A Lonely Dungeon

There is something strange going on in the goblin dungeon in the eastern foothills. If it had been just one team reporting it I'd suspect them of having too much to drink, but three teams have visited that dungeon today and all made the same report. The goblins in the dungeon have become non-hostile. Furthermore, they've grouped up into a single large room, where they've set up a primitive camp, leaving the remainder of the floor abandoned. There's no longer any sign of traps. Two of the teams retreated immediately upon seeing the camp. The third approached, and the goblins had no problem with their presence. At least until the teams rogue decided to take advantage of the goblins passivity and slit one of their throats, at which point the entire floors worth of monsters attacked at once, showing teamwork well beyond what first floor goblins had any right to display. The rogue did not survive, but the rest of the team were not attacked and were able to leave safely. No team has yet ventured beyond the first floor, so it is unknown what other changes the dungeon has undergone. I have ordered the dungeon off limits and will be sending in a specialised investigation team tomorrow.

- A report from an adventures guild branch master to the head office

Erryn viewed the impact site at the fortress. The area where the fortress wall had been erased was now shrouded in a black fog thanks to its new empathy skill. Erryn didn't want to look in too closely, the raw emotion from the bound souls swiftly becoming overwhelming, but its new immediate goal had become to release the souls and it was prepared to do what was needed to make that happen. Erryn could see that the black haze was linked in to the ambient mana but was not able to identify the strands of mana that formed the link. If the description of the empathy skill was taken literally then this black fog was a representation of the emotions of the souls rather than the souls themselves, which would explain why Erryn failed to see the connections. In that case it just needed to concentrate on the gaps. To look for the holes that the haze was surrounding. Erryn attempted to focus its perception on something that wasn't visible, following the strands of mana where they were linked to... something.

New skill unlocked: [Soul Perception]. You are now able to perceive souls.

The System granted another new skill, one that was very helpful for the current situation. Despite its doubts about the System Erryn was willing to gratefully accept the help that it gave. The black mist now looked truly grotesque; a twisting knot of red and brown seethed along the ground. It looked like a mass of giant worms formed of blood, unable to separate and pulling against each other in all directions. There was no way they could be described as human and they probably hadn't been ever since the spell was cast, the evil magic tearing the sacrificed souls to shreds and leaving only fragments behind. The view made Erryn feel nauseous. Maybe that's what a dungeon stampede was, it thought; a dungeon being sick... Erryn realised it was trying to distract itself from the sight before it, and refocused.

Erryn could see now where the soul remnants were anchored, tied in to the mana of the land. It could see how the mana was polluted by the mass. That explained the uncomfortable feeling it had when occupying the fortress; it had the dregs of this weapon pumping corrupted mana directly into its body. Erryn could cut away the anchors that bound the clump of souls to the land, but how much would that help them? Would they not still be knotted together, still corrupted? Erryn pushed at the corruption instead, gathering dense and pure mana from the lower floors of the dungeon and pushing it into the pollution. It resisted but Erryn was stronger, even this far from the core. Erryn flooded pure mana through the anchors and into the knot of souls. They went wild, writhing madly, and through [Empathy] Erryn could share in the burning that they felt.

The resistance was stronger now that it came to flooding the soul remnants directly instead of the corrupted land but Erryn continued to push, the corruption gradually diluted by the denser pure mana. Where it was forced into the worms their colour changed from blood red to white. Erryn didn't have breath to run out of, or need to sleep. It was winning, however slowly, and would keep this up for as long as needed. As more of the clump turned white, the writhing slowed, the pain lessened. The resistance reduced, and Erryn rapidly purified the remaining mass. The haze lightened from black to grey; there was an animalistic fear there still, but no longer pain. There truly was no sign that these remnants were once human. No intelligence left, only instinct. Erryn cut the anchors, freeing them for reincarnation, or perhaps an afterlife. Whatever was supposed to happen to souls after death. Erryn didn't know, and didn't consider that its business, just hoping that the shattered souls could be restored. The haze lightened further, from fear to peace, and then dispersed, the knot of broken souls unlinking and fading away to nothing.

Designating dungeon as [Purifier of Souls].

The shifting aura of emotion had reassured Erryn of its success, but the System chimed in with further confirmation. Erryn analysed the designation to read the description.

Purifier of souls: A title granted to one that has purified and released at least ten bound souls. Unlocks related class. Title will be lost if the bearer ignores practitioners of soul magic, or ignores the plight of further bound souls.

That was a little different. The description described it as a 'title' instead of a 'designation', and did not mention dungeons. The only effect was to unlock a class, but classes were very much a human thing. Apparently whoever had been writing these things never expected a dungeon would fulfil the conditions to unlock the title. From its literary escapades Erryn was aware that humans could select their own class, but didn't know how a class change was done. A human class would presumably be the equivalent to a dungeons type. "System, can I change my type?" There was no response. But then the System had never answered that sort of question, so Erryn rephrased: "System, show me my available types."

Selectable dungeon types: [Slime], [Hope of the Lost].

One of those things was definitely not like the other... Unfortunately [Analysis] didn't work on this system message. Emotionally speaking, Erryn liked the sound of the new dungeon type, or class, or whatever it was. It would be nice if Erryn could bring hope back to this forsaken world. Logically speaking, there was no benefit from being a slime dungeon, the dungeon store cost changes having no effect given that the store was unavailable, and the increased abilities of slimes pointless without invaders to use those abilities on. Perhaps this new class would give something more usable. "System, change dungeon type to Hope of the Lost."

Error: Template missing from applied dungeon type. Constructing template. Working... Template created.

Dungeon type switched to [Hope of the Lost].

Erryn assumed that the error there was the System trying to work out how the heck it was supposed to apply a human class to a dungeon. It looked forward to seeing the results, so quickly appraised itself.

Hope of the Lost dungeon:

That was not useful. Just like the higher ranked slimes, but this time a description was missing instead of a name. Perhaps effects would reveal themselves in time, and with a bit of luck there wouldn't be anything negative. The class name certainly didn't imply negativity. Erryn began a complete scan of its territory, searching for anything new it could see through soul perception. Part way through, it was interrupted by an odd feeling. In a small way it was similar to the feeling it had from the hex bomb impact site prior to Empathy, a feeling of foreign mana acting outside of Erryn's control, but this time it didn't feel wrong, but right. Which was fortunate, because this time the feeling was not confined to a small area, but rather spanned the entirety of Erryn's territory.

New monster unlocked: Glowing slime.

Erryn strongly hoped that its instinct that nothing was wrong was correct. Something was modifying its monsters underneath it! Erryn shifted its perception over to the dungeon proper, but the slimes there looked and acted normal. Moving out to the outdoor slime population, the largest slimes looked normal, but the smaller ones had a faint glow. It was the smallest slimes that showed the biggest change, and Erryn watched fascinated as the glow gradually brightened on each of them. Then one slime emitted a dazzling flash, and when it dimmed the slime sitting there was almost white with a hint of yellow, far different from the blue they had been. And it was definitely glowing. Analysis confirmed its species had changed from 'slime' to 'glowing slime'. Erryn laughed; it seemed its new class had an effect after all. The mana flowing through its body, previously raw and unaligned to any affinity, was now slightly attuned to light. It was just enough to affect the basic slimes, but as they changed the mana they expelled changed with them. Erryn watched as the dominoes began their fall; as more slimes changed, the light affinity of the ambient mana would strengthen, converting yet more slimes, probably converting the entire dungeon. Erryn let it happen; a light affinity seemed appropriate for its new mission.

New monster unlocked: Shining slime.

Next to go were the big slimes. They shone more brightly than the glowing slimes. They also became a bit smaller. Still larger than the glowing slimes, but not as large as the big slimes they were converted from. The conversion was slow but relentless, and over the next few days the pattern continued. Thankfully the system didn't attempt to erase any monsters, complaining about them being outdoors, or inappropriate for any floor.

New monster unlocked: Radiant slime.

New monster unlocked: Brilliant slime.

New monster unlocked: Blinding slime.

New monster unlocked:

As with the original slimes, these light affinity slimes had five ranks before the system gave up. Also as with the original slimes, the names were rather... exaggerated. Yes, a blinding slime was quite bright, but it certainly wouldn't be blinding anyone any more than an emperor slime would be ruling a country. The larger slimes on the other hand were a different matter. By floor ten, Erryn was quite certain that any human adventurers would not be able to see without some form of protection. Zephyr sat with paws over its eyes and whined miserably until Erryn put up some shades around the core room, staggered plates growing alternately from floor and ceiling down each corridor.

As with the big slimes, each successive tier of light element slime had shrunk during their conversion, each new tier concentrating on increasing brightness rather than size. The room sized slimes of floor ten were now only the size of emperor slimes. That allowed Erryn to finally begin populating the new floors, thus far filled only with vines. As long as these new elemental slimes could merge in the same way as before... Erryn performed a quick check, and discovered that they thankfully could.

The merging process meant that the mana required to populate each floor grew exponentially, and filling up to floor fifteen was slow going. But as ever, Erryn had no external constraints on time, just its own desire to search the world and release hex bomb victims as soon as possible. Eventually it had another five populated floors. The slimes still hadn't grown to an unmanageable size, but Erryn could see that the light was going to become a problem. Floor fifteen already had noticeably warmed dungeon walls, each slime like a miniature sun. It would be a while yet before the walls melted, but Erryn expected problems before then. Would the slimes be able to survive their own heat if they grew any stronger? What about the dungeon vines? Floor fifteen was safe enough at least, so Erryn decided to claim up to there before progressing further.