Dungeon Tour Guide 1, page 20
part #1 of Dungeon Tour Guide Series
3. Abyssal Retrieval
4. Skyship Dungeon
5. Hunt for the Kraken
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Trending Delves
1. Oaths of Heresy
2.
3. Mechromancer Rises
4. Order of the Knights Apocalyptica
5. End of Magic: Song of the Antimage
6. Portal Break
7. Slayer Technique: Cutting Edge
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Top Reviews
1. Got a [Necromancer’s Horn] within 3 attempts (Skyship Dungeon)
2. Excellent dungeon with some flaws—good rewards, easy to get lost (Oaths of Heresy)
3. go and try it out (Order of the Knights Apocalyptica)
4. Helpful dungeonbound! (Ketz Dungeon (Currently Unnamed))
5. Great for beginners. High survivability. (Dungeon of Horrors)
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Best Delves
1. Repetition
2. Mansion of the Mighty Mage
3. Dungeon of Horrors
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I blinked, rereading the ‘Top Reviews’ section of the page. That was me up there, wasn’t it? The unnamed dungeon in Ketz? As far as I knew, there were no other dungeons in this area that were named like that. Huh.
A warm feeling that was half excitement and half nervousness sprouted in my chest. This page had a number of adventures that I actually recognized, household names that any adventurer would know, and even if it wasn’t directly me that was there among them, my dungeon was still there.
Adventures in this world were a touch odd, I knew—there were adventures that were unplanned, cases in which wandering monsters threatened lives or a batch of magical bandits made off with something important. I’d imagine those weren’t given names on the ARI, given that those didn’t really tend to be something one could replicate.
On the other hand, there were adventures like me. Dungeons. From my readings, I’d learned that there were a number of them that weren’t actually considered dungeons anymore—they were cyclic and had clear win conditions just like normal dungeons, but they didn’t stem from a dungeon core and weren’t enclosed, instead originating from a portal or a creature or any magical phenomenon that could keep its mana up for a long time. Those were rarer, though, which explained the bias towards dungeons in the ARI.
It was kind of surreal to have my dungeon’s not-name up there with those big names, but I recognized that I was still a long way from matching any of those dungeons. Hell, I’d gone through the Dungeon of Horrors for my first dungeon. The Guild policy for adventurers in the area I’d worked in had been to send them through a level or two of that dungeon in order to get them acquainted with adventuring, and it had worked—well, for a certain value of ‘worked’, given that we’d had to give up half the rewards from the dungeon to heal ourselves afterwards.
Then again, that had also been part of the Guild’s deal. They provided the resources for adventurers to make it through and (hopefully) survive a dungeon, and then they claimed their share of the rewards when said adventurers came out.
Of course, the Alder Corporation benefited from this too. I had known that they worked with the Guild, but I hadn’t realized the extent to which their influence reached until now. It did seem odd to me that they were essentially gamifying adventuring when the process often involved harrowing life-or-death situations. The majority of dungeons weren’t like me—they tended towards optimizing methods to kill the adventurers that entered them. I supposed gaining money and influence was a good enough motivator for the Alder Corporation to advertise places designed to kill people.
I dismissed the interface. It would be nice to get a high position there, yes, but I had to remember that I was doing this for the adventurers and for myself. There was no point in stressing out about stats that didn’t directly affect who I was, and I knew all too well the negativity that could overtake me if I delved too deeply into them.
For the time being, I would read, build, and wait.
With a wave of my hands, I [Replicate]d a bowl of fruit and brought a particularly interesting book on the intricacies of the kingdom’s historical feud with the southern countries.
Not a bad way to spend my time.
I’d been engrossed in my book for nearly three hours when another person’s arrival startled me out of it.
Well, not entirely engrossed. In the back of my human-core mind meld, I’d still been sprucing myself up, clearing off rough edges from parts of the dungeon design, and resetting all the rooms to clear all the snake blood and destroyed bits, but I didn’t really count that part. I still considered myself more human than not, so the part that mattered most had been stuck in that book.
The new presence was more than enough to kick me out of it, especially when I saw who it was.
Two figures. Both men. Both wearing similar armor. I recognized only one.
Ryan.
He was [Haste]d with an [Agility Boost] activated, I saw, and he was practically carrying the other man. It took me half a second to figure out why.
The unnamed man—an [Elite Knight], I saw—had a massive gash in his armor splitting the heavy plate apart from left shoulder to right hip. He was practically covered in his own blood, his armor stained with the fluid. A quick use of [Triage] as I sprinted towards them revealed that he wasn’t quite dead yet, but he was rapidly approaching that state.
I arrived in the safe room in a matter of moments, utilizing [Reshape] to force the very ground to push me forward, and Ryan stumbled back in surprise, almost causing the man leaning on him to fall.
“What happened?” I asked, casting a [Spare the Dying] as quickly as I could. It wouldn’t save the man immediately, but it was something. “Lay him down on the ground.”
“Dungeon break,” Ryan said, his voice tight. He was holding back emotions, I could tell, but whether that was sorrow or anger behind that tightness was a mystery to me. “Not close enough to threaten Ketz immediately. Five miles out, perhaps. An elder from the order caught wind of it and realized that it was on track to trample a remote village.”
“So you were deployed,” I said, redoubling the [Spare the Dying]. There was something in the wound that was making my healing effect take slower. I tossed an [Antivenom] into it, but it didn’t get any faster.
“Please heal him,” Ryan said instead of replying. “The wound was small at first, but it started growing over the course of the fight, and it got even worse afterwards.”
“I’m trying,” I said, kneeling down next to the dying man. “I can heal and talk at the same time. Explain to me what happened. Did you not have healers on hand? What attacked him?”
“The order’s healer was on leave,” Ryan said. “She was too far to reach, so the only healer we had today was an [Acolyte]. He didn’t know what to do.”
“Right,” I said absentmindedly, focusing on the healing. There was some kind of magical effect inhibiting the healing. It wasn’t stopping it entirely, but it was irritating.
[Remove Affliction] didn’t do the trick, so I threw a [Remove Greater Affliction] at it. It took a bite out of my mana reserves, but this man was dying. This was necessary.
“The break was a single monster,” Ryan said. “The dungeon hadn’t been cleared in far too long, and so its boss was able to breach its boundaries. It was a [Displacer], I think.”
I frowned. I’d done my fair share of research on monsters in this world, and [Displacer]s were definitely on the upper end of what should be in a dungeon. “How did a dungeon in such a low-activity area pop out one of those?”
“It was a lesser one,” Ryan said. “But it was effective enough to hit him with something, and we were being forced back. The last I saw, the local Guild joined in the fight, but they didn’t have enough people. Is he okay?”
[Displacer]s had a nasty effect to their damaging attacks, I knew. [Displacing Strikes] was a passive ability that functionally shunted its victim’s flesh and blood into a hundred different planes of existence, which made it a lot harder to heal.
I was going to have to get creative.
As I started to figure out what combination of spells I could use to properly heal the [Elite Knight], a thought struck me.
“Hold on,” I said. “You said you fought a [Displacer]?”
“Or something similar. That’s what Jion here said it was.”
“Fuck,” I said. “Did you get marked?”
“Marked?”
I delved into my senses a little deeper, focusing both my dungeon and healer senses on Ryan instead of Jion the [Elite Knight], and I saw it.
“Draw your weapon!” I shouted.
To his credit, Ryan prepared his magical blade before he spoke. “Why?”
“Even a lesser [Displacer] has—”
[Displace], the air screamed, and the scenery of the supposedly safe room changed, hard rock becoming trampled grass as a monster brought the battlefield to us.
Fuck me.
Chapter 27
“Fuck!” Ryan shouted.
Time slowed down, my dungeon half and human half working in harmony to think as fast as possible so that I could figure out how to heal the [Elite Knight] while also processing the situation.
[Displace] was a damn powerful skill from a damn powerful monster that definitely shouldn’t have been in an area like this, especially not without going noticed. How the hell had the Guild managed to overlook something this powerful for this long? How had it been allowed to undergo a dungeon break?
I could dwell on that later. Right now, I had to examine what my next steps were.
The environment was slowly being replaced, though thankfully that effect only applied to the ground and didn’t fully take away my ability to [Reshape] it, although it certainly made it harder.
The spell that every [Displacer] innately knew allowed it to travel vast distances in the blink of an eye. By ‘marking’ a target with it, it could teleport itself and the area immediately around it, replacing the target location and essentially bringing the fight to them.
In this case, Ryan had been marked. I didn’t fault him for not noticing—the battle must have been hectic.
The [Displacer] itself was a monstrous aberration, a mess of tentacles and eye sockets with a central body that propelled itself through the air with a highly efficient [Levitate]. The core body itself had to be five or six feet across, and that increased when it opened its gaping maw to suck in air, dirt, and, potentially, people. With its tentacles factored in, it had to be at least twenty feet from one end to the other.
Thankfully, we weren’t alone. The downside of [Displace] was that it didn’t select what it brought, which meant that as the [Displacer] finished materializing into the air, our allies followed it.
One, two, three… seven, eight, nine. It’d brought nine people with it. Of those, seven were dressed in the same armor that Ryan and the [Elite Knight] were wearing, and the interface told me they were all [Knight]s of some flavor.
The last two were Lisa and Troy.
As I finished taking in the situation, I realized that it was a bit more complex than I had taken it for, and then I had to adapt as time started moving as fast as my thoughts did.
Almost faster than I could see, the [Displacer] struck out, a long, spiked tentacle snapping out towards me at the speed of sound.
A moment passed by, and I was still unhurt. I opened my eyes, barely realizing that I’d closed them in instinct to brace for impact, and I saw Ryan standing in front of me, a glowing [Knight’s Shield] projected out of his right arm.
He’d blocked the blow. Not only had he blocked the blow, he’d also been fast enough to get from behind me to in front of me before I could even react. In the process of doing so, he’d unveiled a spell that I was sure he hadn’t had the last time he’d cleared this dungeon.
They’re so strong. I smiled, thinking of the ways they could be refined. If they were this powerful without proper adventurer training, I’d be able to turn them into proper nightmares for any dungeon out there.
“Stay behind me,” Ryan said, controlling the quiver in his voice. “I’ll protect you.”
“Protect Jion,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
The [Displacer] lashed out again, targeting a [Shield Knight]. The knight in question tanked the blow, their armor holding up admirably through the use of a [Fortify] spell.
“No buts,” I said. “Pretend he’s your healer.”
“You’re the healer.”
“And you should always protect the healer, but I’m different,” I said. I won’t die if a stray tentacle comes my way, and I won’t stay dead if it gets lucky.
“Fine,” he said, immediately pivoting to the downed [Elite Knight]’s position.
Good. I had just about figured out what I could do before the [Displacer] came, so I set myself on starting that, bringing in [Greater Restoration] after [Greater Restoration] and filling in the gaps with [Rejuvenating Pulse]. The former spell would help alleviate some of the aftereffects that shunting his flesh into otherspace would’ve caused, and the latter simply accelerated natural healing processes instead of magically creating new flesh.
The tradeoff for the spell, of course, was that it was much slower at healing. Most other types of healing spells would fail because of the uniqueness of the [Displacer]’s attack, so this was what I had left.
At the same time, I started considering how I would manipulate the dungeon to help kill this thing. I wasn’t going to try anything tricky with falling stalactites because I knew how [Displacer]s worked. Their whole gimmick was centered around creative use of the terrain and fast travel, and dropping a rock on it was a pretty terrible idea when the tentacled horror could [Displace] an ally of mine into the path of my attack.
The battle reflected that. The [Displacer] was never in one place for longer than five seconds at a time, and it kept spamming [Lesser Displace]. Even as I watched, Lisa swung her blade at half her usual power, emboldening it with the same [Enemy Attunement] that had swept its way through the entirety of my dungeon, and then she stopped mid-strike.
Just in time, too. Where before there were tentacles, there was now a determined-looking Troy, ripped away from his previous position at the corner of the room. He’d traded places with the monster.
The [Apprentice Mage] looked across the room and locked eyes with me.
“It’s on a cooldown!” he shouted. “It can’t trade places more than once every ten seconds!”
“Good to know!” I shouted back. “Good info-gathering! It’s critical in a fight!”
Alright. I’d done about as much as I could for Jion, draining half my mana in the process. It was time to focus on the fight.
Ten seconds, he’d said. Maybe five had passed since his words.
[Displacer]s all had a cooldown of some kind. Knowing when they would use their innate spells and when they would attack was the first key to killing them.
I waited the remaining five seconds before acting, but the others didn’t, converging on the [Displacer] as one. When it replaced one of their number—a [Shadow Knight] that I didn’t recognize—the member of the order closest to the beast attacked immediately. A moment later, a second strike hit it, so fast I almost thought it was the same knight attacking twice.
It wasn’t. Ryan, that glorious motherfucker, had struck it with all the speed he could possibly carry, and with one singular blow and an [Adamantium Strike] from his sword, he managed to slice off most of a tentacle.
“Level up!” Ryan called out. He didn’t elaborate.
Good. This wasn’t the ideal situation to level up in, but a party member leveling up was also pretty much the most surefire way to increase our odds of winning this fight.
For my part, I grew rock from above and below, trying to squeeze the core body into submission. It kind of worked, even, and it certainly did limit its movement, but by no means did it wholly stop it. It was slippery, the bastard, and its tentacles made quick work of a couple of the rocks that held onto it, but even as it destroyed its bindings, I created more. It was rough on my mana, but the drain was being more than recouped by the gains I got as errant fragments of boulders slammed into the monster’s tentacles, eyes, and maw.
Not a moment too soon, either. In any fight as messy and large-scale as this, people were bound to make mistakes, and one of those came almost immediately after a growth of rock almost completely stuck it in place.
“Swap!” Troy shouted, preparing another spell.
Someone didn’t hear him well enough because a [Eldritch Lancer] came sprinting towards the monster full throttle, their [Eldritch Spear] at the ready, and when the [Displacer] moved, the knight wasn’t ready for it.
Lisa took the hit, a powerful spell invoking that which lay beyond human comprehension to form a spear of pure wrongness, and it impaled her straight through the chest.
Half a second later, the [Eldritch Lancer] had been whisked away, their spell-drenched lance gone with them. Ryan. I could sense him sprinting through the place, a new spell—an improvement to [Agility Boost]? I couldn’t quite tell yet—bolstering his speed to insane levels.
Half a second after that, an impact hit me, and the world blurred.
When things were normal again, I was right next to Lisa.
“Thank you, Ryan,” I said, and then I started doing my job.
“No problem,” the [Knight] replied, coming to a stop right next to me. He swayed on his feet for a second, then fell flat on his face.
Fuck. He’d been massively helpful in the brief few seconds he’d been that fast—hell, the [Eldritch Spear] might’ve killed Lisa if it hadn’t been taken out in time—but he was still just level 4 after his level-up. His mana was finite, and so was his stamina.
“I have you,” I said to nobody, and I started healing. Ryan was fine but for his exhausted reserves, so I left him alone for now.
I focused on Lisa, using [Spare the Dying] for the umpteenth time and following it up with a [Healing Stream] and a [Cure Wounds]. The combination of the [Spare the Dying] and the [Cure Wounds] was enough to keep her conscious, at least, and the [Healing Stream] would passively restore her to full over the course of a minute.
