You are Summoned

“Don’t worry about dying Rico, you’ll be back in no time once the adventurers are done,” Hoen advised as I floated in the void for a moment.

It wasn’t too dissimilar to being in the void waiting to return to my personal space. One nice change was that my link to the dungeon was still active, and I could follow what was going on inside while I waited to respawn. Even better, I had someone to talk to as Hoen seemed to be in wherever this place was with me.

“Since we’ve got a bit of time, any chance that you can explain things a bit more for me?” I asked.

“I suppose that’s not a problem, though the system will limit what I can disclose since you’re only a temporary part of our dungeon. There’s no giving up of important trade secrets allowed,” Hoen replied. It was just like being a temp at an office. They wanted you there to complete a specific task, but didn’t want to splurge on any additional training, or disclose any company secrets to someone who probably wasn’t going to be there for more than a few weeks.

“How about we start with what just happened? I was almost expecting the summons to be over, and I’d be sent back to my personal space to wait for the next one,” Rico asked.

“Yeah, you’re with us now, pal. You roll with the dungeon core, and you get a few advantages. First, unless Glenda is destroyed, none of us can be permanently killed or harmed. You also get a front row seat to watch things while we wait, take a look, these guys are going to clear the place, I’d say,” Hoen advised.

I shifted my view to the adventurers. In the time that I had died, been sent to the void, and linked back with the dungeon, the adventurers had just about cleared out the next level of the Forest of Rebuke. The second floor of Glenda’s dungeon was the corrupted forest. Inside were twisted versions of forest creatures, and rotting plant monsters.

The floor champion on the second floor was a corrupted, twelve-foot tall treant. Powerful, but slow, the treant compensated for its lack of speed with the ability to push roots up from the ground to stab its foes. In addition, the yellow-green noxious sap of the beast sprayed out whenever it was hit in melee, causing the adventurers more than a few problems. As I looked over the floor champion, the system granted me more detailed information on it.

Verdigrim, 2nd floor champion of the Forest of Rebuke.

Tier 1, rank 5 Veteran.

Abilities.

Impaling Roots. Verdigrim can thrust one of its roots up through the ground at a single target. The target must be within 30-feet of the treant, and the attack does both bludgeoning and piercing damage.

Swipe. Verdigrim can swipe its arms to hit any creature in reach. If hit, an enemy has a chance to be swept back and knocked off their feet.

Traits.

Corrupted Sap. Each time Verdigrim is struck in melee, pressurized sap is released from the wound. In his corrupted state, Verdigrim’s sap corrodes the flesh of anyone hit by it and has a chance to inflict a rotting disease.

Rotting Bark. Just as with the rest of his body, Verdigrim’s bark has undergone a corrupting change. It no longer provides a hard, protective shell, and instead has become soft, moist, and spongy in nature. All slashing and piercing damage inflicted on Verdigrim is increased by 15%. All crushing and fire-based damage is reduced by 30%.

“Verdigrim has the veteran tag on his information, what exactly does that mean?” I asked Hoen. One of my single-use figurines, the skeletal blademaster, also had that tag, which would have normally increased its mana cost to summon, but my class dropped it back down to one.

“Veterans, and the other upgraded minions are pretty great for a dungeon. When Glenda upgrades one of our creatures to a floor champion, it automatically becomes a veteran. The veteran defenders are considered five tiers higher than the normal version. It saves Glenda her, well, it looks like the system isn’t going to let me go into how her dungeon resources for summoning defenders works. In simple terms, it allows us to have a more powerful defender that doesn’t cost us as much,” Hoen said.

While the dungeon advisor was restricted from giving me the lowdown on how the dungeon worked, I had to assume it was similar to the amount of my mana that needed to be reserved for my summoning figurines. My blademaster figurine was tier one, rank zero, but it sounded like he’d perform as if he was tier one, rank five. It was a nice bump in power, especially when I included the rank bump from my class skill and the headband I wore.

“That seems like a powerful ability, I assume that the number of defenders you can promote to veteran is limited,” I inquired.

“Yeah, again, I can’t go into details, but each time Glenda adds a floor, it works out that we get a veteran for a floor boss. Of course, the baseline tier and rank of the floor champion is connected to what floor it’s on. The higher the floors, the higher the tier and rank go. We also get one dungeon champion that’s considered elite,” Hoen said.

“How much better is an elite over a veteran?” I asked, already drooling at the thought of acquiring some elite figurines. Maybe they were available in the shops at the higher tiers of Somhagen.

“Where the veteran is five ranks over his base rating, an elite is an entire tier higher. Even better, the elite gets abilities and skills that are often upgraded higher than the tier bump would suggest,” Hoen said with pride.

While the adventurers battled Verdigrim, I looked through the last floor of the dungeon to check out the elite dungeon champion. To my surprise, the third floor had both a regular floor champion, a bear with an elf archer riding on top of it, and the dungeon champion. The dungeon champion was located through a small trail in the woods that led from the clearing where the final floor champion waited.

Glenda’s core had been too badly damaged, so the dungeon champion hadn’t respawned yet. All I could see was a glowing blur where it would eventually respawn.

“How do the adventurers know about the dungeon champion?” I asked, curious how many adventurers left this place after defeating the bear and rider combo, thinking they’d completed all that the dungeon had to offer.

“It’s sort of a standard thing, you know. Every dungeon has an optional elite champion that gives greater rewards but is much more difficult to defeat. I take it you don’t have dungeons in your world. This stuff is kind of common knowledge, champ,” Hoen replied.

“No, where I’m from, its mana starved, so no dungeons. Thanks again, I do appreciate you sharing info with me,” I replied.

“That’s weird, how do you do stuff without magic?” Hoen asked, seemingly just as curious about my world as I was about his.

“Technology, and I don’t mean the gnomish stuff that’s powered by magic, we have all kinds of machines that do just about everything magic does. I suppose technology would be a bit further along on mana-rich worlds, except you have common spells that knock out anything complex,” I replied.

“Yeah, those spells are common enough, which makes magic all that much better. That being said, it would be fun to check out your home world, it seems like an interesting place to visit,” Hoen said.

“Ha, funny you say that I’m looking to leave my world as soon as I can,” I replied.

“Grass is always greener, eh?” Hoen asked.

“You got it,” I replied, amused that the translation provided by the system also translated whatever Hoen was saying into phrases that matched what I was comfortable with. I was pretty sure he didn’t really say “the grass is always greener” in whatever language or communication ability he used.

“How long do you think it’ll take for the dungeon champion to respawn?” I asked.

“A while yet, I know Glenda’s focusing on that, but I think she was hurt worse than she was letting on. Don’t worry, we’ll respawn quickly once the adventurers leave. I can’t go into why it’s easier for us to come back than for her to respawn the missing defenders, system restrictions again,” Hoen said.

“Look, they beat Verdigrim,” I said, as the giant, corrupted treant fell to the ground in a pile of slowly dissolving wooden bits and sap.

“He fought well enough, but everything’s still a bit off until Glenda’s back to normal,” Hoen explained. Verdigrim had been a difficult foe for the adventurers, and while none of them had died in the encounter, they were battered, injured, and much of their equipment was damaged.

“Looks like they’re packing things in. I don’t think they’re heading to the third floor,” I said. The party had gathered around the fallen champion, gathering up the loot that Glenda had spawned for them. They came away with a sizeable pile of coins, and a gnarled, wooden staff that glowed with mana. As hurt as they were, the party seemed pleased with their rewards as they cautiously moved back toward the entrance.

Maybe there was something like a library in the next tier of Somhagen. It would be nice to check out how a dungeon functioned. I was sure that the rewards Glenda created took a lot of her power, but that indicated that she was getting all that and more back from the adventurers somehow. As the final adventurer, the gnome in the exoskeleton, left the dungeon. I could feel myself being pulled back to the first floor.

It was time for me to make some changes based on what I’d experienced with the adventurers. I vowed to not be such a pushover next time.