Dungeon of Assassins [LitRPG Through the Eyes of the NPCs]

Hours passed. Selvara's eyes were closed, and she was about to fall asleep from boredom when the thought language of the dungeon heart echoed through her mind.

<Hand of the Novice!>

He spoke the formula and felt the magic take shape. An invisible field with which he could lift small objects and carry them around. The limit was about the weight of a dagger. The spell could not manipulate, push or tear the target, but simply carry it around. It didn't even maintain alignment, so you couldn't even move a goblet of wine with it without it tipping over and leaking. A typical non-optimized level 1 spell. It wasn't usually difficult to use, but the area of effect swirled around aimlessly. Despite all his efforts, he could not align it with a target. Perplexed, he looked at the whole thing. As a dungeon heart, he could see magic without analysis spells, which he liked more and more. But why couldn't he control the spell at all? He had used it on his first successful attempt as an adept. But of course. He lacked the appropriate spell control skill. But if he was right with his idea...

Spell cast. Apprenticeship completed.
Character class acquired: Mage Level 1

Spell learned: Level 1 - Hand of the Novice (Layman I)

Cannot increase the mana pool: Incompatible race.

Cannot increase mana regeneration: Incompatible race.

Skills learned: Spell Control (Apprentice I), Magic Theory (Apprentice I), Alchemy (Apprentice I)

Ritual learned: Call of the Familiar

Select a spell from the list...

Before the list had run through entirely, he had already decided on a spell and chosen it.

Spell learned: Level 1 - Stationary Zone of Silence (Layman I)

The fairy looked up at him in confusion: "What just happened?"

Malvorik smugly explained what he had just done.

"That's impossible! You can't acquire a character class without leveling up!"

<The first one already. It doesn't cost any experience points yet. I can acquire a character class by fulfilling the relevant training requirements like everyone else. Or by choosing one of the freely accessible classes on my seventeenth birthday. It's not common knowledge, but even mage academies can't determine that someone gets their first level. You get it during the final exam, which consists of casting a first spell. This is actually the trigger for gaining a first level as a mage. As a member of the examination board, I know this, of course, but we didn't explain to our adepts that they could become mages without the academy.>

"Great. But you do realize that all the important abilities of a dungeon depend on its level in the character class Dungeon Master. If you don't get it when creating your dungeon now, you'll have a boring life here. In an empty room. Without monsters, traps or access to the outside."

Malvorik was silent for a moment.

<Let's hope I can still somehow get my hands on this class, then.>

Selvara crossed her arms in front of her chest: "Why couldn't I have caught a normal psychopath?"

<Maybe I should learn a few basics about dungeons first? I know the official theories, but only a few of them have been scientifically verified so far. As far as I know, dungeons can't change shape as long as adventurers are in them. They can dig rooms out of the rock and create walls. Presumably, this costs a lot of mana. Is that true so far?>

"That's true so far. You can absorb matter and create it again, but that costs mana. Actually, this uses relatively little mana, but dungeons often move large amounts of rock. This quickly adds up. Intelligent creatures and magical monsters block this ability within a certain radius."

<Wait, exactly how far does this blockade work? There are dozens of different reports on this. Adventurers are terrible when it comes to accurate reporting.>

"Well, it works about ten paces in all directions, even through rocks. It also affects everything in the direct line of sight of an intruder. Regardless of whether he is looking or not."

<Interesting. Golgoroth probably didn't want to make it too easy for the dungeons. Otherwise, we could just beat adventurers to death with rocks or open holes under their feet. Wait a minute... why were you flapping around in such a panic? I couldn't have done anything while you were in the room.>

"As a dungeon fairy, I don't count as an intruder so that I won't interfere with your dungeon construction. That would also be quite a hindrance. Now I'll go ahead and finish explaining. We had to memorize the lecture. It would be nice if I could use it at least once. So, you can store things you dissolve in an extradimensional room inside you. In a normal dungeon, I would describe it as a kind of stomach, but that shouldn't be necessary here. You know how a Bag of Holding works. You can't store much in the beginning. Most of it has to be created around you immediately. You should create a storage room there. In the Heart Room, the area directly around you, you can reshape anything you want at no mana cost. This can only be blocked if an intruder is standing directly in your heart room. So you can always clean up your supply room. This is an innate ability of all dungeon hearts. So you should be able to do it too. Give it a try."

Malvorik reached out with his mind. He could feel the fairy itself but could not influence it. The walls, on the other hand, felt malleable. Without effort, he could form a pattern into a surface. Now he needed one more piece of information. But he wasn't sure whether the fairy would give it to him once it had understood his new abilities.

<Say Selvara, do you know where we are right now?>

"Of course. The oldest dungeon fairy receives a vision from Golgoroth with information about each new dungeon. She then passes it on when a fairy has been chosen for it. I was shown where my location will be yesterday using our best maps."

<Where are we now?>

"We're just over 150 steps below the surface. So it will take you quite a while before your dungeon reaches the surface. Your sphere of influence grows with the size of your crystal. To enlarge your crystal, you just need a lot of time to gather enough mana. Each increase in size costs more."

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<I hate to interrupt your explanations, but I meant: Where are we geographically?>

"I see. Sorry. I was prepared for a dungeon heart to know nothing about the world. We're on the edge of the Kaali Desert, right by the Blackrock Mountains. In other words, in the no man's land between the M'Bathi tribal area and the Kingdom of the Golden Alliance. An ideal place to set up a dungeon. A relatively well-frequented travel route is not far away. So you can open your exit there and expect to be found relatively quickly. Or you can build an oasis and use it as a trap."

<I know the area. That should be the trade route over the Kaali Pass. Access to the Golden Alliance is controlled by the city fortress of Mulnirsheim. How far are we from the city?>

"About five days' travel."

<And as the crow flies?>

"Maybe 60 miles, through the border forest, across the grass steppe and directly over the mountains."

<Then the mana line here is probably an offshoot of the Tarnel Stream. Upstream, we would then come to the actual Tarnel Stream. It meets a line of force that leads to the power junction below Mulnirsheim. At least according to the calculations of the Royal Survey Corps. All they found there was a mirror node thirty steps above the ground, where a directly vertical line rises from the ground. A small mage academy was even founded there. They have a tower with a room directly around the power node. Without a meditation room on a power node where you can regenerate mana more quickly, training takes much longer. Since the novices have not yet mastered any suitable techniques and only regenerate mana very slowly, they can hardly practise any spells. With a meditation room...>

The fairy interrupted him: "This might be really interesting, but could you please set up your dungeon now so we can make a pact? Once we are pact bound, I can read your status directly and help you much better and easier."

<No rush. I was still giving the occasional lecture on the symbiotic connection between dungeons and their fairies up until a decade ago. Let me just test one more old theory of mine.>

Without paying attention to her questions, he cast the spell: <Hand of the Novice.>

Now with the appropriate skill, he was able to control the simple spell precisely. He grabbed his own small crystal body and carefully carried himself along the line of force. Something he hadn't been able to do as a novice, of course, since he weighed considerably more than five pounds back then. The fairy bolted up from her cozy reclining position in a panic, "What are you doing?"

When his heart space came into contact with the rock, he was able to dissolve the stone without effort. The experience surprised him. He could feel, smell and taste the rock. As it dissolved, he understood the structure of the material with a depth and precision that he could not express in words. What he had just seen as simply stone, he now understood as a complex structure of different substances.

After a few steps, he felt a pressure inside him that quickly became uncomfortable and a short distance later painful. He remembered the fairy's explanations and let the rock behind him take shape again. The pressure eased immediately.

Selvara, meanwhile, fluttered above him and nervously drew in her feet as the room behind her turned to rock.

Malvorik discovered that he was able to make the rock much stronger than it was by nature. Without fissures, inclusions and cracks. The true essence of granite. However, this left him with a tunnel or frequent holes, as this material was much denser than normal rock. After a few steps, he decided that he would rather not leave a trail, so he left the rock behind him with exactly the same consistency it had before.

He followed the line of force, not only because it was his source of energy, but also his only point of orientation. He did not miss any of his human characteristics. He didn't get tired and he could effortlessly maintain his concentration almost indefinitely. As a human mage, he had been able to maintain the spell for half an hour at best, until the pattern destabilized too much, whereupon he had to cast it again. However, he was unable to hold a conversation with the fairy at the same time. After a few attempts to get a conversation going, she gave up and fluttered along with him, grumbling quietly.

She was just glad that the fairy drink hadn't made her tired. Otherwise she would have had to hope he didn't wall her up and fly on. At the moment, she wasn't at all sure what the chances of that were. She had briefly considered holding on to the crystal and letting it carry her along, but feared that she might push it off the line of force. The crystal was also spinning wildly on all axes, which obviously didn't seem to bother Malvorik.

After about a day, the line of force met a stronger line. Like a stream meeting a river.

He followed the mana current through further crossings to the stronger one until he came to a level 6 line that had a strong affinity to fire and ore. Here he turned against the current. Finally it made sense that he had had to memorize all the important power lines of the continent as a novice.

The fairy tried to start a conversation again. This time he paused to listen. "Do you have any idea where you're tunneling to or do you just want to go for a walk? I'm sure there was a reason why your dungeon was planned exactly where we just came from."

<We'll be there soon.>

It took longer than he had expected, but then a glowing knot of magic appeared in the dissolving rock. The line on which it moved crossed a line of equal strength. An ore-affine mana line rose up from below. All three lines intersected to form a mana knot. Malvorik knew that the ore line formed another mana node with two air-affinity mana streams thirty steps above the ground. Several researchers had suspected another node deep underground based on the strength of the lines. So far, however, no one had been able to raise the enormous costs for the necessary excavations. Especially as the benefit of a second node at such a short distance was minimal.

Malvorik stopped right in the middle of the mana knot and bathed in the storm of magic.

Mana regeneration: 24 mana points/hour
(Mana Node Strength 24)

<A strength 24 mana node, worlds better than this measly strength 1 line. We're right under Mulnirsheim. Is there anything to be said against establishing my dungeon here?

"You can't just choose where your dungeon is built!"

<Why not?>

"Because... Because..." The fairy threw up her arms, speechless.

Malvorik concentrated and called up the dungeon management menu.

Establish dungeon Yes / No?

He resolutely chose "Yes"

Dungeon established

Crystal heart: Size 1
Range: 10 steps

Character class acquired. Dungeon Master Level 1

Skills learned: Architecture (Apprentice I), Trap building (Apprentice I), Monster Lore (Apprentice I)

Malvorik mentally slapped his non-existent thighs in triumph. The gods had decreed that a Dungeon automatically got the character class Dungeon Master. Apparently, they hadn't even considered that he might already have another character class. Two classes at level 1 on the first day of his existence. No one would be able to copy that so quickly.

He could suddenly perceive the stone a little way outside his heart chamber. A spherical area of about... Well, it was probably the 10 paces indicated. A myriad of other menus were now available. He wasted no time in constructing a space around himself. Since he couldn't store much material inside himself, he limited himself to the classic cube of five by five paces for now. Now Selvara finally had a little more space. She hadn't shown any signs of discomfort in the narrow tunnel, but as soon as she had room to fly again, she seemed much more relaxed. Satisfied, he went through the remaining reports:

Construction patterns for traps:
(selection required)

He leafed through the long list of blueprints for traps. Swinging knives, pitfall traps, spear throwers, blowpipes, flamethrowers, water containers, pitfall traps... Most of them were relatively simple. He was confident he could reconstruct them without a blueprint. <If I postpone this until later, the selection will expire?>

"No. You can do that in the trap menu at any time. I'd also recommend waiting until you've thought about a structure and maybe even a theme for your dungeon."

Construction pattern for trap triggers:
(selection required)

Numerous plans were also available for trap triggers. Trip wires, pressure plates, chest lids, various objects that had to be turned or touched. That looked a lot more challenging. The preview images did not reveal the exact mechanism, but he knew from the reports of adventurers that the trap triggers were often very complex. <There have been several reports from adventurers that traps react to certain spells or the mere presence of living creatures. I don't see anything here that would make that possible.>

"At higher levels, a few additional variants also appear, but if you want traps to react to magic or creatures, you need a suitable feat for each."

Feat learned: Possession

Increased storage capacity

Available monster breeds:
(selection required)

A long list of lower-ranking monsters followed. Carnivorous plants, rats, various insects, giant amoebas... The list went on and on.