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

Dungeon heart Malvorik had found no peace since the underground battle to save the last duskgnomes. The underground city he had created for fun, and to test his builder skills, was suddenly full of life. Duskgnomes scurried through the houses, picked a spot and made themselves at home. Someone always had a request.

He was currently working on installing functioning hinges on the doors, which had previously only served as decoration. Malvorik only had a vague idea of exactly how a hinge was constructed and how it worked.

Selvara watched in the heart room using the mirrored walls that showed what the dungeon heart was looking at, "Are you kidding? You can't make that thing square. It has to be round, otherwise the hinge can't turn at all!"

<This is more complex than you make it out to be. Who has ever taken a close look at a door hinge!>

"Anyone who uses doors?"

Malvorik ignored her and reformed the hinges according to her instructions. After a few more adjustments, the duskgnomes managed to open their doors with a squeak.

He created bandages, clean water and blankets. Then he came to the subject of food. That was a little more problematic. The only halfway edible animals he could make were rats. He created a summoning circle and made a few rats appear.

Selvara hovered a few steps above the ground and looked down critically at his activities: "Can't you create them dead? Butchering rats would be a lot of work for that little meat."

Malvorik paused and rummaged through his menus. As he had done before, he could also create dead monsters to use as bait, traps or decoration.

<Decoration?>

"Probably for dungeons with an undead theme. See if you can leave out the skin as well."

A few bloody rat carcasses appeared.

Malvorik and Selvara looked down at the pile, indecisive and slightly disgusted. The living rats that had been summoned shortly before reacted more directly. They immediately pounced on the food provided.

<They don't seem to have any moral problems with cannibalism.>

"Can you..." She made a vague gesture.

<Just a moment. I can leave out the bones... And the organs... Now the blood...>

The carcasses that now appeared looked more appetizing. But they were still very recognizable as rats. <I still have options to customize the shape... The menus for monster creation are not enthusiastic.>

"What do you mean?"

<I get lots of messages that these monsters are not viable. As if I hadn't realized that too. If I wasn't a chimera mage, I probably wouldn't be able to adjust it so accurately at all.>

A pile of vaguely cube-shaped chunks of meat appeared. Selvara flew down for the first time to take a closer look. "Yes, that works. No bones, no weird bits of organ, no fur. You got it right this time. Now no one can tell exactly what it was. Create a new summoning circle in the kitchen of Gnome City and then we'll see what the duskgnomes think of it."

A picture of the largest kitchen in the tiny village appeared on one of the mirrored walls. Malvorik had extended it considerably and equipped a large room next to it as a canteen with long tables and rows of benches.

Some duskgnome women were busy unpacking their few supplies. They familiarized themselves with the arrangement of the cauldrons, which could be swung over the hearth fire on a swivel arm. When the incantation circle burned itself into one of the stone shelves on the wall, they stepped back nervously at first. Then the chunks of meat appeared.

A short time later, a duskgnome chef had already mixed the goulash in one of the copper kettles together with the herbs she had brought with her and began to heat it over the fire. She fished out a spoonful and tasted it while three other duskgnome women watched her expectantly. She smacked her lips demonstratively and paused dramatically as she chewed and swallowed the morsel thoughtfully. Then she grinned broadly at her audience: "Excellent. I haven't had rat meat this good for years."

<Skorr? I probably should have asked you earlier, but what exactly are the usual sources of meat for duskgnomes?>

The duskgnome raised his head in surprise and banged against the top of the bunk bed he was putting together in a room. "What?"

<I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.>

Skorr waved it off: "It's all right. I just wasn't prepared for a voice in my head. What was that about meat?"

<I just wanted to know what kind of animals duskgnomes usually eat.>

"Well, what we can get. On the surface, I personally like to hunt rabbits. In the tunnels of the underworld, there are a few types of lizards... and rats, of course. Lots of varieties of rats." He smacks his lips, "Dire rats are the size of pigs and have a similar flavor."

<Understood. Thank you. That was all I wanted to know.>

The next day flew by.

The dungeon heart let its gaze flit through its dungeon, but found no urgent problems. <Now they'll have to manage on their own for a while. I have to take care of the dungeon's security.>

He removed the water ingress he had used to keep the revenants out of the shaft, cleared the passage downwards again and lowered some duskgnomes down.

<Thank you for setting off again so soon after your arrival. As we just discussed, you are to collapse the tunnels that lead under the dungeon a few hours away from here. I'll have enough mana available in a few weeks to reclaim the nearby area and block it off completely with dungeon stone. Until then, one collapse will have to do. This time you have no undead behind you and can take your time. I've analyzed your old equipment and made a few copies.>

Two groups of five duskgnomes nodded and marched off. At the edge of Malvorik's sphere of influence, they found a pile of hammers, chisels and pickaxes. All created from the best tools they had brought with them. Tools that their people had transported over years of migration and hundreds of kilometers.

The image in the mirror wall followed the two groups until they were out of sight of the dungeon heart. The image switched to his play city. Although he liked to think of it as a city, he had to admit the term village would be more fitting to its size. He let his gaze wander from duskgnome to duskgnome. Some mourned fallen kin. Others just stared wearily ahead. Most, however, wandered through their new home like wide-eyed children.

He had saved all these children and their parents. Now he would make sure that they could grow up in safety. No one would ever harm them again. Not without defeating his dungeon first. Down to the last monster.

The leader of the duskgnomes came into his field of vision. He stared unfocused in front of him and wiped his hands through the air in annoyance. Was he just managing his last level up? What had he done to have to move so many menus around?

<Hello Skorr, is everything all right?>

"Not quite. As the nominal leader of the duskgnomes, I'm now the mayor of a village. I really have no idea what to do with all the menus. There's so much to do..."

<Interesting. I was afraid that, as the owner of the site, I would have to become the mayor.>

Legal reassessment...
Congratulations. Malvorik is now mayor of [insert name of village]
Current number of inhabitants: 241
(Note: monsters are not counted as inhabitants).

<Ah... crap. I wish I hadn't said anything.>

His field of vision filled up with messages and new menus.

Insufficient living space: population growth -60%

No hospital or comparable facility: risk of epidemics: +20%; wound healing -20%

No designated latrines: risk of epidemics: +20%; morale -10%

No designated training areas for military personnel: training time +50%

No school or comparable center for teaching: Learning times for knowledge skills +50%

No cultivation areas available, food supply unclear, supplies still sufficient at the moment: morale of the inhabitants -20%

No defenses: Morale of the inhabitants -40%

<One moment! Objection! This is a dungeon. If that doesn't count as a defense facility...>

Check... Objection accepted.

Sufficient defenses: morale of the inhabitants +30%

No established trade routes: Trade income = 0

Please select a form of government:
Monarchy, dictatorship, oligarchy, chieftaincy, gerontocracy, magocracy...

<No question. Dictatorship. With me as dictator. I hate politics. I have no talent for it at all. So we'll just do it like this: Everyone does what I say, and anyone who doesn't go along will be eaten by the dungeon... But I will make an effort to only give orders that everyone likes.>

Chosen form of government: Dictatorship

Malvorik went through the individual points in more detail. When he focused on one of the messages, a control menu for the development and control of the village opened. Each entry branched out into numerous options. Numerous buildings and resources were necessary for the village to survive. A number of positions had to be filled. Military leader, healer, architect, master builder, teacher and many more. There were also a number of trades and activities.

Depending on the quality of the building or the skills of the person, it had an impact on the productivity, morale and loyalty of the villagers. It also affected population growth, general health and a number of other values.

Skorr read through a message from the world voice, grinned and wandered off, whistling happily.

<Golgoroth's scaly back! Just reading through all this is work in itself.>

He scrolled through menus, read the few explanations and began to write an overview. One of the walls in his heart room filled up with notes and cross-references. Some of them developed into full-blown equations. Selvara flew through the heart room on her way to her room, hovering in the air to watch.

"Ideal living space coefficient? Building regulations? Consolidation? Development planning? Efficiency deductions for mixed use? Supply and disposal statistics? What exactly are you doing right now?"

<I have been appointed mayor of a village. Caring for a population is... complex.>

"Why? Food, accommodation, fun. Done."

<Well, take the topic of latrines, for example. Where exactly do we place the latrines and how do we dispose of the excrement?>

"Stop it! Eww. You can solve that on your own. Why don't you start with the most urgent problem first? Food."

<Food? I just organized a whole bunch of rat meat goulash.>

"Did you pay attention to how much mana that cost? You can't feed the duskgnomes permanently with that."

<Oh... that's right. What else do they eat? Let me think... subterranean races usually eat mostly mushrooms. At least according to Wiltram's Compendium of Subterranean Cultures.>

"We don't have any mushrooms in the dungeon. The duskgnomes have brought some bags of spores, but it will take weeks for them to grow. We'd also need special soil or bales of straw."

Malvorik drew a plan of the dungeon on the mirror and then selected an area into which he could drive several tunnels: <We lay out the mushroom gardens as a series of long tunnels. In the middle a path to walk through and on either side, stone shelves for a layer of soil for the mushrooms to grow on. Then a network of tiny tubes in the stone to distribute the water evenly and... done.>

Selvara flew through the dungeon. She looked around frantically and pounced on Skorr as soon as she found him. She flew in tight circles around him while talking at him. He thought for a moment and then spoke up into the empty room, "Growing mushrooms isn't hard if you can control the humidity and temperature. But you'll also need to put in a little light. The duskgnomes used small solium crystals for this. People often think that mushrooms don't need any light at all. But that's wrong."

<Good tip. I didn't know that. High humidity, cool, dim light. Has been noted. I'll draw in the excavation areas and automate that.>

He was silent for a few minutes, then the heart crystal flashed: <Done. The digging is in progress. Then I'll replicate the soil the duskgnomes brought with the mushrooms. I'll probably have to replace the soil after 2-3 harvests, but we'll see.>

Selvara floated to the crystal and placed her hands on it: "You feel tense. Is something wrong?"

<I had imagined life as a dungeon heart differently. I had a lot of plans. Things I wanted to do. Things I never used to have the time and resources for. I just made a few mistakes in my thinking.>

"What do you mean?"

<Well, for magic theory research I would need access to libraries. It's hard to research something new with only what I already know. I've had free access to one of the largest mage libraries my whole life. I could never have imagined that I would no longer have that. I need more animals and monsters for chimera experiments and I don't have the materials to make artifacts. Magic-aligned woods and metals, monster body parts, monster hearts and, above all, suitable aligned gemstones.>

"This is only temporary. We'll find more resources over time."

<I just don't know if we have that much time.>

The dungeon fairy flew up and looked around: "What do you mean? Are we being attacked again?"

<Not the dungeon. But a new plague has begun. We have seen how divided the revenants are. During the last plagues, there were monsters, resurrected gods and necromancers. The revenants fought them alongside us. Well, they got up to a lot of mischief along the way. But with few exceptions, they didn't ally with necromancers or try to wipe out any of the intelligent races.>

"That's right. Some of the new ones seem to be really vicious."

<We can't rely on them to solve our problems again this time. I thought at first we'd just have to stop some incursions. Or take care of minor quests that they ignore. Now I think we'll have to take care of the world quests too. Whatever that will be this time. We need to get our own team of heroes ready to go as soon as possible.>

"They need proper equipment for that. Magic weapons, armor, artifacts and elixirs."

<As a mage and dungeon master with just the right special skills, I can create weapons, enchant weapons, enchant armor and create elixirs. Theoretically.>

"Theoretically?"

<I need quite a lot of mana for weapons if I want to make them permanent. Equipment that disintegrates as soon as you leave my dungeon isn't very useful after all. I also need a few more patterns. Those no-good revenants and their necromancer friends cleaned up nicely when they left. Earlier, a couple of the duskgnomes went down and picked up everything that was still lying around and brought it into my sphere of influence. The water has seeped away again, but they couldn't find much. We got a few cheap swords, rusty maces and daggers. Arrowheads and a broken bow. Plus quite a few remains of undead and their mostly rusted chain mail and rotten leather armor. At least I now have enough examples to properly work out the arrangement of the rings in chain mail.>

"How about we buy weapons cheaply and then you enchant them?"

<This brings us to the second problem area. Enchantments only work on items that have been created to at least master level. We also need a suitable gemstone to hold the enchantment matrix. It would be even better to use magically prepared metals so that the weapons can also hold several enchantments.>

"What about elixirs?"

<For alchemy, we need a laboratory and ingredients. Creating the stills from memory is harder than I thought without plans. One of the easiest recipes is for a simple healing potion. For this I need berries from a Dawnleaf tree, Athela's herb, alchemically pure alcohol and a stirring spoon made of pure silver. All I can create at the moment is the spoon. At least I do have the pattern for silver.>

"That sounds more complex than I imagined."

<I haven't even explained how the preparation works and what types of glass jars and distillation coils we need.>

"Couldn't we buy normal equipment, you learn the patterns and improve them?"

<That would theoretically be possible if I had mastered the relevant crafts. Unfortunately, I have to pass. I am neither a weapons nor armorsmith. And no glassblower.>

"What do you suggest?"

<Wait a moment. The duskgnomes have just retrieved one last load of material from the cave. Let me break it all down...>

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Shoes, leather, quality level: journeyman
Shirt, quality level: Journeyman
Shirt, quality level: Journeyman
Cloth trousers, quality level: Journeyman
Climbing rope: Quality level: Journeyman
3x throwing dagger, quality level: Master
2x short sword, quality level: Master
Bag, enchanted: Bag of Holding
...

<Excellent! A bag of holding effect. Let's see if my intelligence is enough to understand the spell... Just kidding. Of course it is.>

Enchantment learned: Extra-dimensional storage space
Focus crystal: Diamond
Material: Variable
Enchantment costs: depending on volume, size of opening and material
Guide value: cm radius x 100/ m³
Complexity: Master

Sample patterns:

Always full bottle
Material: Crystal glass
Storage volume 3000l, opening: 2cm diameter
Enchantment costs: 600 MP
Recommended additional enchantment: Unbreakability, Water Extraction

Loot bag
Material: Leather from the skin of phase wedges
Storage volume 2m³, opening: 20cm diameter
Enchantment costs: 6,000 MP
Recommended additional enchantment: Stasis container

"6000 mana points? How is anyone supposed to gather that much mana? Is there a trick?"

<There are two methods of artifact enchantment. The first is to assemble a ritual team of a prime number of mages until they all have enough mana to create the artifact together.>

"Wait, what are you doing with a primrose?"

<A prime number is a number that is only divisible by the number 1 and itself. These include the numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 and 23. This often becomes a problem with larger projects. If three is not enough, you have to find a group of five magicians instead of simply working with four. The jump from 7 to 11 is particularly annoying. Of course, each of the mages involved must know the special skills for artifact creation and the respective artifact thesis. The preparations and agreements usually take a week until everyone has agreed on exactly the same variant. The biggest project I have ever been involved in involved a ritual circle of 13 magicians. We had to work for weeks in a confined space on a project on which everyone had a slightly different opinion. It was worse than the crown council meeting before a change of monarch. Afterwards, two of the participants challenged each other to a mage duel. One died, another burned out. The other participants didn't speak to each other for months.

If you can't find enough magicians, there is also the slow method. A magician can only perform this alone. He invests eight hours of work every day, repeating the spell over and over again and building up the matrix piece by piece. Each day, he can store his full mana pool in the artifact once. Artifact enchantment can thus take several days, weeks or even years. A mage with level 6 has at least 150 MP and can fully regenerate this overnight. But there is a catch. The artifact loses part of its charge every day that he does not work on it. This is usually around twenty percent of the magical energy stored so far. If you interrupt the work for more than three days, the spell expires and you can start all over again.>

"So, you'd need two weeks for a loot bag?"

<I need fifteen times my full mana pool. As long as I'm not constantly destroying adventurers in my dungeon, my regeneration is...>

He fell silent. Selvara waited a moment, then tapped the crystal? "Malvorik? Is something wrong?"

<Look at my regeneration rate! Where did that come from? I must have missed a message.>

Displays appeared on the mirrors of the heart room. Malvorik scrolled through his status and went through the messages he had recently ignored.

Sanctuary Bonus: Mana regeneration rate +12
(+1 per 20 contracted residents)
Mana regeneration rate: 35 MP/hour

<Well, that reduces the time to 11.4 hours. I can regenerate my full mana pool twice a day. Since I don't need sleep, the loot bag would be ready in 171 hours. Just over a week. Assuming I don't do anything else at all during that time.>

He was silent for a moment.

<Wow. Being able to work without a break is fantastic.>

"Then you can start mass production. That solves our financial problem!"

<Well... no. I need the material first. Special leather and a diamond of at least 6 carats.>

"Crap."

<If I knew exactly where we were in relation to the city, I could try to clear out a cellar or something similar there. It wouldn't be much of a risk using the outpost function. I just can't get as far as the surface or it'll set off a magical beacon and every mage in the area will realize there's a new dungeon.>

Selvara was about to say something when the light from the crystal turned pink.

"What is it?"

<I have completely overlooked something. I know exactly where I am in relation to the city above.>

"I don't understand..."

<The Mulnirsheim Mage Academy was founded there specifically to gain access to the mana node thirty steps above the ground. A tower with a meditation room was built around the mana node. One of the intersecting mana lines runs out of the ground from below. The measurements of the best clairvoyant magicians have shown that the line has various weak affinities. This is an unmistakable sign that there is another mana node not far away. Since the mana flow comes from below, this has nothing to do with the upper mana node. It has therefore been concluded that there is another mana node underground. Of course, an academy doesn't need more than one, so it wasn't worth the considerable cost of an excavation. Especially as it was not clear how far it would would be. The calculations are at least 300 paces.>

"We're right below the mage academy? Didn't you realize that?"

<My sphere of influence follows the course of the sewers. It looks the same under the academy as everywhere else. I will extend my sphere of influence directly up the mana line. As an outpost, of course, so that I can abandon that part immediately if necessary.>

"Won't that set off an alarm upstairs? Surely mage academies are secured against magical intruders?"

Malvorik sent out an amused laugh: <If you only knew... Of course, they're secured with all sorts of protective and warning spells. Especially against any form of magical espionage. There's no way I can get into the actual academy. Especially not unnoticed. But there is a very special cellar room beneath the actual cellar.>

"I can feel your big grin. What's in this room?"

<All failed artifacts made in the academy. Failed journeyman pieces, masterpieces, experiments and commissioned artifacts.>

"What are we supposed to do with broken artifacts?"

<Well...> Selvara thought she heard the mental rubbing of hands. <... Artifacts are made of the very materials we need most. Before they are disenchanted, the components can no longer be reused. However, it takes a lot of time and mana to disenchant them again. It is also not without danger, especially with larger artifacts. The more mana is bound, the higher the risk of a catastrophic mana discharge. For artifacts storing more than about 5000 MP, you normally do this outside the city. Far outside. Unfortunately, you can no longer use the gems, as they disintegrate into worthless dust when disenchanted. Artifacts that have no valuable components other than the gem usually end up in the back corner of the cellar forever.>

Selvara nodded thoughtfully and watched as a cross-sectional drawing of the dungeon appeared on a mirror in the heart room. A column of claimed territory formed along the mana line. Malvorik limited himself to only a one step radius, the absolute minimum.

Selvara used the waiting time to browse through some menus. "Tell me, you still haven't chosen some of your traps. Now would be a good time to secure the entrances to the dungeon better. A few corridors filled with traps would be useful."

<What? Oh, I see... Yes. That's right. But let's wait and see what we find upstairs first. Maybe I can copy a few spells from the artifacts by dissolving them and rematerializing them immediately. If a few smaller things disappear, it probably won't be noticeable. The last time I was there, the bookkeeping was a disaster.>

Selvara shrugged and spent the next hour looking through the trap menus to make a shortlist. "Trapdoors and automatic crossbows, of course, the classics. We need those. Flamethrowers... Acid showers... Oh! Swinging axes! They're so stylish! Best on a bridge over lava. Too bad we don't have lava here."

<So, done. How exciting. Now the sub-basement is temporarily part of my dungeon. As expected, there were no recognizable warning and protection spells. That wouldn't make any sense. The unstable artifacts would trigger them all the time. The security spells only start at the top of the stairs. Let's see... Very nice. Everything is neatly packed in boxes and labeled as it should be. The only problem is that the boxes were simply stacked in the room in whatever way suited the size best. That's what happens when you leave things like that to the house servants. There probably hasn't been a mage in there for years. What have we got here...>

The inscriptions that Malvorik read off the crates appeared on a previously empty mirror in the heart room. Darkness or other crates pressed against the labeled side played no role in his dungeon view. Texts and sketches of the contents appeared in a long list.

<The sword of Ptaahl. I remember that. It explodes when it comes into contact with magic. That was to become Archmage Ptaahl's masterpiece. He never revealed what it was supposed to do before it tore him to pieces. If you collect and clean the pieces, it will reassemble itself in about a year.>

The entry was marked red and pushed aside very carefully.

<The Dwarf Eye, Model IV. I can't find the first three anymore, so they've been disenchanted in the meantime. Mythril, gold and mana stone. A clairvoyance artifact to find veins of ore through stone. The range was four steps the last time I read about it. That was model VI, the first one that actually worked.>

This entry was also highlighted in red.

<This is quite close to the entrance, I'm sure it will be disenchanted to get the valuable materials back. If I remove it, it will certainly stand out. What a pity.>

More names of artifacts appeared and were sorted.

He managed to make his view of the room appear on another mirror. Selvara looked somewhat disappointed at the cellar room. To her, it was just several boxes in a dusty room.

<Oh! The throwing axe of Australlain. I tell the story of this artifact in every basic artifact magic class.>

"What did its creator do wrong?"

<That's the fascinating thing. He actually did almost nothing wrong. The thesis was perfect. The axe was supposed to come back to its owner after being thrown so that he could throw it again. He had included movement magic, a search spell to find the axe's owner, spatial orientation and complex formulas for the movement pattern. He had thought of everything. There was only one mistake.>

"What was that?"

<He messed up the definition of target and user. The throwing axe avoids all obstacles in flight. Including its target. Then it comes back at full speed and smashes into its user.>

"Ouch."

<Australlain later corrected his mistake and created the best throwing axes ever. But this is the prototype. It would be a shame to let it gather dust here in the cellar. It's going into my collection. A collection that I will start especially for this artifact.>

Selvara spotted something in the mirror that wasn't hidden in a box: "What's that over there? It looks like an open barrel full of swords."

<Basic magic swords with failed enchantments. They are produced in such quantities that some simply have to fail. You just put them in the barrel. It's not worth disenchanting them.>

"Because that would leave only a non-magic sword?"

<Correct. The gemstone is not reusable and magical materials are not used for simple swords.>

"A sword that, like all materials for artifacts, must be masterfully forged?"

Malvorik stumbled, then his crystal heart began to glow brighter. <Of course! I'll dissolve them all and get the patterns that way. I'll keep a few of them, it won't be noticeable. I'll rematerialize the rest back into the barrel.>

A few swords appeared on the floor of the heart room.

"Shouldn't you set up an armory somewhere?"

<Later... Look!> The field of vision in the room shifted to the farthest area, unreachable due to whole mountains of wildly stacked crates. Malvorik made some crates transparent in the display. Hidden beneath more crates, two crates with metal rings three steps in diameter became visible. Covered on all sides with runes and gemstones.

<The portal of Ellendel. Also known as the Disgrace of Ellendel. A project for which every mage with experience in artifact magic in the United Kingdoms was conscripted some 160 years ago. Archmagus Ellendel developed a special ritual for slow enchantment in a specially designed arena. After five years of preparation and construction, the actual ritual took almost another year and was nerve-wracking for everyone involved, as someone was constantly falling ill or otherwise absent and their part had to be taken over by others. Constant changes to the ritual. No one had ever tried anything like this before or since. The costs brought several kingdoms to the brink of ruin.>

"What exactly does this thing do?"

<It creates a spatial-dimensional link between two points. If it is supplied with magic, a connection opens up between the rings. You can go through one and come out through the other. The portal should connect the two furthest points of the kingdoms and thus form a new trade route. It would also have been a way to relocate troops in a short space of time.>

"What went wrong with that?"

<Well... The portal works. There were just a few problems with synchronizing so many mages for the slow build of the matrix. There's a reason it's not normally done. Minor inconsistencies in the anchoring of the mana lines led to an imbalance. Some of the runes inlaid from mythril were supplied with too much magic and melted. This caused the large mana stones, which were intended to store magic to bridge the distance to the other part of the portal, to burn out. Most of the magic is needed to establish the connection. The transportation then only uses a fraction of the power. Unfortunately, this happened long after the time had passed when the artifact could still be changed.>

"So, it doesn't work after all?"

<Oh, it works. But only with a maximum range of ten paces>.

"That's... pretty short."

<It's not even enough to replace a bridge in a meaningful way. It is also completely impossible to disenchant. There is far too much mana stored in it for that. Disenchanting it would require an equally complex ritual. Thus, the portal has been stored here, where no one can accidentally blow it up.>

"Let's better leave it alone and find something else." Selvara's gaze was already wandering when Malvorik replied, <It's perfect! No one will miss it and we can use it to build an entrance to the surface that isn't a real dungeon exit. Clever, isn't it?>

"Does the connection equalize the mana levels of the destination and origin?"

<Of course. Otherwise, no connection could be established.>

"Then it would emit a wave of dungeon-affinity mana at the destination. You can as well set up a glowing sign at the market."

The light in the dungeon crystal flickered while Malvorik pondered.

<I'll take it anyway. I'm sure I'll think of something else for it.>

The two metal rings appeared in a room in the dungeon. The empty crates remained in the academy.

Malvorik hadn't had this much fun for a long time. He sorted, analyzed and acquired. A storeroom grew out of the ground in the village and filled up with magical items.

"You should put up a warning sign so that no one uses one of the broken artifacts before you've disenchanted it. Especially not one that explodes."

<Good advice. I should do that. Now we're finished with the room. I'll dissolve the outpost and my influence disappears. Apart from the vanished artifacts, no traces remain. Even the best clairvoyant mages will find nothing with the interference from so many failed artifacts.>

"Can we finally talk about traps then?"

<You're right. I should secure the entrance. But without making the path too difficult for our inhabitants if they want to get to the surface. It's best to build two paths. One deadly and one that is relatively easy.>

"How do you prevent intruders from taking the easy way out?"

<If we could disguise the top end, the portal of Ellendel would be a possible solution. It requires magic and a password to open. If I control one of the rings, no one can get through without my permission.>

"Could you open the portal in the basement of the academy?"

<That would be sufficiently shielded to avoid being located. Unfortunately, the exit to the top is secured with everything a mage academy can think of. It would also certainly attract attention if our residents regularly came out of the basement and walked through the main entrance.>

"You could camouflage the easy way. But thieves and some other character classes have skills that allow them to discover the best secret doors."

<If I have understood correctly, I can set traps so that they do not trigger on inhabitants who have a pact with me.>

"I have no experience with sanctuaries. They are very rare and usually keep themselves secret. As soon as there are intruders in the dungeon, some traps work differently and cannot be switched on or off. What is the current route?"

Malvorik showed the structure of the dungeon in a mirror and highlighted the way up. The sewers were built in three levels. On the top level, there were many small channels that collected the sewage. Here there were pipes one and a half steps in diameter with no path, where you had to walk bent over through the middle of the cesspit. Larger collection sewers had a one-step wide path on one side.

The second level had only a few, but larger canals with wide elevated walkways on both sides. The canal workers moved through this level until they reached a ladder downward.

On the third level, there was only one main sewer and a few side tributaries. The sewer carried all of the city's wastewater to an underground river.

The entrance to a secret room was hidden in one of the canals on the second level, where you could fold up a trapdoor hidden below a bed to reach the ladder down. From there, a spiral staircase led down to the actual dungeon.

"The spiral staircase ends in the labyrinth level. That's a good start. It's the easiest place to hide several paths."

<Thanks, I also think the section is very successful. Above all...>

"It's terrible! Even a blind person can find their way through in no time. No traps, no hidden locations for guards, no rotating walls."

Malvorik remained silent while Selvara stared at him critically with her arms crossed.

For the first time in a long time, the dungeon heart no longer felt like a gigantic dungeon, but really like a tiny crystal. <Shall we begin?>

***

The strangler slowly pulled the sandbag towards him on a rope. The floor, walls and ceiling of the corridor were decorated with an even square pattern. Selvara fluttered up and down excitedly over his shoulder.

<Any moment...>

The square under the sandbag sank down a finger's breadth under the weight. It clicked audibly. A column dropped from the ceiling behind him. For a moment, a tightly stretched spindle of blades could be seen, then the column reached the floor and the mechanism unlocked. Steel springs discharged and whirled blades at five different heights around in a circle. The lowest one shredded the sandbag.

"Five points out of ten."

<Only five? The trap worked after all.>

"The trigger sinks in too deep, giving adventurers too much warning. A clever thief will take the pressure off the trigger before he has even activated it. The spring construction will not trigger if the column is not touching the ground. If someone stands in the way or even puts a foot under it, it will be a dud. The blades move in a circular motion. Easy to block. They are also stopped even by cloth armor. Stabs get through armor more easily. The direction of rotation is counter-clockwise. It would therefore hit the adventurers from the side where they are carrying shields. You can hardly make it easier for them to parry. Shall I continue?"

Malvorik was sadly silent.

"I told you, it's not that easy to build traps without a plan. The pitfall trap was quite good. You also managed the pendulum axes. But traps with complex triggers are... complex. Shall we choose a few construction plans from the list?"

<Only when I have created the simpler ones myself. I want to save my few choices for the really complex traps.>

"All right then. Then let's take a look at the next course."

The strangler wandered a few meters further and saw a visually identical corridor. Here, too, a rope lay ready, with a sandbag at the other end of the corridor.

"Is that the spear trap?"

<Exactly.>

"Then forget the punching bag. Just let the strangler run in."

<I don't want to kill him.>

"You won't. I'll give him a few instructions, he'll be fine."

A few instructions later, the strangler wandered into the corridor on his short feet. After a few steps, the floor clicked down and a piece of the wall hinged open. Or was about to, before the strangler knocked the cover back again. The spear trap clicked ineffectually inside the wall.

<I see what you mean.>

"The cover should disappear into the wall. Never build something that can be easily blocked."

<Noted. Then we'll try the last gear.>

The strangler stopped at the end of the corridor and, on Malvorik's instructions, threw a small sandbag into it. Wall, floor and ceiling sections hit into the corridor in rapid succession, driven by thick steel springs, and were pulled back again. The sandbag was flung up, hit from the side and exploded into a cloud of sand and shreds of burlap. More plates hit the aisle from all sides.

Selvara landed on the strangler's shoulder and looked into the corridor with wide eyes: "Seven out of ten. Blunt damage, but with a really good bang. Spread over a wide area. I'm impressed. I didn't even notice the trigger."

<Thanks. The triggers are fine wire cords that run at ankle height in the corridor. Deliberately placed so that they visually disappear in the pattern of the stone slabs. Now let's go back to the heart room so we can work out a training area for our heroes on the mirrored walls. Challenging, but not murderous.>

"Fine by me. But after that, we'll finally start securing the entrance to the dungeon."

<You mean apart from the labyrinth level?>

"It's a walk in the park. Even a five-year-old elf would get through it."

The dungeon crystal exuded a self-satisfied feeling. <Have you been up there in the last few hours?>

"Of course not. We were here the whole time... What did you do?"

<Look at it> Malvorik didn't respond to any further questions as Selvara flew up through the corridors. From the city, she flew up a spiral staircase. The spiral staircase ended in a hollow column in one of the five rooms of the labyrinth. It remained suspended in the air right at the exit. Where the floor, walls and ceiling had previously consisted of smooth, bare stone, there was now dense undergrowth. Creepers grew over irregular grids and poles up to a step away from the walls. The floor was covered in earth with ankle-high grass growing on it. Wide creepers stretched somewhat less densely along the ceiling. Light crystals that had previously been placed at regular intervals in the middle of the ceiling were now scattered irregularly along the walls and ceiling. Partially overgrown, they shrouded the corridors in a web of shadows.

Selvara fluttered slowly in a circle. "By Golgoroth's tusks. I am speechless. Where did you get all this?"

<Sanctuary. The feat allows me to grow vegetation. These creepers require almost no mana to create, as they count as pure decoration. The same goes for the grass.>

"It just looks gigantic. The diffuse lighting, the curved corridors... Wow."

<That's nothing yet. Please don't be alarmed.>

"Why would I..." Selvara broke off with a shrill scream as a hand snatched at her from the curtain of vines beside her. She whirled to the other side of the room. A figure burst through the ceiling vines and fell on top of her. Intensive training during her schooling in the fairy realm enabled her to dodge again with maximum acceleration of her wing beat. The strangler that had grabbed at her emerged from the tangle. The monster that had almost buried her stood up. Three more lurking stranglers emerged from their hiding places.

"Golgoroth's hairy ass! Where did they come from? There's nowhere to hide!"

<There are alcoves in the wall hidden by the creepers in strategically placed spots. Perfect ambushes. There are also hidden holes in the ceiling and even a few trapdoors that fold up along with the grass cover.>

"Where did all these stranglers come from? When did you create them?"

<Shortly after the battle, there was a quiet hour while everyone bandaged their wounds and rested. I used every ounce of mana I regenerated to summon more guardians as quickly as possible. I managed six until I had to use mana for other things again.>

Selvara felt the tinge of impatience, as he could rarely save mana for his own projects at the moment instead of using it to expand the gnome city.

<In the corridors I still have trip wires and pressure plates hidden in the grass. Arrow and spear traps, pitfalls and a few other surprises. Cheap standard traps, but hard to discover here. The area you come down to from above is particularly well done. If I may say so immodestly. The light crystals there are weaker and further apart. Any intruder will be the first to provide illumination. Any reasonably well-equipped revenant will probably have portable light crystals or a glow spell at their disposal.>

"This is one of the first artifacts that revenants and other adventurers buy according to my training, right. Why is that important?"

<Because glow spells activate the mana stone trigger, which I installed at the first intersection. If you go through with a torch or without lighting, nothing happens. The usual thieves and scouts will probably sneak through unscathed. But when the mages and warriors cross the area...>

One of the stranglers waved to the dungeon fairy, whose heartbeat was only slowly returning to normal after the shock. She followed him to the intersection described. The strangler threw a glowing crystal at the intersection. Nothing happened for a moment, then there was a clicking sound. Crossbows fired from all four directions, slanting down from the ceiling.

<The shot pattern is deliberately spread out. Golgoroth's law forbids immediate lethal traps. But almost every square step of space is traversed by at least one bolt. Everyone in the area catches at least one bolt. With a bit of luck, even two. As long as they are still surprised, I send a swarm of shrill rats at them. If they run into one of the side passages, they are stopped by stranglers hidden in pairs.>

Selvara flew up and down excitedly: "Connect another pit directly behind the exit with the mana trigger. Once the crossbows are triggered, the pit unlocks. Don't make it fatal, just deep enough that the fall will weaken them further and hold them up until the shrill rats jump in after them."

<I like the way you think. Shall we go through the rest of the traps on the floor together?>