of salt due to it coming from a bunch of what were essentially uninformed medieval peasants. That wasn't to say the locals were stupid–far from it actually, but it remained a fact that the dissemination of information around here was primitive. Still, what information we were able to amass was a massive improvement over the nothing from before.

Then, there was the specialized intel, the in-depth knowledge about specific subjects. Out of everything we'd been learning, that was the most important, and while it wasn't immediately useful, I was sure that knowledge would prove to be as pivotal a tool as any other in time. It opened up alternative paths we could use to grow stronger after all, the first of which was magic.

How did it work? Up until now, I had no clue. I still had no clue, but what we did have was a spellbook. Considering the fact that spells were awarded by the System, the existence of such a thing hadn't made much sense to me initially. Now, though, I couldn't believe we'd been oblivious to such an integral part of how this world functioned.

After acquiring it, Archie and Pee had wasted no time in scouring it for every secret it held. They hadn't gained anything tangible from it yet, no small part of the reason for that being the horrendous handwriting contained within, but they had uncovered an important revelation: spells could be deconstructed, studied, and learned instead of solely being given out by the System.

They were still far off from learning magic through this method, but if they could crack the process of doing so, it would be another route outside of the standard Dungeon progression that we could pursue. Also, if they did figure it out, I might also be able to pick up some spells that way. I did technically have a magic class after all, and my Familiar Casting ability was going completely unutilized.

Aside from that, we were also quickly advancing our understanding of forging. As it stood, before I'd created Noctis, the Lizard Man I'd made as a dedicated blacksmith had yet to make any real progress. A large part of that had been because I'd known next to nothing about metalworking and had been unable to provide the aspiring smith with the knowledge and tools he'd needed to succeed. Now, however, things had changed.

I'd had the Shade Lurker spend a couple of days in the forge of an actual blacksmith, recording memories of their work. From those memories, even if I didn't fully understand the processes they'd used, I'd at least been able to replicate their equipment to a certain extent and point my crafter in the right direction. With a bit of work, Dungeon-reinforced stone, and some creative uses of wind currents, I'd even come up with a working design for a forge with ventilation to deal with the smoke. I'd also put together a stone anvil and set up a cauldron for quenching. As for tools the Lizard Man needed but I didn't have access to, I'd had Noctis take the liberty of borrowing some.

The results there spoke for themselves. While it was true that the Lizard Man had yet to produce a weapon fit for battle, he'd certainly come a long way in a short time. Considering how he'd been helplessly floundering around not long before, I was thrilled to see his Blacksmithing skill already reach level three. I'd even absorbed enough of his practice works to unlock a couple of extra items that I could now summon for him in place of the junk he'd been forced to work with before.

[Item: Crude Copper Ingot

Cost: 10 (5) MP

Description: A copper ingot full of impurities.]

[Item: Crude Iron Ingot

Cost: 20 (10) MP

Description: An iron ingot full of impurities.]

It would still be a while before any of the crafters aside from Rose were producing anything useful, but now, with the ability to learn from those more experienced in their professions, the others at least had a way to improve. For that reason, a significant amount of Noctis's time was going to be spent watching and recording people as they made things going forward; that way, my Lizard Men could learn from them. In time, if all went well, I'd be able to arm my monsters with custom equipment. The road to in-house production, though a long one, was in sight.

It was astounding to me how far we were able to come just by having someone able to observe the locals unseen. In retrospect, it made me wonder why Fabian hadn't been teaching me about crafting techniques instead of hypothetical progression paths for Dungeons with completely different builds from me. That would have been far more helpful.

Unfortunately, though, as skilled as Noctis was at spying on people, there were still answers that he couldn't get for me. As it stood, his biggest limitation was that he couldn't move around in broad daylight. He could still spy on people during the day, but in order to do so, he needed to hide in the shadows. That deprived him of almost all of his mobility from sunrise to sunset. For most of our information gathering needs, that wasn't much of a problem, but it was enough to prevent him from uncovering one secret that was driving me crazy.

[A Human Mugger (Level 8) has died in your Dungeon! 154 experience gained.]

And, there it was. The murder hobos were back. Were they some official executioners? Were they a murder cult? Were they some hallucination brought on by extreme amounts of stress? I still had no clue. All I did know about them was that they, without fail, had been showing up every day, totaling six days straight now, and each time they came after the first, they'd killed two or three apparent criminals before leaving.

I groaned internally as the message signifying their presence forced its way into my field of vision. Technically, they were helping me by bringing me free experience every day, but I couldn't get over how creepy it was. They always just showed up, killed people, and left. They hardly even spoke a word.

Who even are these people!? I silently screamed my frustrations out into the void.

A System message was my only response.

[A Beastkin Thief (Level 7) has died in your Dungeon! 140 experience gained.]

I'd been considering interfering with whatever they were doing for a while now. If nothing else, it might be enough to help me piece together who they were and what they were up to. On the other hand, interfering likely meant freeing apparent criminals. That didn't seem like a good idea, and it had been enough to keep me from acting.

[An Orc Merchant (Level 9) has died in your Dungeon! 180 experience gained.]

Oh, that's different.

Counting the Rogue from the first day and a Builder from a couple of days after that, this was only the third individual they'd killed who didn't have a criminal class. What did that mean? I had no clue, but I did take note of it all the same.

Wait, I thought as I realized they'd killed three people this time around, was that enough?

It was quicker to check than to run the numbers, so as soon as I thought of it, I reached for a menu. As it came into sight, it showed me what I'd been hoping to see. It had been enough.

[Experience to next level: 196,071 / 196,000

Level up?

Yes / No]

Yes! Finally!

I'd gotten so close the night before but had been left a mere four hundred nine experience away. It seemed these individuals of questionable morals and goals had remedied that for me. It was unfortunate I hadn't gotten a full night to go through my gains, but I would happily take being able to do so before the delvers showed up for the day.

Thanks, I guess, weird murder cult people, I thought offhandedly as I changed my focus to Monster variety and selected yes.

[Please select a perk.]

Since I'd just hit level fifteen, I was already getting three monsters of my choice. I had plans for those, however, and even if it might be smart to do so, I didn't want to compromise on them. Still, I needed a new plant monster if I wanted to keep up the ruse that I was a plant and reptile Dungeon. That meant, unless I could figure out another way to get one, I was left to gamble as I hoped for the best.

Come on, be something good, I thought as I looked at my first option, desperately hoping to see something that fit that criteria.

[Monster Upgrade: Unseen Shadow

Description: Your Error, reference null gains Error, reference null.

Effect: Your Error, reference null gains the ability Error, reference null.]

Huh, I thought as I stared at it, well, that's inconvenient.

My first option did not seem to exist. It had been a while since I'd gotten a significant error, and I could infer from the name that this likely had something to do with Noctis, but that was only a guess. As it stood, there was no chance I was risking taking it, but there was another possibility.

How much do I feel like dealing with an angry robot? I wondered.

The angry robot in question was, of course, the Custodian who had revealed my secret to Fabian. The orb had told me that I could contact them should I run into more errors, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so, but was it worth it? They hadn't exactly been friendly the first time I'd talked to them, so wasting their time seemed like an inherently bad idea. On the other hand, they were the only source of information in regards to the inner workings of the world I had. Any chance I could get to talk to them had merit.

Ugh, why can nothing ever be simple?

In the end, I decided that I would contact them only if I wasn't interested in the other two perk choices. That way, I wouldn't just be calling them to look at an irrelevant error. With that decided, I moved on to the next option.

[Swift Gull

Level: 1

Cost: 16 DP

Health: 40 (70)

Stamina: 40 (70)

Mana: 120 (180)

Stats: FORT 8 (14), VIT 6 (13), STR 10 (17), END 8 (14), SOUL 12 (18), MIND 10 (16), WILL 12 (18), COM 8 (16), DEX 12 (18), AGI 12 (18)

Skills: None

Abilities: Water Spray

Description: A simple bird monster with a bad temperament. They attack in great numbers while spraying their enemies with water to disorient them.

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)]

It seemed like the couple of birds I'd picked up recently were enough to influence my perk choices, and it wasn't in a good way. As it stood, I didn't even need the ones I already had. Needless to say, I wasn't interested in adding to that collection of monsters, so I moved on.

Ugh, come on, don't suck! I pleaded with the System as I brought up my last option.

[Dark Cub

Level: 1

Cost: 30 DP

Health: 50 (80)

Stamina: 50 (80)

Mana: 100 (160)

Stats: FORT 10 (16), VIT 8 (15), STR 12 (19), END 10 (16), SOUL 10 (16), MIND 10 (16), WILL 10 (16), COM 10 (18), DEX 8 (14), AGI 8 (14)

Skills: None

Abilities: Shadow Claw

Description: A monstrous bear cub capable of drawing on shadow magic. Viscous and merciless, it tears its enemies to shreds before devouring them.

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)]

[Ability: Shadow Claw

Cost: 20 MP

Cooldown: 30 seconds

Description: You empower your claw with shadow magic, causing an attack with it to do additional damage.

Effect: For the cost of 20 mana, you exude shadow magic from your claw for 2 seconds. This empowers an attack made with it by 1 + 0.5 x (SOUL).]

It was times like these that I had to wonder if it was too late to pivot one of my fake monster types to shadow. The System sure seemed to like offering those kinds of monsters to me. Then again, that was probably at least partially my fault for how much I invested in Vie and Pee. Also, Noctis becoming a prominent asset likely wasn't helping. Maybe I was more cut out to be a shadow Dungeon after all, but that line of thought wasn't helping. Besides, I still had a choice to make and a creature to consider.

One thing was for sure: bear monsters were terrifying. I'd learned that much firsthand. This one, however, didn't offer me anything I didn't already have. It was effectively a more frail Plated Gator with a variant of Vie and Pee's Shadow Enhancement. That was good, but it wasn't enough to make me pick it outright. What actually mattered to my decision making was how I could use it.

On one hand, it had potential as a heavy hitter. It didn't seem any better than a Plated Gator, though, and I wouldn't be able to use it outside of life and death struggles due to it being an unrelated monster type. Keeping my secrecy, while no longer feeling as crucial as it once had, still felt like the play to me. Especially with things like the Shade Lurkers, if people thought I had exclusively plants and reptiles, I could catch them off guard when it really counted. I wasn't ready to throw that advantage away yet.

Then, there was the other possibility. I could convert its ability into an aspect. Having the capability to put a versatile attack like that on anything I wanted seemed useful at first, but there was a major restriction attached. It required the use of a claw.

Only my reptiles had claws, and not even all of them did. That meant it would be useless to roughly half of my monsters. I wasn't a fan of that.

Ugh, am I really doing this? I eventually thought after pondering my options for a time, my line of sight wandering back to the first choice.

Unseen Shadow, if it really was an ability for Noctis, sounded useful, and even if the Custodian wasn't willing to fix the error in a way that would let me give it to them, the possibility of them letting me give it Vie and Pee instead or to reroll the option altogether was enticing. Contacting them would also give me another chance to try to get something out of them in regards to the looming end of the world or the true nature of the System. It was a worthwhile option. I just didn't want to deal with that grumpy robot.

Unfortunately, my wants and needs didn't necessarily align. I heaved a deep mental sigh and called forth an ability. As much as I didn't want to, it seemed to be time for me to use Contact Administrator.