The Tower in the Shadows

The work started with the shit. I mean literal shit, as in donkey shit. The animal had crapped in several places in the first room. Hating to, I absorbed it first to get rid of it; if I could, I would be shuddering right now. As I was doing this, Larry returned to the rafters. I got a notification telling me I now have access to manure as a resource.

"What the hell am I going to do with that?"

As usual, there was no reply to my question. I was moving on, absorbing the packs from the donkey. Another extended notification appeared telling me I now had access to two tents that gave me Oil Skin Leather (Poor). This treated form of leather was water resistant and used instead of canvas in the tents. Camping equipment and travel rations (Poor) were added to my inventory again. There was also a Short Bow (Poor) with a quiver of twenty Basic Arrows (Poor). All these two dead fools had was crappy cheap gear; I was not impressed. The only thing it did was increase my CP slightly as I regenerated back to full.

"What cheap ass crap!"

Capture Net (Common): What was this? It was the only thing in the packs that was not poor quality. According to its description, it captured and trapped insects and small creatures. They must have used this to capture that fairy thing in the lantern before they arrived.

OK. With that done, I moved to the two dead bodies, hoping to get something good. Just as I was going to absorb them, I heard a strange sound from the rafters. Upon investigation, I found Larry flopped flat along one, running beside the fireplace, snoring loudly. I was tempted to wake him, but as he had done good work this night, I decided against that and returned to the bodies.

The fire was built up and blazing merrily away; the logs would probably take the rest of the night to burn through. I enjoyed the fire and the flames' effect, causing the room's shadows to dance. I replaced the logs used and absorbed the bodies.

The notification was a bit more interesting.

Materials absorbed.

Iron Short Swords x2 (Quality -Poor, Durability-10/10 Notes- +1 Damage, Iron)

Iron Daggers x2 (Quality -Poor, Durability-10/10 Notes- +1 Damage, Iron)

Nascan Copper Coins x10 (Copper 60%)

A bag of Pixie Lure (Uncommon)

"Even their damn weapons and money are crap!"

The iron weapons were terrible compared to the Cythian short sword I absorbed when I first arrived all those months ago. They had less than half the durability and the damage of my original blade. I compare the two in my menu section for creating items. The difference between the two blades was clear to see. The short sword was cheap in construction and probably this world's version of mass-produced. The other blade showed apparent workmanship and care in its forging. I decided that this dungeon was never going to use these poor-quality weapons. My dungeon would produce slightly better rewards as quality would attract more adventurers. The Nascan copper coins were also smaller than the ones I have and had a much lower purity count in copper, so they were replaced with other alloys. No wonder they were excited when they discovered them. There are far better coins—another feature to lure the greedy in.

The bag, however, was interesting. It was the first uncommon-quality item I had found. Pixie lure, what the hell was this?

Pixie Lure

This contains a powdery substance. It is a mixture of different herbs and alchemic chemicals designed to attract any pixie that smells it. It also acts as a narcotic when touched by a pixie, rendering them euphoric and unaware of their surroundings.

"What the hell?"

When absorbing the backpacks and bodies, I noticed two very odd things: a pair of oversized hoops with nets listed as Capture Nets—the type that you see people use to catch butterflies. Combining them with this Pixie lure stuff was how the two men had captured and placed the Pixie in the lantern.

"So, it was a Pixie, not a fairy. Good to know. I wonder if fairies are real?"

I could not recreate the Pixie lure. Something unknown made it up and I did not know the ingredients even after absorbing them. This was a bit frustrating, as I hoped to gain more knowledge from the stuff, which was of an uncommon quality, but I was denied.

Looking over to the last item in the room, I found myself in a quandary. The lantern was still on the desk and I realised I should stop calling it a lantern but a prison cage. Knowing it was magical and the minute I absorbed it, whatever magical energy was contained within would be lost very quickly.

"What to do then?"

My instincts were to absorb it, but I resisted. To distract myself, I returned my attention to the basement. The expansion of my aura into the surrounding earth had been going well and I was almost ready to implement my plan for the floor redesign. During my renewal of expansion, I was thinking over the arrival and death of the two men and remembered something I had ignored.

"Damn it!"

I would have been screwed if Larry had not been in the room!

When external living things are present in my dungeon that I do not control, I cannot manipulate or alter anything with my aura where they are located. I stopped my expansion as I pondered this new problem and how to get around it. At the moment, Larry was essential to such situations and how I would resolve them, but then the issue of him not being in the room in the first place came to my mind. I returned to the main room to seek inspiration in resolving this issue.

It took me several hours to think of options and ways to resolve the problem. In the end, I created what I can only describe as a cat flap up in the rafters for Larry to get through. Making a hole in the wall and attached a small wooden board on hinges to it, allowing it to swing out so Larry could move between the room and the tower. The flap is located on the tower's first floor, as the rafters aligned more with the ground floor.

As a safety feature, I installed a similar flap for every room linked to the tower. There was a wooden section that acted as a trapdoor. This could be dropped to act as a barrier between the tower's floors. This was to prevent hostiles from moving up the tower and possibly to stop a draft. The arrow-slit windows on the first floor had no shutters; the floor above was the same and the third was more open-plan.

I was satisfied that this was the best I could do when I returned my attention to the basement. My CP had been drained by the alterations I made to the tower, but not so badly as to hinder part of my expansion. Within an hour, I had claimed with my aura of the last pieces of the earth around me that I would expand into.

I started alterations on the floor by removing the doorways that led into several other storerooms. The main room above me faced south; how I knew that, I was not sure, but I knew it was facing south. I removed the North-East and South doorways. I filled them in with new bricks matching the stonework around the tower base. I left the West doorway open, as that was the entrance to the floor now.

Entering the Western storeroom, I cleared out all the materials I had not already absorbed. Moving to the back of the room, two doorways were added, one facing North and one facing South. The northern doorway was where I began to tunnel out of the new room, absorbing the earth, stone and whatever else I found as I moved out, creating a new space. I gained nothing of note during this excavation apart from a few bones that I was aware of.

It took me several hours to carefully carve out the room, ensuring I was not moving past where my aura had expanded. Several alerts popped up during this time, but I chose to ignore them as I moved on with my work. It was much larger than the storerooms and I expanded the rafters from the storeroom into this one that crossed to the opposite side of the northern wall. I purposely fell short here, allowing the rafters into the wall. I then returned and created brickwork for the Western wall and paving slabs for the floor. The southern and eastern walls already had brick because they were where the two storerooms were. I chose to leave the northern wall as exposed earth and had a plan for here that would be implemented later. Glancing at my CP level, I had just enough to finish this room. I pushed my aura out a bit further, creating an area of the earth that I controlled further northwards.

This used up the remaining CP and I had to stop, but I was delighted with my work. I spent some time regenerating my CP and read the alert messages I had ignored.

"OK. Doing better now."

Level Up!

Aura Manipulation has increased to level 5. CP use was reduced to 95%.

Alert!

CP regeneration increased to 0.35 per hour.

Resources Gained!

Flint

Wolf bones (Full skeleton)

Bones (Assorted)

The CP regeneration jump was highly welcome and was not expected. Mulling over for a few minutes, the only thing I could come up with was that the space I had created was original to me and not part of the pre-existing structure. I hope that as I expand and create new rooms and floors, my CP regeneration will increase to match the size of my dungeon.

The aura manipulation was another welcome level-up, but the benefits of this skill were hard to see at the time. A 1% decrease in CP cost per level meant it would be until at least level 10 before I saw any real practical benefits from the skill. Again, I had many questions about the system and the world I was in but had no one to ask.

I went over the plans I had outlined in my mind for the rest of the floor, ensuring that I was on board with what I was going to do. I didn't have the resources, but I had the time to make changes, so I had to be careful with what I was doing.

Eventually, my CP regenerated and I moved to the next room. I started by creating a door on the eastern side of the storeroom that I had sealed off and led into the north-facing storeroom. I made another doorway on the south side of this room near where the original entry point was facing east again. This would be the access to the next room I was to create. This did not use much CP as they were simple things to accomplish. This gave me plenty of resources to use in modifying this room. As I left the other room unaltered beyond its initial creation, I finished the floor before adding any traps or creatures.

I quickly carved out another room the same size as the one I created. I made the same design choices this room has had with the other and promptly finished it. On the south side, I made another doorway leading into the storeroom facing east. I did the same as the previous storeroom with another exit facing south.

Pausing only to regenerate my CP, I made two additional rooms after one had just finished. I created the doorway system between these rooms to run in a clockwise system around these rooms, meaning that anyone who enters the only open storeroom will be led in a clockwise route around the floor. The final doorway I created faced the first one made in the west storeroom and had a door rather than an open arch. I had absorbed one of the doors upstairs and replaced it earlier; the door was a solid wood oak with metal studs and was perfect for what I needed it to be. After experimenting with creating a door that can only be opened one way, I opted for the more straightforward means of securing the door. I place a deadbolt inside the door that can only be opened from within my created room.

"Stage 1 finished at last!"

I had lost track of time while creating these new rooms and ignored my notifications. As I had not sensed anything entering my sphere of influence, I hadn't bothered to check them as I knew that nothing significant, as far as I was concerned, had happened. But with the rooms finished, I thought now was a good time to check before I started creating creatures and traps.

Level Up!

Aura Manipulation has increased to level 6. CP use was reduced to 94%.

Alert!

CP regeneration increased to 0.65 per hour.

Resources Gained!

Human bones x4 (Full skeleton)

Wolf bones (Full skeleton)

Bones (Assorted)

"Eh?"

Human bones? I have been so focused on absorbing the material to create the rooms that I had not been paying attention to what I was absorbing. The fact that I now had four complete skeletons of human remains was quite a surprise. Theoretically, I can use them to raise undead if I learn how. That could be an interesting addition to my dungeon's repertoire of monsters. Wait. Hold on; Undead is generally not a well-received monster type in many of the stories I have read. I didn't know the situation with the local churches or their corresponding gods to risk the creation of the undead at the moment. I didn't want to risk a cultural taboo being violated that would force the locals to destroy me, so again, the lack of information proved to be a significant problem for me.

The aura manipulation level increase and the CP regeneration increase were welcome improvements. Now that the primary outlay of the floors was finished, I could start finalising the monsters and traps I would put on this floor. With my limited options regarding these things, it was time to get creative.