- Location
- Neptune
And? You didn't invent the idea. The Wall of the Faithless has been part of the FR lore for ages.
Tales of the Best Dungeon Ever
- Thread starter Vanigo
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
-
- Tags
- original best dungeon? halping
Sorry, no hot crustacean bands here.
It was a beautiful day in the Kobold Archipelago. The breeze was blowing, the waves were lapping, the imitation sun was shining, and there wasn't a cloud in the clear blue roof. Of course, every day was a beautiful day in the Kobold Archipelago. For that matter, every night was a beautiful day in the Kobold Archipelago. Dungeons rarely paid attention to the day/night cycles of the outside world.
The verdant little islands that took the place of rooms, and the bridges and self-propelled ferries that linked them together, hadn't taken long to map out, and several weaker adventuring parties were trying their luck. Kobolds were among the weakest monsters, so it was pretty easy as long as you were very, very careful about traps.
The sea between them was entirely uninteresting, unless you felt like going for a swim. There were no monsters - which was fortunate, since the ferries would be death traps if there were - and no loot to tempt any would-be divers. Even beyond that, though, the sea was simply dull. Sandy slopes descended from the shoreline down to a rocky floor about thirty feet below the surface. That was it. No coral, no fish, no seaweed, no clams - unlike the islands above, it was as lifeless and sterile as a giant swimming pool.
"WOOOOOOOOOO!"
... but if you did feel like going for a swim, it was perfect. That was why Cener was here, trying to break her airtime record for jumping out of the water in mermaid form. The sunlight sparkled on the blue scales and orange fins of her tail as she shot out of the water at high speed, hung in the air for a second or two, and then toppled over and belly-flopped back into the sea.
She and her team had finally gotten their hands on a fourth aquatic form amulet, and had quickly realized that they needed to practice with them before they tried fighting underwater. They'd been coming here every day for a week now, getting the hang of moving and fighting in their underwater forms. Entering the dungeon on multiple consecutive days was widely considered to be unwise, but they weren't really adventuring, so they figured it didn't count.
Besides, they were having too much fun.
In the sea below, Hevis was practicing casting spells while swimming. Bolts of black energy shot down at the sea floor as he twisted his path into a tight helix. Meanwhile, a safe distance away, Borrin and Narik were sparring. Their amulets, the third and fourth the group had found, were somewhat different.
Borrin, rather than a fish tail, still had his legs, but they sported broad fins and deep violet scales. His hands and forearms were also scaled and webbed. This left him with a bit more armor than Cener - everyone but Hevis had entered the water wearing a full suit of leather armor (since their usual armor had proved too heavy), but where Cener's armor had vanished below the waist, Borrin's had instead grown slits to let his fins through.
Narik's form was much more unusual. His aquatic form was some sort of brightly colored lobster-centaur. He couldn't swim nearly as well as the rest of the party, but his hard shell gave him much better protection, and his amulet also let him swing his wooden practice sword through the water as easily as air. He and Cener would have traded amulets - Cener, a warpriest, was the group's main front-liner, so the durability and power would have done her more good - but one of the mermaid amulets specifically turned the wearer into a mermaid, regardless of gender, so obviously it had to go to her.
Narik stood his ground on the sea floor, his spiderlike legs splayed out, and turned to face Borrin as he tried to circle around. With his greater mobility and the fact that Narik's bow simply didn't work underwater, even with his amulet's magic, the dwarven rogue could flit about with near-impunity. Narik was, however, quick enough on the ground that Borrin couldn't just circle around and come straight for his back.
With a sudden twist, Borrin switched from circling to charging, swimming straight for Narik, who raised his sword and shield and held his ground. Then Borrin turned again, this time upwards, and swam above Narik's head, just out of reach. A final twist sent him diving straight down at Narik's back.
Narik, his head craned back, dodged quickly to the left, and a practice dagger glanced off his shell. Borrin bounced himself off the ground and lunged for Narik's back, trying to press the advantage, but his momentum was spent, and Narik was able to fend him off the strike with his shield. Narik quickly turned to face Borrin properly, but he simply leapt back out of reach.
Narik didn't pursue. They'd quickly learned that there wasn't much point.
"Damn it," he grumbled. "I hate not having a ranged option." His voice was distorted slightly by the water, but probably not by as much as it should have been.
"That's life underwater, I guess," Borrin replied. Unlike Narik, he was breathing heavily, his acrobatics taking their toll on his stamina. Of course, being a rogue in a one-on-one duel didn't help either.
Borrin was trying to tease out an opening for another approach when Hevis called out from somewhere in the distance: "Hey, I think I see something out that way!"
Cener let herself drift to a stop, then started swimming in his direction. "You see something? There's nothing down here!"
"Well apparently there's one thing down here! Looks like some stone pillars coming out of some rubble. A sunken shrine or something."
Not long after that, the party had gathered up and was scoping out the little ruin from a safe distance. It was, as Narik had reported, little more than a pile of stone blocks with a few pillars still standing. A bright pink swordfish swam aimlessly around the rubble, apparently not having noticed them yet.
Borrin had the map out and was marking the ruin down as a point of interest. His enchanted pen - silver and polished obsidian - wrote with a vaguely unpleasant yellow-grey ink, but it worked perfectly underwater, which was much more important. The map itself, like all good dungeon maps, was made of parchment that had been alchemically treated to improve its durability, and so far it was also standing up to the water fine.
"All right, good enough. Might be a few feet off, but in a place like this, who cares?"
Narik winced slightly, but said nothing.
Cener just nodded, though. "Okay, so how are we gonna do this?"
"Well, this is still a trap floor, so we'd better bait that thing out instead of heading in. Narik, you get its attention and then get behind us."
Soon, bolts of shadowy magic rained on the swordfish, which turned to face the source, and then promptly took off in the opposite direction, leaving the party floating around, nonplussed.
"Huh," Cener finally said. "That was pointless."
Borrin shrugged. "Whatever. I'll start checking for traps."
As the party approached the ruin and got a look at it from above, though, they spotted something unexpected: a boss chest on a simple stone platform in the middle of the rubble. It was, of course, sealed up tight.
Narik scowled. "Oh, hell. Are we going to have to chase that thing down?"
Hevis launched another lance of power at the fleeing fish, just barely tagging it as it escaped his range. Cener and Borrin were ahead, trying to intercept it as it fled the only ranged threat, but it was too fast and had too much room to maneuver. It juked left and climbed towards the surface, and despite Borrin's best efforts he barely got within ten feet of the thing.
The past hour or so had been tremendously frustrating. The fish was faster than them. It was nearly as maneuverable. There were no dead ends to trap it in. It didn't care about Narik's enchanted fishing rod, much to everyone's disappointment.
Also, rainbow lobster centaurs were pretty useless at underwater tag.
Only Hevis had managed to touch the fish, and only with his longest-range spells, which couldn't hurt it enough to slow it down before it escaped. The fish was smart enough to know it, too, and it prioritized escaping him over the others. Cener and Borrin were doing their best, but it was just too fast for them to engage in melee. Narik's mobility in open water was poor enough that it could nearly ignore him.
Finally, Borrin raised his voice. "All right, this isn't working. We need a better plan."
Hevis and Cener swam closer, and Narik scuttled over a moment later.
"About damn time." Narik, unsurprisingly, was grumpier than the rest of the party.
Cener let herself settle down on the sea floor. It wasn't exactly sitting, but it was pretty close. "So, if chasing this this won't work, what are we going to do?"
Borrin turned to Hevis. "How about your wall of chains spell? Could you block off a pocket to chase it into?"
Hevis shook his head. "No, I can only cover so much area, and with how deep the water is, the islands are too far apart. Maybe I could block off one of the smallest channels, but definitely not two, so it could just go a different way. Cener, you don't have anything like that, do you?"
"You know my magic is all for healing wounds and/or punching faces. Some members of my order use a speed boost spell, but I've never learned it." Cener paused in thought for a moment, then added, "And actually, I dunno if it even works on swimming speed."
"Well," Hevis offered, "what if we used fishing net instead?"
"That might work, if we could get a couple of giant fishing nets. In a tiny dungeon town in the mountains," Narik quickly pointed out.
The party sat in thought for a while longer, then Narik spoke up.
"I've got an idea. What if we think like Kobolds on this one?"
Cener chased after the swordfish, which steadily gained ground as it sped down the broad channel between a pair of islands. A third island was dead ahead, so it had to turn soon. It quickly sized up its options.
The channel to the left was narrower, and Borrin was waiting in the middle of it. It was probably fast enough to slip by, but it was skittish enough that it didn't want to chance it. To the right, Hevis was waiting on the right side of the wide channel, and he had erected a wall of chains across most of the rest of it. Most of the channel was blocked either by the wall or by being way too close to Hevis, but on the far left was a corner of the shallows that the wall didn't quite reach.
The fish made its decision and turned right, going straight for the opening.
As it passed through, though, Narik burst out of the sand and pounced on it, plunging his sword into its left flank. The boss's momentum nearly pulled the sword out of Narik's hand before it got loose, but it took quite a bit more damage in the process, and lost most of its speed. Narik was quick to follow up, leaping from the sandy ground and grabbing the fish by the gills.
Things went pretty smoothly after that. The boss, although fast and durable, turned out to be pretty helpless in an actual fight.
"Fucking finally! I was starting to cramp up down there," Narik groused as the swordfish dematerialized.
"At least it worked," Cener pointed out. "This chest better be worth it."
"It better not be worth it," Narik shot back. "That way we never have to do this again. I've got aches in places where I'm not supposed to have places."
"Well," Borrin said as he swam up, "let's see what it is, and then we can decide if it was worth it or not."
The group headed back to the little ruin, where the boss chest was now unsealed. Unusually, there wasn't a single coin. The only things in the chest were a few bronze bolts and a crossbow made of bronze and what looked like whalebone.
Hevis examined it and cast a quick spell. "The crossbow's enchanted, but the bolts are normal."
Borrin picked up the crossbow and experimentally cocked it. "Think it works underwater?" A quick test shot sent a bolt into the sand as easily as he'd have expected on land.
He immediately handed the crossbow to Narik, who clearly had mixed feelings about it. "Oh, hell, we're going to have to keep killing that thing, aren't we?"
"Well, maybe you can get some little harpoons for that thing?"
That went pretty well! A monster that runs away instead of fighting is pretty weird, but it's a fun change of pace. And it's perfect for the sea in the Kobold Archipelago, since it'd be unfair to put any dangerous monsters in there. Now it's like having two branches in one!
Or, it will be soon, anyway. I'm going to have to make a bunch more fish minibosses. And maybe I should fix up the scenery? I didn't realize anyone would actually go down there.
You know, I never would have thought of making monsters run away on my own. I'm glad Andis thought of it! I'll have to thank him next time he dies.
The verdant little islands that took the place of rooms, and the bridges and self-propelled ferries that linked them together, hadn't taken long to map out, and several weaker adventuring parties were trying their luck. Kobolds were among the weakest monsters, so it was pretty easy as long as you were very, very careful about traps.
The sea between them was entirely uninteresting, unless you felt like going for a swim. There were no monsters - which was fortunate, since the ferries would be death traps if there were - and no loot to tempt any would-be divers. Even beyond that, though, the sea was simply dull. Sandy slopes descended from the shoreline down to a rocky floor about thirty feet below the surface. That was it. No coral, no fish, no seaweed, no clams - unlike the islands above, it was as lifeless and sterile as a giant swimming pool.
"WOOOOOOOOOO!"
... but if you did feel like going for a swim, it was perfect. That was why Cener was here, trying to break her airtime record for jumping out of the water in mermaid form. The sunlight sparkled on the blue scales and orange fins of her tail as she shot out of the water at high speed, hung in the air for a second or two, and then toppled over and belly-flopped back into the sea.
She and her team had finally gotten their hands on a fourth aquatic form amulet, and had quickly realized that they needed to practice with them before they tried fighting underwater. They'd been coming here every day for a week now, getting the hang of moving and fighting in their underwater forms. Entering the dungeon on multiple consecutive days was widely considered to be unwise, but they weren't really adventuring, so they figured it didn't count.
Besides, they were having too much fun.
In the sea below, Hevis was practicing casting spells while swimming. Bolts of black energy shot down at the sea floor as he twisted his path into a tight helix. Meanwhile, a safe distance away, Borrin and Narik were sparring. Their amulets, the third and fourth the group had found, were somewhat different.
Borrin, rather than a fish tail, still had his legs, but they sported broad fins and deep violet scales. His hands and forearms were also scaled and webbed. This left him with a bit more armor than Cener - everyone but Hevis had entered the water wearing a full suit of leather armor (since their usual armor had proved too heavy), but where Cener's armor had vanished below the waist, Borrin's had instead grown slits to let his fins through.
Narik's form was much more unusual. His aquatic form was some sort of brightly colored lobster-centaur. He couldn't swim nearly as well as the rest of the party, but his hard shell gave him much better protection, and his amulet also let him swing his wooden practice sword through the water as easily as air. He and Cener would have traded amulets - Cener, a warpriest, was the group's main front-liner, so the durability and power would have done her more good - but one of the mermaid amulets specifically turned the wearer into a mermaid, regardless of gender, so obviously it had to go to her.
Narik stood his ground on the sea floor, his spiderlike legs splayed out, and turned to face Borrin as he tried to circle around. With his greater mobility and the fact that Narik's bow simply didn't work underwater, even with his amulet's magic, the dwarven rogue could flit about with near-impunity. Narik was, however, quick enough on the ground that Borrin couldn't just circle around and come straight for his back.
With a sudden twist, Borrin switched from circling to charging, swimming straight for Narik, who raised his sword and shield and held his ground. Then Borrin turned again, this time upwards, and swam above Narik's head, just out of reach. A final twist sent him diving straight down at Narik's back.
Narik, his head craned back, dodged quickly to the left, and a practice dagger glanced off his shell. Borrin bounced himself off the ground and lunged for Narik's back, trying to press the advantage, but his momentum was spent, and Narik was able to fend him off the strike with his shield. Narik quickly turned to face Borrin properly, but he simply leapt back out of reach.
Narik didn't pursue. They'd quickly learned that there wasn't much point.
"Damn it," he grumbled. "I hate not having a ranged option." His voice was distorted slightly by the water, but probably not by as much as it should have been.
"That's life underwater, I guess," Borrin replied. Unlike Narik, he was breathing heavily, his acrobatics taking their toll on his stamina. Of course, being a rogue in a one-on-one duel didn't help either.
Borrin was trying to tease out an opening for another approach when Hevis called out from somewhere in the distance: "Hey, I think I see something out that way!"
Cener let herself drift to a stop, then started swimming in his direction. "You see something? There's nothing down here!"
"Well apparently there's one thing down here! Looks like some stone pillars coming out of some rubble. A sunken shrine or something."
Not long after that, the party had gathered up and was scoping out the little ruin from a safe distance. It was, as Narik had reported, little more than a pile of stone blocks with a few pillars still standing. A bright pink swordfish swam aimlessly around the rubble, apparently not having noticed them yet.
Borrin had the map out and was marking the ruin down as a point of interest. His enchanted pen - silver and polished obsidian - wrote with a vaguely unpleasant yellow-grey ink, but it worked perfectly underwater, which was much more important. The map itself, like all good dungeon maps, was made of parchment that had been alchemically treated to improve its durability, and so far it was also standing up to the water fine.
"All right, good enough. Might be a few feet off, but in a place like this, who cares?"
Narik winced slightly, but said nothing.
Cener just nodded, though. "Okay, so how are we gonna do this?"
"Well, this is still a trap floor, so we'd better bait that thing out instead of heading in. Narik, you get its attention and then get behind us."
Soon, bolts of shadowy magic rained on the swordfish, which turned to face the source, and then promptly took off in the opposite direction, leaving the party floating around, nonplussed.
"Huh," Cener finally said. "That was pointless."
Borrin shrugged. "Whatever. I'll start checking for traps."
As the party approached the ruin and got a look at it from above, though, they spotted something unexpected: a boss chest on a simple stone platform in the middle of the rubble. It was, of course, sealed up tight.
Narik scowled. "Oh, hell. Are we going to have to chase that thing down?"
Hevis launched another lance of power at the fleeing fish, just barely tagging it as it escaped his range. Cener and Borrin were ahead, trying to intercept it as it fled the only ranged threat, but it was too fast and had too much room to maneuver. It juked left and climbed towards the surface, and despite Borrin's best efforts he barely got within ten feet of the thing.
The past hour or so had been tremendously frustrating. The fish was faster than them. It was nearly as maneuverable. There were no dead ends to trap it in. It didn't care about Narik's enchanted fishing rod, much to everyone's disappointment.
Also, rainbow lobster centaurs were pretty useless at underwater tag.
Only Hevis had managed to touch the fish, and only with his longest-range spells, which couldn't hurt it enough to slow it down before it escaped. The fish was smart enough to know it, too, and it prioritized escaping him over the others. Cener and Borrin were doing their best, but it was just too fast for them to engage in melee. Narik's mobility in open water was poor enough that it could nearly ignore him.
Finally, Borrin raised his voice. "All right, this isn't working. We need a better plan."
Hevis and Cener swam closer, and Narik scuttled over a moment later.
"About damn time." Narik, unsurprisingly, was grumpier than the rest of the party.
Cener let herself settle down on the sea floor. It wasn't exactly sitting, but it was pretty close. "So, if chasing this this won't work, what are we going to do?"
Borrin turned to Hevis. "How about your wall of chains spell? Could you block off a pocket to chase it into?"
Hevis shook his head. "No, I can only cover so much area, and with how deep the water is, the islands are too far apart. Maybe I could block off one of the smallest channels, but definitely not two, so it could just go a different way. Cener, you don't have anything like that, do you?"
"You know my magic is all for healing wounds and/or punching faces. Some members of my order use a speed boost spell, but I've never learned it." Cener paused in thought for a moment, then added, "And actually, I dunno if it even works on swimming speed."
"Well," Hevis offered, "what if we used fishing net instead?"
"That might work, if we could get a couple of giant fishing nets. In a tiny dungeon town in the mountains," Narik quickly pointed out.
The party sat in thought for a while longer, then Narik spoke up.
"I've got an idea. What if we think like Kobolds on this one?"
Cener chased after the swordfish, which steadily gained ground as it sped down the broad channel between a pair of islands. A third island was dead ahead, so it had to turn soon. It quickly sized up its options.
The channel to the left was narrower, and Borrin was waiting in the middle of it. It was probably fast enough to slip by, but it was skittish enough that it didn't want to chance it. To the right, Hevis was waiting on the right side of the wide channel, and he had erected a wall of chains across most of the rest of it. Most of the channel was blocked either by the wall or by being way too close to Hevis, but on the far left was a corner of the shallows that the wall didn't quite reach.
The fish made its decision and turned right, going straight for the opening.
As it passed through, though, Narik burst out of the sand and pounced on it, plunging his sword into its left flank. The boss's momentum nearly pulled the sword out of Narik's hand before it got loose, but it took quite a bit more damage in the process, and lost most of its speed. Narik was quick to follow up, leaping from the sandy ground and grabbing the fish by the gills.
Things went pretty smoothly after that. The boss, although fast and durable, turned out to be pretty helpless in an actual fight.
"Fucking finally! I was starting to cramp up down there," Narik groused as the swordfish dematerialized.
"At least it worked," Cener pointed out. "This chest better be worth it."
"It better not be worth it," Narik shot back. "That way we never have to do this again. I've got aches in places where I'm not supposed to have places."
"Well," Borrin said as he swam up, "let's see what it is, and then we can decide if it was worth it or not."
The group headed back to the little ruin, where the boss chest was now unsealed. Unusually, there wasn't a single coin. The only things in the chest were a few bronze bolts and a crossbow made of bronze and what looked like whalebone.
Hevis examined it and cast a quick spell. "The crossbow's enchanted, but the bolts are normal."
Borrin picked up the crossbow and experimentally cocked it. "Think it works underwater?" A quick test shot sent a bolt into the sand as easily as he'd have expected on land.
He immediately handed the crossbow to Narik, who clearly had mixed feelings about it. "Oh, hell, we're going to have to keep killing that thing, aren't we?"
"Well, maybe you can get some little harpoons for that thing?"
That went pretty well! A monster that runs away instead of fighting is pretty weird, but it's a fun change of pace. And it's perfect for the sea in the Kobold Archipelago, since it'd be unfair to put any dangerous monsters in there. Now it's like having two branches in one!
Or, it will be soon, anyway. I'm going to have to make a bunch more fish minibosses. And maybe I should fix up the scenery? I didn't realize anyone would actually go down there.
You know, I never would have thought of making monsters run away on my own. I'm glad Andis thought of it! I'll have to thank him next time he dies.
Last edited:
- Location
- SomeWhereElse
Water levels. Not even the best dungeon can make them not frustration incarnated.
I mean it depends. Some are quite fun. But still vast empty water and a chase sequence? Treading on some dangerous ground there
I mean it depends. Some are quite fun. But still vast empty water and a chase sequence? Treading on some dangerous ground there
- Location
- The world inside my head
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
This is an interesting little story. A dungeon that's already heavily developed and continues to do so quickly, without showing all the stat buggery, is a nice change of pace. The dead humans becoming monsters is also a cool twist, though I'm not sure how it'll actually affect anything just yet given the dungeon's edicts. Perhaps the next captured soul will be more talkative.
I'd been thinking this was going to be the case the moment they first got referred to as mermaid amulets.
I wonder if adventurers are going to organize arrangements for amulet swaps in this dungeon's future.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
You would have thought that professionals would be a little more inured to situational gender ambiguity, but I guess as transformation items were unknown prior to The Best Dungeon Ever gender switching is less common than it could be.
I also just realized that this was a perfect missed opportunity for CRAB PEOPLE.
- Location
- Neptune
Didn't you read the end of the chapter?Interesting choice to have so little in the ocean, I'd at least have put some harmless fish critters and seaweed. Poor Kobolds can't even go fishing if they want to.
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
They'll have to get inured. As it stands, they're running a suboptimal party -- never a good thing in a dungeon.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Yeah, if the price of the tank getting the tank aquatic form was me having a female aquatic form, I'd be okay with that. Especially given that being underwater and having a fish tail instead of legs renders the change in balance and proportions largely inconsequential compared to on land; sacrificing function for form is just asking for trouble.
They could also just keep farming amulets - they have two that are either specifically male or non gender specific in addition to the tank form, so the next amulet they get is probably going to be of the kind they want.
There's a reason I suggested that in time there'll be a permanent arrangement for swapping amulets in the town - getting an amulet that fits you better is a survival advantage, and being able to farm that work out to other adventurers would let a lot more of it get done.
That said, I don't think adventurers are mistaken to consider being the wrong gender a problem; perhaps it's less of one than giving the armor-boost to someone who isn't a tank, but a problem it remains.
That said, I don't think adventurers are mistaken to consider being the wrong gender a problem; perhaps it's less of one than giving the armor-boost to someone who isn't a tank, but a problem it remains.
Who ever heard of a dark dungeon?
"Ma. nam. ehs. Ahngus."
Cow mouths were not made for speaking. But unfortunately, that's what Andis had to work with. He was sitting on his boss chest practicing. Partially, he was doing it because it made him feel slightly more human. Partially, he was doing it so that when someone else inevitably got killed, he'd be able to talk to them.
Mostly, though, it was because he had nothing better to do.
"Ahngus. Gus. Guh. Guh. Uuuuuuuueeeeeeiiiiiih. Ih ih ih. Ahnguis."
Then, an indefinable tension came over him. By now, he knew what it meant: there were adventurers on the floor. That meant it was time to get moving. He hadn't left the floor in a while, so he made a beeline for the Serpent Temple. It didn't seem to get much traffic, so hiding out there was usually a good way to avoid fights. Most parties that came here were just passing through on their way to the seventh floor, presumably still working on mapping the floors below.
Unfortunately, he'd already finished exploring the Serpent Temple. He made his way to an out-of-the-way corridor, sat down, and got back to practicing.
Huh, Andis is talking to himself again. I wonder why? Oh, well, if it makes him happy, it's fine by me!
Anyway, the Kobold Archipelago and the Canyon Aerie are going over pretty well! Lots of people are fighting kobolds and birds instead of goblins and beasts now. The fish are a lot less popular, though. I guess I should have seen that coming - they can't even try unless they can breathe underwater, and the aquatic form amulets are all the way down in the swamp.
Maybe I should come up with some other options? They'd have to be weaker, if they're going on a higher floor, though...
Eh, I'll worry about that later. Right now I'm busy with the Lightless Caverns! It's going to be a new branch on the third floor.
... It might need a better name, though. Unlit Caverns? Pitch Black Caverns?
Anyway, like the name says, there are no lights there! All the monsters either see in the dark or don't need to see, but adventurers are going to have to bring their own light, or their own way to fight without light. I'm excited to see what they come up with!
Of course, to keep things fair, the monsters aren't quite as strong as the rest of the third floor, and they don't burrow. It's mostly bats and fungi, with a few cave lizards. But just because they don't need light doesn't mean they can't see it, so they'll always spot the adventurers first! It'll be fun and exciting!
It's not ready, yet. I only have about half the rooms ready, and I still need to get the loot tables in order. A special branch deserves special loot, but that means I need to come up with it.
Magic lanterns were obvious, and I made bat masks that give the wearer echolocation, but I'm going to need more than that.
Hmm... How about glass globes full of darkness that spills out when you break them, like a smoke bomb but better? And maybe magic anti-lanterns for reusability. Oh, and definitely raise the rate on stealth enchantments...
In an out-of-the-way room on the third floor, Brigus and Fecta were double-checking their map and looking speculatively at an unexpected corridor.
"Think this is another new branch?" Brigus spoke softly, but Fecta, with her hearing enhanced, heard her easily anyway.
"Maybe? Let's be sure about it, though."
The two crept carefully down the corridor, eyes and ears wide open as they went. Soon they left the last luminescent mushroom behind and were peering into the blackness ahead.
"Yeah, fuck this. Let's get out of here."
Cow mouths were not made for speaking. But unfortunately, that's what Andis had to work with. He was sitting on his boss chest practicing. Partially, he was doing it because it made him feel slightly more human. Partially, he was doing it so that when someone else inevitably got killed, he'd be able to talk to them.
Mostly, though, it was because he had nothing better to do.
"Ahngus. Gus. Guh. Guh. Uuuuuuuueeeeeeiiiiiih. Ih ih ih. Ahnguis."
Then, an indefinable tension came over him. By now, he knew what it meant: there were adventurers on the floor. That meant it was time to get moving. He hadn't left the floor in a while, so he made a beeline for the Serpent Temple. It didn't seem to get much traffic, so hiding out there was usually a good way to avoid fights. Most parties that came here were just passing through on their way to the seventh floor, presumably still working on mapping the floors below.
Unfortunately, he'd already finished exploring the Serpent Temple. He made his way to an out-of-the-way corridor, sat down, and got back to practicing.
Huh, Andis is talking to himself again. I wonder why? Oh, well, if it makes him happy, it's fine by me!
Anyway, the Kobold Archipelago and the Canyon Aerie are going over pretty well! Lots of people are fighting kobolds and birds instead of goblins and beasts now. The fish are a lot less popular, though. I guess I should have seen that coming - they can't even try unless they can breathe underwater, and the aquatic form amulets are all the way down in the swamp.
Maybe I should come up with some other options? They'd have to be weaker, if they're going on a higher floor, though...
Eh, I'll worry about that later. Right now I'm busy with the Lightless Caverns! It's going to be a new branch on the third floor.
... It might need a better name, though. Unlit Caverns? Pitch Black Caverns?
Anyway, like the name says, there are no lights there! All the monsters either see in the dark or don't need to see, but adventurers are going to have to bring their own light, or their own way to fight without light. I'm excited to see what they come up with!
Of course, to keep things fair, the monsters aren't quite as strong as the rest of the third floor, and they don't burrow. It's mostly bats and fungi, with a few cave lizards. But just because they don't need light doesn't mean they can't see it, so they'll always spot the adventurers first! It'll be fun and exciting!
It's not ready, yet. I only have about half the rooms ready, and I still need to get the loot tables in order. A special branch deserves special loot, but that means I need to come up with it.
Magic lanterns were obvious, and I made bat masks that give the wearer echolocation, but I'm going to need more than that.
Hmm... How about glass globes full of darkness that spills out when you break them, like a smoke bomb but better? And maybe magic anti-lanterns for reusability. Oh, and definitely raise the rate on stealth enchantments...
In an out-of-the-way room on the third floor, Brigus and Fecta were double-checking their map and looking speculatively at an unexpected corridor.
"Think this is another new branch?" Brigus spoke softly, but Fecta, with her hearing enhanced, heard her easily anyway.
"Maybe? Let's be sure about it, though."
The two crept carefully down the corridor, eyes and ears wide open as they went. Soon they left the last luminescent mushroom behind and were peering into the blackness ahead.
"Yeah, fuck this. Let's get out of here."
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Dungeon-chan is so nice about making sure adventurers are properly rewarded. Both in life and in death! I wish them only the best.
(Andis, my heart goes out to you, but you realize it's not likely you'll end up placed on the same floor as whoever dies next, right? Like, it makes sense, and you can move floors for a limited time, but you might be waiting for a while for a regular conversation partner.)
(Andis, my heart goes out to you, but you realize it's not likely you'll end up placed on the same floor as whoever dies next, right? Like, it makes sense, and you can move floors for a limited time, but you might be waiting for a while for a regular conversation partner.)
Last edited:
Complete and total accident. I didn't even realize I'd done it until I went back and looked at what I'd written.I wonder how long that joke was lined up for.
Leaving it in was intentional, though.
A quiet conversation
The flooded tunnels on the sixth floor were an unusually unpleasant dungeon branch. The light was poor, and the water was cold and stagnant. Patches of slimy green seaweed covered the stones, and algae lent the water a sickly green haze. But the real problem, of course, was the lack of air.
But after what felt like weeks of hunting down the coward fish in the Kobold Archipelago, Narik and his team were finally ready for it. As much of a pain as chasing the fish was, their boss chests were a fairly reliable source of water-friendly equipment, and no good adventurer passed up an opportunity to prepare. The underwater gear they were using now still wasn't half as good as their usual equipment, but it was much better than they'd had before.
At the front of their formation, Cener thrust her bronze trident at an octopus the size of a large dog. The weapon produced a little shockwave when it struck, adding some (mostly redundant) extra damage, and the octopus died in a cloud of hemocyanic blood. A second seized the opening and slipped past her guard, but between her armor (shark leather studded with chitin plates), her scale-hardening bracers, and her own defensive spells, the poison barbs on its tentacles found no purchase. From her left, Narik put a crossbow bolt through its brain, let his crossbow drop back to his side and hacked at a third octopus with his sword, severing several limbs. A giant crab tried to charge between them while they were occupied, but Hevis spat an incantation at it, covering its eyes with shadows, and then Borrin dropped on it from above and started cutting into its joints with a bronze dagger, its shell-cracking enchantment doing most of the work.
(Almost all the metal items they'd gotten from the archipelago were bronze, for whatever reason, right down to the metal clasps on the armor. Even the jewelry was usually bronze where it wasn't gold.)
Before long, the monsters were all dead, and the party continued down the corridor to the next little room, where they stopped to update their map. While Narik took care of that, Borrin checked a locked chest in a little alcove for traps while Cener and Hevis kept watch.
Cener's gaze drifted from one corridor to another, her tail slowly undulating as she held herself in place. After a couple minutes of silence, she spoke up: "Is it just me, or is this place not as bad as most of the dungeon?"
Narik snorted. "Aside from the drowning, you mean?"
"Well, yeah, but now that we're undrownable, it's just been monsters and the occasional trapped chest. No alarms, no trapped halls, nothing coming out of the walls, it's almost like working a normal dungeon, even if the octopuses are pretty damn sneaky sometimes."
Hevis, from the other side of the room, replied, "Yeah, it does seem easier than the labyrinth. Haven't seen anything like those damn exploding skeletons here. I guess maybe the dungeon thought the water was enough nastiness?"
"Ah, who knows how dungeons think," Borrin said as he popped the lock open. "Now, what do we have here?"
Inside the chest were some gold coins, a necklace of gold wire and turquoise beads, and a peculiar lantern-like device. It had the frame of a brass lantern, but no glass, and a glowing blue crystal where the wick would be. More strangely, a fist-sized bubble of air surrounded it, seemingly undiminished by the little stream of smaller bubbles steadily floating out.
"Weird," Cener said when Borrin held it out for inspection. "I wonder what it does?"
Oh, neat! They found one of my Diver's Lamps. They don't need it, but someone else might! It'll let a whole party walk and breathe like the water wasn't there, as long as they don't get split up. And as long as they keep it fueled.
Oooh, and look! Someone's checking out the Caverns of Gloom! Looks like they're all carrying lanterns, and one of them has a light spell going. That... kinda seems like overkill?
Well, I can't say it won't work.
Well, let's see how they do. It's another one of the really strong parties, so I'm sure they won't have any major issues, but - wait, someone's chasing Andis! That's way more interesting!
Looks like they're using speed potions to outrun him. That'll do it!
They got to one end of a corridor when Andis was just barely at the other and charged after him, and Andis turned and charged back at them, bellowing and drawing his axe.
Once they saw Andis charging, the adventurers stopped and got ready to stop his charge. The guy in the back cast a spell, and a bunch of thorny vines sprang out of the ground, grasping and scratching at Andis as he pushed his way through. They look like they might be poisonous, too, but Andis's fights usually don't last long enough for that to matter. Another one shot a couple of arrows at him, and one of them hit him in the shoulder, but he managed to block the other with the side of his axe! Great job, Andis!
(Actually, I think that one might have missed him anyway. But still!)
Andis got through the vines, but they'd slowed him down enough that he wasn't really charging anymore. The two guys up front rushed in with their halberd and morning star, and the one with the halberd hit Andis in his wounded shoulder, but it didn't stop Andis from bringing his axe down on the other guy one-handed. He deflected it with his shield and pushed forward, but Andis managed a horizontal swipe that caught him below the ribs!
And then an arrow went through his throat. Looks like Andis got that guy pretty good, though! He was wearing chain mail on his abdomen, so it won't be enough to kill him, especially with that druid right there with his healing spells, but that's fine. Still Andis's best showing yet!
I dove into Andis's phylactery to congratulate him.
As always, Andis was floating peacefully in the middle, but at some point a little violet stain started developing underneath him. The color of his soul is starting to sink into the phylactery! I was wondering if that would happen!
I gave a happy little bounce at the sight. This phylactery is all for him, and it's good to see his soul making itself at home!
"Hey, Andis! Great job fighting those adventurers! It looks like the guy you hurt is going to be okay, but don't feel bad! That was a really strong party, and you got him pretty good. Don't worry, someday, someone weaker will come down, and you'll be able to kill one of them."
Unfortunately, Andis still hasn't figured out soul-talking, so he didn't say anything. I'll just have to talk for both of us.
"Oh, by the way, it looked like you stopped running sooner than usual. Is that because I told you to kill anyone you met, and you saw them at the other end of the corridor?"
"Well, your running away thing is working out pretty well, so if you want to keep running until they corner you or start attacking, that's fine. Or you can mix it up if you want to keep them guessing! Whatever makes you happy, Andis. And I'm going to upgrade your chest to make sure they keep coming. You're making them work harder, so they deserve a bigger reward!"
I settled down next to him.
"I'm so glad I have you with me, Andis. I've had a lot of good ideas for this dungeon, but adopting you was definitely the best. Now I'm never alone, even when all the adventurers have left!"
I snuggled in a little closer.
"And someday, I'll kill another adventurer, and then you'll have a little brother or sister! Maybe you'll even do it yourself! Wouldn't that be great? We'll be a big happy dungeon family!"
We sat there in silence for a little while. Then something occurred to me.
"Oh! Do you want to hear the latest news? I finished the Caverns of Gloom, and someone's exploring it right now. I think they brought more light than they really need, but it won't do them any harm. I think that'll be enough upper-floor branches to keep the crowding under control for a while, so I'm going to go back to the main drag and start working on the tenth floor now. It's going to be a dragon floor! Well, mostly drakes and other dragon-kin, of course; I can't make every monster a dragon..."
But after what felt like weeks of hunting down the coward fish in the Kobold Archipelago, Narik and his team were finally ready for it. As much of a pain as chasing the fish was, their boss chests were a fairly reliable source of water-friendly equipment, and no good adventurer passed up an opportunity to prepare. The underwater gear they were using now still wasn't half as good as their usual equipment, but it was much better than they'd had before.
At the front of their formation, Cener thrust her bronze trident at an octopus the size of a large dog. The weapon produced a little shockwave when it struck, adding some (mostly redundant) extra damage, and the octopus died in a cloud of hemocyanic blood. A second seized the opening and slipped past her guard, but between her armor (shark leather studded with chitin plates), her scale-hardening bracers, and her own defensive spells, the poison barbs on its tentacles found no purchase. From her left, Narik put a crossbow bolt through its brain, let his crossbow drop back to his side and hacked at a third octopus with his sword, severing several limbs. A giant crab tried to charge between them while they were occupied, but Hevis spat an incantation at it, covering its eyes with shadows, and then Borrin dropped on it from above and started cutting into its joints with a bronze dagger, its shell-cracking enchantment doing most of the work.
(Almost all the metal items they'd gotten from the archipelago were bronze, for whatever reason, right down to the metal clasps on the armor. Even the jewelry was usually bronze where it wasn't gold.)
Before long, the monsters were all dead, and the party continued down the corridor to the next little room, where they stopped to update their map. While Narik took care of that, Borrin checked a locked chest in a little alcove for traps while Cener and Hevis kept watch.
Cener's gaze drifted from one corridor to another, her tail slowly undulating as she held herself in place. After a couple minutes of silence, she spoke up: "Is it just me, or is this place not as bad as most of the dungeon?"
Narik snorted. "Aside from the drowning, you mean?"
"Well, yeah, but now that we're undrownable, it's just been monsters and the occasional trapped chest. No alarms, no trapped halls, nothing coming out of the walls, it's almost like working a normal dungeon, even if the octopuses are pretty damn sneaky sometimes."
Hevis, from the other side of the room, replied, "Yeah, it does seem easier than the labyrinth. Haven't seen anything like those damn exploding skeletons here. I guess maybe the dungeon thought the water was enough nastiness?"
"Ah, who knows how dungeons think," Borrin said as he popped the lock open. "Now, what do we have here?"
Inside the chest were some gold coins, a necklace of gold wire and turquoise beads, and a peculiar lantern-like device. It had the frame of a brass lantern, but no glass, and a glowing blue crystal where the wick would be. More strangely, a fist-sized bubble of air surrounded it, seemingly undiminished by the little stream of smaller bubbles steadily floating out.
"Weird," Cener said when Borrin held it out for inspection. "I wonder what it does?"
Oh, neat! They found one of my Diver's Lamps. They don't need it, but someone else might! It'll let a whole party walk and breathe like the water wasn't there, as long as they don't get split up. And as long as they keep it fueled.
Oooh, and look! Someone's checking out the Caverns of Gloom! Looks like they're all carrying lanterns, and one of them has a light spell going. That... kinda seems like overkill?
Well, I can't say it won't work.
Well, let's see how they do. It's another one of the really strong parties, so I'm sure they won't have any major issues, but - wait, someone's chasing Andis! That's way more interesting!
Looks like they're using speed potions to outrun him. That'll do it!
They got to one end of a corridor when Andis was just barely at the other and charged after him, and Andis turned and charged back at them, bellowing and drawing his axe.
Once they saw Andis charging, the adventurers stopped and got ready to stop his charge. The guy in the back cast a spell, and a bunch of thorny vines sprang out of the ground, grasping and scratching at Andis as he pushed his way through. They look like they might be poisonous, too, but Andis's fights usually don't last long enough for that to matter. Another one shot a couple of arrows at him, and one of them hit him in the shoulder, but he managed to block the other with the side of his axe! Great job, Andis!
(Actually, I think that one might have missed him anyway. But still!)
Andis got through the vines, but they'd slowed him down enough that he wasn't really charging anymore. The two guys up front rushed in with their halberd and morning star, and the one with the halberd hit Andis in his wounded shoulder, but it didn't stop Andis from bringing his axe down on the other guy one-handed. He deflected it with his shield and pushed forward, but Andis managed a horizontal swipe that caught him below the ribs!
And then an arrow went through his throat. Looks like Andis got that guy pretty good, though! He was wearing chain mail on his abdomen, so it won't be enough to kill him, especially with that druid right there with his healing spells, but that's fine. Still Andis's best showing yet!
I dove into Andis's phylactery to congratulate him.
As always, Andis was floating peacefully in the middle, but at some point a little violet stain started developing underneath him. The color of his soul is starting to sink into the phylactery! I was wondering if that would happen!
I gave a happy little bounce at the sight. This phylactery is all for him, and it's good to see his soul making itself at home!
"Hey, Andis! Great job fighting those adventurers! It looks like the guy you hurt is going to be okay, but don't feel bad! That was a really strong party, and you got him pretty good. Don't worry, someday, someone weaker will come down, and you'll be able to kill one of them."
Unfortunately, Andis still hasn't figured out soul-talking, so he didn't say anything. I'll just have to talk for both of us.
"Oh, by the way, it looked like you stopped running sooner than usual. Is that because I told you to kill anyone you met, and you saw them at the other end of the corridor?"
"Well, your running away thing is working out pretty well, so if you want to keep running until they corner you or start attacking, that's fine. Or you can mix it up if you want to keep them guessing! Whatever makes you happy, Andis. And I'm going to upgrade your chest to make sure they keep coming. You're making them work harder, so they deserve a bigger reward!"
I settled down next to him.
"I'm so glad I have you with me, Andis. I've had a lot of good ideas for this dungeon, but adopting you was definitely the best. Now I'm never alone, even when all the adventurers have left!"
I snuggled in a little closer.
"And someday, I'll kill another adventurer, and then you'll have a little brother or sister! Maybe you'll even do it yourself! Wouldn't that be great? We'll be a big happy dungeon family!"
We sat there in silence for a little while. Then something occurred to me.
"Oh! Do you want to hear the latest news? I finished the Caverns of Gloom, and someone's exploring it right now. I think they brought more light than they really need, but it won't do them any harm. I think that'll be enough upper-floor branches to keep the crowding under control for a while, so I'm going to go back to the main drag and start working on the tenth floor now. It's going to be a dragon floor! Well, mostly drakes and other dragon-kin, of course; I can't make every monster a dragon..."
Last edited:
GameDragon
Too Hot To Handle
- Location
- Challenger Deep
Hello there bold dialouge, nice to see you again. Also, the adorable way the dungeon talks about its plans almost offsets the terror factor of what those plans include.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Sooner or later Andis is going to have admit that his situation could be a lot worse. Sure, his soul has been permanently imprisoned by a dungeon and stuck inside the body of a monster so he can kill other people, but at least it's a nice dungeon.
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
It's only terrifying if you're a human, from the perspective of a dungeon it's no more horrific than humans discussing what kind of roast meat they will have for dinner.
Inhuman point of view is inhuman, after all.
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
I find myself wondering about Dungeon life cycles in this universe. Do they naturally reproduce? How do they reproduce if they do it? If not, how are they made? Similarly, do they serve any important ecological or metaphysical purpose, or are they just kind of there?