Chapter 12

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

“This is convenient,” said Fara as the table with two chairs appeared against the corner of the Vault. I had to expand the size of the room by about a foot to make it fit. On it was paper with ink and quill. “You truly can remodel your dungeon at your whim.”

“So long as there are no conscious minds in it that are not bound to my Crystal or who have not bee subjugated,” I answered.

“You can take prisoners?” Fara asked me, her ears twitching. She sat down on one of the chairs.

“I took Halia prisoner,” I said. “It’s how I recruited her. I showed her I wasn’t a monster and then let her go. She decided to keep serving me.”

“Ah.” She looked at the parchment. “Halia Vorbia. Her father is a legend. He killed several powerful dungeon builders, but failed to kill the greatest threat that has arisen.”

“Fuegin.” I sat down. “He’s, uh, an ally of sorts.”

“He’s an ally to know one,” Fara said. “If he seeks to befriend you, he merely uses you.”

“Maybe.” Fuegin did feel so sincere. “He wants to find out why we’re here. He’s tried to get to your library several times.”

“Yes. So far, our wardens have held against his incursions, but the longer a dungeon builder lives, the more power he can accumulate.” Her ears twitched. “You say he wishes to know your purpose and is working with you.”

“It’s why I wrote my letter. Why you’re here.”

Fara’s ears twitched. “Do not tell him what I suspect about the First Dungeon being in these mountains.”

“I won’t.” Her caution was wise. I hated it. I wanted to trust Fuegin. He could have wiped me out, but instead, he offered me the hand of friendship. No one else in this world had done that. They all assumed I was evil. “Not until we know what we have and can understand it.”

“It is your decision, Lord Leo.” She shifted. “Now, I have had a tour of your entire dungeon. It is rather slap-dash affair.”

“Yeah, I just add things as I get new glyphs,” I said. “I want to change that. I think we can safely divide the dungeon into three sections. The entrance with the first level of the labyrinth that funnels everyone through a single trap room. A second labyrinth that leads to another trap room.”

“No.” The elf said. “You need to layer your defenses. Let it lead to stairs that lead to another level. You can then build that layer beneath the first. A more compact design.”

“Yeah, I haven’t been so good at thinking three-dimensionally.” I smiled. “So we have a third labyrinth on the second level that funnels into the water trap room. From there, that can lead to the guard room, my throne room, and living quarters.”

“Which all should be on a third level. Even a fourth level, perhaps, putting your living quarters beneath your Throne Room. We should not be up high. It puts us closer to the surface.”

I winced. “Yeah, learned that one the hard way.”

“Your trap rooms are quite impressive. The water one with the bridge that both has to be raised out of the water and then turned a ninety degrees is a nice touch. They see the door that leads to the small labyrinth and never realize there is a concealed door out of reach that leads to your residence.”

“I stole part of that from this asshole named Jindag. The concealed door was my own addition.”

“Still, keep using it,” she said. She dipped the quill into the ink pot and started doing a rough sketch. She drew in the entrance. “We’ll want to keep the tunnel off to Astovin intersecting this same guard room.”

“And the part of the dungeon that leads up here,” I added. “There’s a Mana Vein flowing through here.”

The elf blinked. “There is?” She reached out her hand. “Through us right now?”

“Yep. I need to keep my intersection with it.”

Fara nodded and added some notes.

“I can also make new traps,” I said. “Metal lets me make weapon traps and Earth gives me crushing ceiling traps.”

“You have ice,” said Fara. “What can we do with that?”

I rose and went to the Void Crystal and sank into it. I had all the various components. “I can make the ground slick. Say over a narrow bridge over a pit full of spikes.”

“Useful, useful,” she said. “I like this idea. Bridges are good. You have will o’ wisps. They are ranged attackers, but you have them wondering your labyrinth. Maybe a room that could take advantage of their abilities.”

“Yes, yes!” A smile split my lips. “A darkness room with a bridge and a pit. Then they can shoot at the adventurers from the safety of fortified hallways that line the sides. The only way to reach them would be by crossing the pit or by being placed there by me. My will o’ wisps would be stuck, but they wouldn’t mind.”

“They don’t seem to mind at all spending their time in one place,” said Fara.

“Even the companions I claimed,” I said. “Usiku, Paanee, and Baaghi are content to stay in their guard room for days. They don’t get bored. They were humans once, but no longer. It’s changed them.”

“Having to hold a post for days at a time without it being a chore would be a valuable trait for monster girls to have,” Fara said. “I can see why they would have them.”

“Yeah.” I frowned. “What’s the origin of monster girls?”

Fara looked up. “They arrived with the first dungeon builder. Dragons, of course, predated the dungeon builders, but not the monster girls. They spawned with the dungeon builders. They spilled out of their keeps and attacked the world.”

“Interesting.” I let go of the Void Crystal. “As far as I can tell, they’re all from the mythologies of my world.”

“The world you come from has monster girls?”

“Not monster girls.” I smiled. “Monsters. They could be of either gender, or neither. Some of them were unique. Others were races. They have different legends about them. I don’t recognize all of them, but undines are stuff I’ve run into in video games. I know valkyries are Norse. Sprites sound like something from Celtic mythology like Feya being a fairy. Nagas are Indian, I think, and so are rakshasa. Not sure about wildhounds, but Usiku said fomorians were from Irish mythology. Succubus, of course, I’ve heard about. So are dryads and satyrs. Werebears, mermaids, and hippocampi, too. I think Quetzalcoatl was a South American god or something. Even elves and dwarves and halflings are from our stories and mythologies.”

“Interesting,” the elf said. “So the monster girls are, what, born out of the dungeon builder’s imagination.”

I furrowed my brow. “Maybe. They do feel ... like I am creating them with my will. But their design doesn’t come from me. They come from the Void Crystal.” I glanced down at Souleen. “Any reason that all the wildhounds look basically the same. Or the satyrs. My satyrs and Jindag’s are similar. So are the oozes. They have different faces, but their body shapes are the same.”

“The Void Crystals have their ... their...” Souleen frowned. “Blueprint. That is a word from your language. The same blueprint that you use.”

“And where did the blueprint come from?”

The little, busty Soul of the Void Crystal gave a helpless shrug. “Wherever the Void Crystals come from. Whoever summons you.”

“That woman that you’re a piece of,” I muttered.

“I don’t know.” Souleen gave me a helpless look. “I really, really don’t know.”

I sighed. “So, monster girls have been brought to this world by the imagination of people from my world. Maybe the first dungeon builders created the blueprints of their various mythological creatures and they were ... shared. Like all the Void Crystals are on the same network and accessing the same database. The same library.”

“Library?” Fara asked. “I’m not sure what a library has to do with a Void Crystal.”

“It’s a programming term,” I said. “There are machines we have called computers that can store data and execute programs. They’re quite powerful in what they can do. They have resource libraries that multiple programs access and use for different purposes. It’s like that.”