The Dungeon Without a System

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The Dungeon, Medea Island, Kalenic Sea

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I turned away from the ceremony on the sixth floor, quite satisfied. It seemed that spirits within a golem gain a greater bond to whatever material it is made of. The Mithril golem's transformation was fascinating. Specifically, the transition from fire spirit to a metal-fire hybrid.

The mana in the sprite's core had been pure fire, while the mana throughout the rest of its body was a mix of fire and metal. When it entered the 'cocoon' phase of the transformation, it sucked all the mana from the body into its core. There, the pure sprite absorbed the metal mana, and its transformation integrated the mana into its being. This one I'll call... a Molten Golem.

The evolution of the magma golem was particularly interesting. You'd think the fire and earth mana would merge and turn it into a metal spirit, but instead, they enhanced each other. I decided to call it a Volcanic Golem now.

With the Potentium golems, the metal's enhancement effect on their mana gave them an incredible boost. Unlike the other golems, the fire mana overwhelmed the metal mana of the body.

A quick check confirmed the Air Spirit would be getting some 'Peers' soon, as would the Earth Spirit on the seventh. Something to look forward to.

Back on the Tenth, I looked over the sheep with a metaphorical hand on my metaphorical chin. I could do quite a lot with them, but I didn't want to do too much. I intended for the sheep to be livestock, shepherded by the Minotaurs.

The first thing to do was clean up their bodies. I started by making their hooves and legs sturdier and hopefully less prone to injury. I strengthened their bones and skin and gave them some enhanced senses. I set a limit on how long their wool could grow to prevent some health problems down the line.

I also made them omnivorous and gave them nice sharp teeth. Like the rabbits, they'd much prefer grasses, but if push came to shove, no one would expect a sheep to tear flesh from bone. Next, it was time for the fun part.

I split the herd into two groups.

To one, I granted fluffy, luxuriously soft wool. The colors of their wool varied greatly, a rainbow of color. Since it was all natural pigmentation, there would be no damage from harsh dyes. Breeding-wise, the colors could mix, enhance or wash out. All equally likely outcomes.

The second group received a quite literal 'steel wool.' It was ductile but still quite solid and hard to damage. It was fireproof and could be easily woven into chainmail. I gave them more enhanced skeletons and muscles to help carry the weight. While most of these sheep would remain of the 'steel wool' variety, I gave special attention to three. One received a golden fleece, one bore a mithril fleece, and the final sheep sported a moonsilver fleece.

Of course, I can't just make these sheep grow metal fleeces. No, they were now Geovores. Their fleeces would only grow when they were fed iron and charcoal. The more exotically-fleeced sheep needed their specific metals to grow theirs.

With that, I left the Minotaurs to get familiar with their flock and moved on.

I needed a break from the Tenth. I needed to step back and observe it for a while before I made any more changes. In the meantime... I've been putting it off for a while now, and I think it's time.

The ocean calls.

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The City Wall, Port Medea, Medea Island

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Jerrad Losat walked straight-backed, with his hands held behind him, along the recently-completed town wall. It stood eighteen feet tall, with crenellations to hide behind and murder holes to fire crossbow bolts and magic through. The black stone sparkled pleasingly, and some hired mages had fused it into a single large piece.

He was alone today since Isid was spending time with their niece. Harald was with Felin, helping him with the book on the first five floors of the dungeon. Given the dungeon's proclivity to change its floors, Jerrad was sure such a book would be quickly out-of-date. Who knows, though. He certainly had no idea.

Duncan was somewhere. Probably in a tavern, attempting to get into someone's pants.

Jerrad passed a couple of guards stationed on the wall above the eastern gate. He nodded, and they nodded back before returning to their watch.

Jerrad let his gaze follow the path as it left the gate. Where the cliffs above the dungeon had once been covered in jungle, now it was mostly bare. There was a squat lighthouse and a small observation area at the cliff's edge. Jerrad also knew there was a decent-sized spring up there, which flowed down into a river that ran right past the eastern wall he stood upon.

He stopped as he reached the end of the wall, which butted out into the ocean for more than a dozen yards.

He stood there for a time, looking out towards the horizon. The noise of crashing waves and shrieking seabirds was ever-present. A deep breath of the salty sea air didn't relax him, but it was calming.

He needed calm after their most recent delve.

Once again, his eyes were drawn to that glowing crack in the cliff. A half-dozen groups of Golds were standing in line, with another four resting in the shade of looming palm trees.

The number of guilders on the island had drastically decreased in the past few weeks. Recklessness, greed, and pride were the traits most often punished. In this dungeon, that punishment was death.

Those groups that were left were the cream of the crop in that regard. They had long since given up on the bounty, were cautious and careful when in the dungeon, and never let themselves grow complacent.

In fact... Had anyone actually died in the last few days? Jerrad couldn't recall any parties grieving lost members, nor any stricken from the record as wiped.

Had they actually reached an equilibrium with the dungeon?

On the horizon, he saw a fleet of white sails approaching. Merchants, most likely. Guilders drawn by promises of gold, experience, and danger? Probably. Jerrad found himself wondering how many would be cut down, like wheat, before the scythe.

And he wondered how many would survive. Would grow. Would shine.

Jerrad shook his head, turned, and walked back along the wall.

Despite how much he had tried to distract himself, his thoughts always returned to the dungeon. The Sixth floor was... daunting.

A vision of the Fourth Hell brought to life, inhabited by creatures of living fire and stone. A burning, dry heat filled the air. In the distance, red and black-tinged stone columns stood alongside literal pillars of lava, constantly falling from the cavern's ceiling.

He remembered the moment he saw the Fire Elemental and how it saw them. It had looked just as terrifying and unknowable as the last one he had seen decades ago. A humanoid figure made of living fire. And he was sure it wasn't the only one.

Like was drawn to like. If one Court had set up a presence here, Jerrad knew others would have. He daydreamed of what their floors would look like and found his imagination lacking.

Jerrad emerged from his daydreams on the eastern wall, approaching the east gate.

As with the west, he let his gaze follow the more well-worn path. This section of the island had seen the most significant change. Where there had once been a humid, dense jungle sprawled across the plain now lay dense farmland. Herds of farm animals were watched closely by their shepherds. Fields of various crops grew rapidly, and Jerrad knew their seeds were of varieties long obtained from dungeons on the mainland.

Beyond the farms, he could just make out the quarry, cutting as it was into the side of the volcano.

Jerrad nodded to the guards standing on the wall above the gate and continued on his walk.

This end of the wall also jutted out into the ocean for a distance, providing some shelter for the ships docked in the harbor. The docks themselves were busy, as always. Larger merchant ships sold their cargo and left, leaving space for others to arrive. Between the larger ships were smaller fishing vessels filled with nets and harpoons. Jerrad watched one such boat as its crew struggled to lift the wriggling net full of fish onto the dock.

He recalled what Layla had shared with Isid and himself about the ocean around them. Larger fish, changing currents, and more. Sightings of dolphins, whales, and sea turtles, far from their typical migration paths.

The sun hung low in the sky, hovering above the horizon, and he wondered what mysteries lay below the waves.

He'd done that a lot lately. Wondering, that is.

Jerrad had lived a long life. He had seen much and traveled to all the corners of the Kingdom. He gave a wan smile and shook his head. "By the gods, I'm getting old." He mumbled to himself.

He turned and descended a set of stairs near the gate. He joined the throng of farmers entering the town for the evening, making his way to the western wall. The house they had purchased was just inside the wall, not far from the gate. It was medium-sized, with a decent amount of garden space surrounding it.

Their own house. Another new experience. All their lives, they'd been travelers. They went from town to town, solving problems and fighting monsters. Rooms in taverns were cheap, and ordinary people often fell over themselves to accommodate powerful guilders like Jerrad and his wife.

Jerrad pushed the gate, closed it behind him, and walked up the cobbled path. The bare dirt to either side was already dotted with green shoots, not even a day after being sown.

He entered the house. The woman they'd hired as a live-in maid took his overcoat with a bow. "Welcome home, sir. Dinner will be ready shortly. Your wife is in the lounge with the Guildmistress." Jerrad nodded to the maid. He could smell the meal cooking and hear the cook murmuring to herself.

"Thank you, Vael." He removed his boots and followed the laughter to the lounge.

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The Dungeon, Medea Island, Kalenic Sea

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I gazed through the ocean, watching the undulating schools of fish as they swam around the island. In the time since I'd made the ocean floor my 'Zeroth Floor,' even more life had filled the area.

The coral reef had exploded with life and diversity and expanded physically. It covered roughly double the area it once had, but held roughly the same density of life. The sandy plains around it were likewise filled with life. In one section, great ribbons of kelp and seaweed snaked up from the ocean floor.

Another section, still bare, was patrolled by groups of sharks as they leisurely hunted the abundant food source around them.

Further afield, pods of various cetaceans roamed. They were mostly various species of Dolphin, but a large pod of humpback whales stood out. At least, they resembled the humpback. These particular specimens were migrating south to warmer waters. Instead, it seemed they'd decided the ocean around my island was warm and plankton-rich enough to have their breeding season here.

None of them were mine yet. My mana had remained settled within the sand. However, the crabs and other bottom-dwelling creatures had been assimilated already. Which wasn't surprising. They lived and hunted amongst a blanket of my mana, so it was inevitable.

If I wanted to do more, to claim more, I would need a lot more mana.

I spun off a half-dozen tendrils of mana and directed them out through some of the many undersea entrances to my dungeon. Rather than forcing the mana into any specific monsters, I had it diffuse into the water at roughly equal points around the island.

This would slowly raise the mana content of the ocean nearby, and I could feel the sea becoming part of me. Like an ink stain, I spread throughout the water. My mana encountered unaligned water mana and made it mine. It was like what I had experienced with atmospheric mana before my main stream had even started. Underwater, the mana was much, much denser.

In a fascinating display of the square-cubed law, the more of the ocean that became me, the faster I spread. Until...

I reached a limit.

About five miles out from the island, I lost hold of my mana. It was a fuzzy border, only yards wide, but as my mana passed through, I lost control of it. I wasn't sure if it was still 'my' mana, but there was an easy way to test it.

I directed one of my newly claimed fish out of the border and watched, fascinated, as I lost control of it. The fish, suddenly in control of itself, swam back into the field to get back to its school. Upon its re-entry, I found that my influence had been stripped completely, and it once again possessed 'unaligned' mana.

I re-claimed it and let it swim back to its school.

So I did have a hard border, then? Interesting. I eyed the mana current that brushed against the edge of that border, a stream peeling off before it dipped back out again.

While this bears investigating and experimentation, I turned back to the fish. With my 'claiming' of the ocean around the island, all the creatures within that five-mile radius were mine.

I now had control of dozens of fish species, including sharks, dolphins, and whales.

I mostly left them alone to do their own things since I didn't want to spook the humans too badly. What I did want was a way to defend my island a bit more overtly.

There are dozens of sea monsters in earth myth; the Leviathan, Kraken, and Sea Serpent are among the most memorable. I want to bring one of each to life to defend my island in the case of invasion.

I'll begin with... the Kraken, I think. In fact, I think I'll have it pull double-duty here.

I located a random octopus and led it to the tunnel that the mana current used to enter my dungeon. I quickly widened the tunnel, turning it into a large cave. At the back of the cave sat the vent the mana current entered through. Now within its new den, I gave the octopus a monster core and began enlarging it.

As it grew, I had it develop another sixteen smaller tentacles in a ring around its body, set above the central eight. I also gave it four larger tentacles inside the main eight. Its skin was significantly hardened, and its muscles improved in elasticity and raw power. I made its now enlarged beak serrated, the edges more than sharp and strong enough to cut through wood.

Now, the body of octopi, as a rule, consists entirely of its head and tentacles. It has no 'body' besides that. Its head contains no skull; it had a mere sack to hold its brain. My Kraken would have no such weakness. I made its brain case subtly scaled and well-reinforced, inside and on the surface.

By the time I was satisfied with the monster, I had a carrack-sized Kraken.

In terms of instincts, I made it sedentary. It would much prefer to stay within its den and wait for prey to swim past than actively hunt anything. In times of need, I would direct it to attack and destroy ships around the island.

Next... A Sea Serpent. Now, what creature would work as a base...

Ah! Yes, a sea snake would work just fine.

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© Max Porteous, 2022