The Dungeon Without a System

Chapter 107

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The Creator, Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea

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The new island was coming along nicely. It'd taken a week to raise and shape the island how I wanted, but it was worth it. It was larger than all the Elemental Isles combined, and it showed. There were peaceful beaches, treacherous cliffs, and a vast plain biome bordered by a forest leading into a mountain peak. The mountain was a volcano, though a fake one like Isla Fuego. I still felt unsure about breaching the magma chamber of the volcano I built my dungeon around.

Either way, the island was only the stage, and now it was time to dress it.

At the shore, I manipulated the rock to look like a dock. A modern dock. The skeletons of a single cargo crane, a rusting metal monolith that rose from the shore, and the hill of cargo containers behind it held a maze. The maze was simple since I planned to go back and set it up properly later.

Thankfully, my iron reserves had been replenished after a few weeks of mining. The Metal Island had drained them, and this project would need about the same amount.

A road emerged from the docks, leading through the middle of the town beyond it. Taking inspiration from a certain robot-filled post-apocalypse, the town was composed of the rusting, broken skeletons of skyscrapers. The basements were more intact than the surface, and I would be using that fact to great effect in the future. I took my time here, really making the place how I wanted it to look. Then, I flooded the place with vegetation and let nature reclaim the ruin on its own.

Trees grew, and roots cracked foundations. Grasses and mosses covered everything they could reach. It didn't take long for me to be satisfied with it. Next were insects and animals. I made sure there was a healthy population of every insect I had. They were average-sized and not intended to be a threat to the guilders.

Animal-wise, I once again took inspiration from the same source. Bunnies, birds, and I finally had access to boars after an animal merchant sold some pigs to Goldscale's assistant, Bapeep. The severe capriccio certainly took no nonsense from the merchant and was experienced with cajoling merchants and guilders by now.

With small animals done, I wondered what kind of monsters I wanted for this place.

In the ruins of a civilization, what's left behind after nature has returned to stake its claim? I didn't have the tech or knowledge of how to make non-court-possessed golems, nor clockwork or mechanical robots. I need something... primal.

I had an idea.

And I had a flock of chickens purchased from the same merchant, milling about with the pigs and sheep on the Tenth.

I could do great but terrible things with chickens.

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The Scorpan Village, The Ninth, The Dungeon

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Kata waved to her friend as they entered the tunnel leading back to the pyramid. She watched intently as Hallmark followed Huea, and the passage closed behind them.

Kata turned and began the journey to the Eleventh.

It was short since she was already most of the way there. And her wings only made the journey faster.

Within the hour, she was flying over the seemingly endless waters, and the shining beacon of the creator's core grew closer.

"Creator, Medea, Whatever you want to call yourself. We need to talk, and I expect answers." Kata called. She felt his attention snap to her immediately. She could feel his reluctance to leave his current project, and then the moment he realized where she was, the split second of panic.

Wait. Not the core island. You won't be able to handle the mana there, and I mean that literally. Do you see the new island on the horizon to your left? Go there. It'll make my explanation easier.

Kata's eyes flickered left. There was, indeed, an island where none had existed before. She changed course and could feel his relief when she passed by the core island.

Thankyou.The last person on my island was Wave. You met him before, didn't you? I didn't turn him into a wyvern by choice. He was so twisted and changed by the sheer amount of mana in his body that I couldn't turn him back. I could only shape him into something new. It was the only time I've had to change someone without their consent, and I don't feel like repeating the experience.

Kata said nothing, though that was an answer, given how she felt him flinch in her mind.

As she approached, she immediately noticed the structures: huge metal rods, both exposed and coated in rock, acted as support. The buildings stood taller than any she had seen before, and she wondered what they would have looked like intact.

Unbidden, an image came to her. A horizon covered in these tall buildings, their walls reflecting the setting sun like glass. Hundreds of them, reaching for the stars.

"What wasthat?" Kata demanded. The creator flinched.

A memory. Please meet me in the tallest building.

"Meet you?"

Yes. I felt speaking to an avatar would be better than a voice in your head. This one's been around for a while, but I haven't used it for much.

Kata soared, her ethereal wings flapping unnecessarily as she slowed and then landed. On the broken edge of the stone floor, a figure stood. It was large and facing away from her. It wore a dark cloak that concealed everything else about it; the hood pulled up. It turned, and Kata felt her breath catch in her throat for a moment.

It was a skeleton. The skull was of a drake-kin, but the eyes were unlike the undead Kata had seen earlier. They were the same Teal all of the creator's magic was. She remembered this one! How could she ever have forgotten? Maybe she'd just pushed the terrifying memory down. She stood, frozen as it began to speak.

"This was one of my earliest experiments. No actual death magic involved, though observing the experiments with it gave me ways to improve it," The skeleton said, its jaw moving and actual words emerging from its mouth. "It took a while to figure out the enchantment to make the voice. It's not quite right, but it'll do." The voice was androgynous, for all that every Child she'd talked to had called him male and that he sounded like a man in her head. Or, perhaps that was her perception coloring it?

"I remember you. You brought me food once, back when... when I was in the cells," Kata found herself saying. The skeleton kicked out with a booted foot, knocking a stone off the ledge.

"Well, yeah. I'm sorry about the Mandarin, by the way," the skeleton said. "I hadn't made it that way intentionally. I was young. Younger. I'm still young. I'm still learning, and though I know so much more now, I didn't then."

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Kata shuddered at the memory. Another thing she'd pushed into the dark recesses of her mind. Then she shook her head. Get it together, Kataren!

"So. I have questions," Kata began, approaching the skeleton. He nodded and sat on the edge of the rock, patting the spot next to him.

"Of course. I have answers, but not all of them."

"Who are you? What are you, really." A moment of silence, then a sigh.

"I... I don't remember my name. I was human, once, like you." The skeleton answered, and Kata blinked. He was what?! "I was born in a world of technology. There was no magic, and we had to adapt. We bent and broke the world. Nature gave way to concrete and steel." the creator swung the skeletal arm, gesturing to the broken towers around them.

"Eventually, we covered the planet. Someone owned every square foot of land, and your worth was measured by how much you could pay to live your life. I don't know how I ended up here. One day, I went to sleep, and the next, I was here. I assume the gods were involved, though I don't recall meeting any. I just woke up as a tiny gemstone and washed up on the beach far above us.

"I had some idea about my circumstances. They resembled stories I'd read back in my old world. It wasn't the same, but there was enough that was. I carved my first floor and made the crabs. They were the first, and they were once so precious. I buried the first one to die, and from then on, the crabs buried their dead on their own. I ordered them to give their lives in my defense, and they did and continue to do so. It's out of my control now. They've been doing it so long, I know that if I tried to tell them to stop, they wouldn't. They worship me. Devoted, zealous. They worshiped me from the very beginning, though it took time for me to see it correctly.

Kata was still processing that the creator wasn't just a dungeon core—it wasn't some ancient, unknowable thing. He was a person, just like her, one given unimaginable power. He kept talking, more rambling than anything else.

"The first group of guilders to find me included the guildmistress, Layla. I called her Neo for a while before I learned how your language worked. Whatever they saw from that delve, they took home, and my island was settled. Eventually, I did learn the language, and I learned what they thought of me. I was in some ancient dungeon, long dormant and only just waking up. It made me more dangerous in their eyes. They were more cautious.

"I ran with the idea. I made up fake language and scrawled nonsense messages everywhere. I made ruins, 'hints' at my age."

The skeleton stopped, rearing back slightly.

"Ah... I'm sorry for ranting like that. It... It feels good to actually talk to someone about all this. You have more questions?"

Kata nodded slowly.

"I do, but what you've already said explains a lot. Why you don't know the basics of mana and the concepts attached to them, especially. I've not forgiven you for having my best friend use fucking death mana. You turned her into a necromancer!" Kata took a deep breath. "But I understand."

"So, first things first," Kata continued. "I'm going to explain the elements and gods to you. Hopefully, that'll stop you from doing something else so utterly braindead as getting the Ferryman's attention!"

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Outside a Baby Dungeon, Near The Holy City, Theona

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Tamesou Akio walked with his fellow teenage heroes into the dark cave as Sophie's mentor, Jinasa, lectured them.

"This is a baby dungeon. We call it that because this dungeon only recently breached the surface. Its manastream is thin and doesn't contain any true monsters. We'll likely find normal animals, mutated by mana exposure, drawn by the cave and the promise of shelter. It hasn't had the time to develop thought and strategy beyond its base instincts."

"Did you say mutated? What do you mean by that?" Sophie asked head tilted in curiosity. Like her mentor, she was garbed in leathers. The dual daggers at her hips radiated a sense of menace.

"Mana is directed by the subconscious wants and needs of the body, especially by beings without a core," Jinasa responded. "A Core filters and purifies those intents. For example, an animal exposed to large amounts of mana in a short period, who instinctually wants to be larger and more dangerous, might grow three times its size while developing extra limbs. This is a mana mutant. Seemingly random additions with no coherence between them. Monsters were exposed for a long time, and the mana slowly coalesced into a core."

Jinasa suddenly stopped, listened to the quiet momentarily, and then raised a hand with three fingers splayed.

Akio, Sophie, and Bruce nodded, readying themselves.

They approached silently, and soon, the teens could hear the snarling yips of three foxes. A soft glow grew in the distance of the long tunnel. It wasn't long after that the foxes heard them and rushed into the light shone by the sprite hovering over Heliat's shoulder.

Jinasa had been right. They looked like mutants from some video game. They were warped, twisted. Akio would have believed them if you'd told him these things were found living near Chornobyl or emerged from a nuclear wasteland.

The one in front had six feet but only four legs. The front pair of legs each had two shins extending from the same knee joint. Its eyes fixed on the humans immediately, and its unhinged jaw was filled with hundreds of teeth.

The next glowed. It glowed a blue that evoked a memory Akio had of watching a video of a nuclear reactor. Yet, while it glowed, it was also transparent. Akio could see that it was the core in its chest that glowed, as well as the skin and muscle.

The third had two heads, half-merged together. Its single neck wasn't large enough to support both. The heads dragged on the ground, and because of that, it lagged behind the other two.

Akio raised his sword and shield, stepping forward. He was the tank, and it was his responsibility to take their attention while his party damaged them. The fastest fox leaped toward him, and Akio shifted quickly; four sharp-clawed paws slammed against his shield. He moved with the blow, his feet planted, his knees bent, and then he pushed back. The agile fox was thrown to the ground.

There was no time to think. The glowing fox was upon him.

A mana beam erupted from its core, harmlessly passing through its transparent flesh. Akio raised his shield again, but this time, he pushed a prepared spell down his mana circuits and into the shield. The enchantment accepted the packet of energy, and as the beam of horrifyingly blue light speared toward him, his shield manifested a barrier of glorious yellow light. It required a constant drain, as most of his spells did. The Foxes hissed and flinched as the enchantment activated; the flash was so powerful he wouldn't be surprised if they were blinded.

The beam splashed against the shield, and Akio flinched slightly at the drain. It was more than he'd expected. Thankfully, he could cut off the flow and let the enchantment on his shield fade as Bruce and Sophie joined the fight.

Water whipped out from his right in the shape of three tentacles, their tips shaped and molded to spikes that Akio had seen pierce steel. The agile fox, still half-blinded by the flash of light his shield had caused and stumbling to its feet from where Akio had thrown it, could not move out of the way.

Bruce's water spikes pierced its heart, and the agile fox died.

Akio saw Sophie emerge from the shadow behind the two-headed fox, thrown by the glowing fox's light. Despite its two heads, the fox was even more vulnerable to the flash of his shield than the others, and its stumbling was made worse by the excess weight on its neck.

Sophie's daggers found their way into its chest and heart. And the two-headed fox died.

Akio himself stood forward, his sword slashing down at the glowing fox. It growled at him, not as affected by the flash as the other two. They went back and forth, him lunging, it dodging. It striking, him shielding himself. After the third time, Akio decided it was time to change things up. He cast another spell, passing down his arm and into his sword. This time, when he slashed, his sword released a glowing yellow arc of energy.

The glowing fox attempted to dodge like the previous strikes, but it hadn't expected the magical attack. The light struck it and cut it in two. Its two halves fell to the ground, and the glowing fox died.

"Well done, young heroes!" Heliat congratulated, his gauntlet landing on Akio's shoulder. "Well, fought. You kept their attention well, Young Akio and your actions provided the openings your party members could take, ending the fight decisively. The speed and strength to end your fights sooner will come with time."

Akio nodded. He could hear Jinasa and Adriane, the water mage, advising Sophie and Bruce on their parts in the fight, but his eye was drawn by the core on the ground. He stepped toward the bisected, glowing fox. He knelt and reached out. The fox had been cut down its middle, and he didn't have to reach far into its chest to grab the core. He pulled it out and admired it.

It was the shape and size of a marble. Unfaceted, smooth and clean. It still glowed with that internal blue light, though it had faded slightly from when it was inside the living mana-mutant.

"This one was probably in here the longest," Heliat noted, gesturing to the glowing marble Akio rolled around in the palm of his glove. "Perhaps the first monster to find the core when its stream was even weaker. It was exposed slowly and developed this core before the other two even entered the cave."

"It's pretty," Sophie commented! Akio jumped, not having noticed her approach. She was getting too good at being quiet! "It's so.... tiny."

"It's not useful on its own," Jinasa said, taking the core from Akio's palm. She glanced at it briefly, and then her lecturing tone returned. "Cores, monster or dungeon, are used to power enchantments. They are the only material we know that can hold mana for an extended period. They can only be recharged so many times before they degrade and break, so we must keep collecting them. Dungeon cores last far longer than monster cores and are preferred due to their other properties. They are, however, much rarer to claim."

She places the core back in Akio's hand, then waves her own down the hallway.

"I'm pretty sure that's all the monsters. This dungeon isn't very old. Even then, don't let your guard down. They like to keep their most potent creatures close, just in case.

"Shall we?"

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