DungeonFall – [A Dungeon Creation / Cultivation Story]

Nate pressed himself against the far side of the room where he would be out of sight of the door opening. While he waited for a beast to come across the bridge and join him, he went through the different menu options on the wrist computer.

He was looking for a place to store his notes. There had never been a need to write anything down while inside the dungeon before, so he had never even thought of bringing a notebook in with him.

Finally, he found something under the ‘Dungeon Interface’ tab. That particular tab was the one he used for pretty much everything he did inside the dungeon, but that only used a few of the options listed in it. There hadn’t been much reason to venture into the other mostly forgotten options until now.

Nate took a moment to review the list that appeared under the current dungeon. At the very bottom of the list was the selection for ‘Notes’.

Tapping on it, a keyboard appeared in the air above his arm while one of the dungeon monitoring screens vanished and was replaced with an empty note screen. He quickly rearranged the screens to make sure they were showing him what he wanted and began slowly typing out his notes one-handed.

A minute later, another screen was replaced as he brought up the trap creation screen. Having the information directly on hand like that was better when he needed to review a detail for his notes.

Mid-note taking a rat beast with a scarred nose and only one eye, the other having been eaten away by acid, burst into the room.

Nate took aim and fired, the shot cutting its neck from the blind side. He had gotten lucky this time. The rat beasts were usually a pain to deal with. They were fast and wily monsters.

A colorless orb dropped to the floor after the dungeon had finished eating the body. It was a new type of orb for him. One that he hadn’t seen before. Picking it up, it sank beneath his skin and gave him a sudden jolt of energy.

Pulling up the display on his wrist computer, he saw that his Constitution had suddenly gone up by point one points. It wasn’t a huge jump, but it was enough to apparently be felt.

It was an interesting feeling actually being able to tell when your physical overall health increased. It was a heady sense that took several seconds to shake off.

Those were precious seconds that he could have used for planning out the further development of the second floor. Coming across the bridge at a slow, but careful pace, was another beast.

It was already injured in multiple places and was bleeding heavily. Nate was interested to note that the injuries weren’t caused by any of the dungeon traps, but by attacks from the other monsters. He had seen them fighting for the right to cross the bridge. However, the injuries he was seeing on the four-tailed kitsune went far beyond that.

It almost seemed as though each and every beast on the other side held a personal grudge against the kitsune.

It took the injured beast nearly five minutes to stumble and pant its way across the bridge.

Nate held the gun at the ready, yet he found himself strangely unwilling to shoot the pitiful kitsune. He couldn’t help but feel that there was something more to this particular beast. Which was absolutely silly. It was a beast. He had only seen minimal levels of intelligence from them at this point. The exception was the shadow beasts that he hated. There was something off about those ones for sure.

The kitsune stopped just outside the doorway and breathed in, its eye dilating as it turned to look at him. It huffed and stumbled into the room, keeping one eye on where he was hiding.

“Peace, human. I mean you no harm, not that I could do anything to you in my current state anyway.”

A female voice entered his mind along with a series of images from which the message had been translated into his language.

Nate blinked dumbly, the hand holding the gun falling limply to his side. “Did you just… Talk to me?” He asked haltingly, unable to believe he was actually asking the question.

The kitsune bobbed its head as it weakly entered the room. “I did. My particular race is different from the rest of these unfeeling beasts. They betrayed my people simply because we are different from them.” She collapsed on the ground in the middle of the room, a puddle of blood slowly pooling around her.

“Why would they betray and attack you? What makes you different?” Nate asked as he pulled out the ‘Basic Healing’ pill from his item storage.

He wasn’t convinced that giving the pill to her was the best idea. However, she was the first beast he had met that could talk to him. Letting her die before they could talk some more would also be a bad choice.

She weakly waved her tails at him. “Among all the races on our world, mine is the only one that possesses the ability to transform into a human form. It made us the natural rulers over the other races since we were able to perform tasks they could not. I have four tails at the moment. When I reached six, I would have been able to transform for a limited amount of time each day.”

Nate felt his mind struggling to keep up with the constant stream of images she was sending to him. Translating the meaning of the images felt natural, as though this was how people were always meant to have talked. He was simply extremely out of practice.

“So, they what, rebelled and overthrew your race? Attacking, and I’m assuming killing most of you in the process.” Her head bobbed weakly in assent to what he was saying. “Well, I can’t say as I am surprised. Few people want to be controlled or ruled over, no matter how decent the ruler is, and I say that without knowing anything about your people.”

“We were like any other race we have heard about through these portals. We had good rulers, and we had bad ones. The queen, at the time, was exceptionally kind and was doing her best to help everyone. That was my grandmother.” The images were starting to become fuzzy and weak as she continued to bleed out on the floor.

Nate needed to make a decision soon. He had never considered giving a healing pill to a beast before, but this was a special circumstance. Reaching over to her, he shoved the pill into her mouth and clamped her muzzle shut around it before she could spit it out.

He dragged her out of the way, the trail of blood disappearing as the dungeon absorbed it.

Another beast was already working its way slowly across the bridge. Pieces of familiar-looking hair and fur were stuck in its bloodstained teeth and claws.

Nate checked the energy meter on the side of the hopper holding the core and held the gun at the ready. This was going to be a long night.

***

The note file slowly expanded with ideas, while items began piling up in his storage. He had never stayed alive this long before and had never gotten to enjoy the bounty the dungeon was willing to share with him.

It was great, then it was nice, then he simply became numb to it.

When every single beast you killed dropped something and you went through them so quickly, it lost a little of the thrill. The gun had made the dungeon a little too easy. Which was fine, he would use all these items to outfit himself for when he came back later for some proper training.

He was more interested in why the kitsune still hadn’t woken up. It had been laying there for over three hours. The wounds had fully healed, but no matter how he prodded her, she refused to stir.

There had been roughly forty beasts that had crossed the bridge in that time. He had gone through the wind core and then the metal energy core as well. Currently, the gun was loaded with the earth core and was firing stone darts that had a slight petrification effect on them.

As for all the items he had been getting, a small portion of them had been equipment of some sort. A larger portion had been herbs and pills, while the greatest section of the haul had been the rainbow qi orbs.

He was practically brimming with energy at this point, but the stats his wrist computer showed him didn’t seem to agree with that. His energy had increased by leaps and bounds, and so had the charge on his Backup Core. However, after it reached a certain point, it had slowed down dramatically.

It was like a battery reaching eighty percent was quick and easy, but getting the last twenty was slow and painful. Except in this case, he wasn’t even to eighty percent.

His cultivation had risen more in one night than it had, with a week’s worth of normal cultivation time and effort. It was amazing, and more than a little addicting. It was a pace he could never keep up, but he had always known that. Even if he had wanted to, he didn’t have enough of the cores to do that.

This was something that he could only do a couple of times. As a way to gather power and equipment before the expedition, it was perfect. He had already managed to acquire a second full set of armor that he could wear in the morning, along with a powerful crossbow.

Nate had no idea how he was going to pass any of it off to his parents, but he had it if the need arose.

As soon as he finished gathering the full set of armor, Nate stored the gun and grabbed hold of the unconscious kitsune. He took a quick glance at the screens on the main floor and then pulled her through the portal with him.

The team of cultivators that had been inside the dungeon earlier were no longer there. What that meant, he didn’t know. He hadn’t been paying attention to the first floor, nor was he responsible for what others did with their lives.

Nate tried to be as careful as possible as he dragged the rather heavy kitsune through the dungeon.

He wanted to make sure that there was enough distance between them and whatever came through the portal next. Even if the dungeon did scrub their scents, it might not happen immediately, and he wanted plenty of traps between them.

Finally, the kitsune began to stir as they neared the room at the back, where he always appeared. The one with the core hidden behind the thick false wall.

“Why did you save me, master?” She asked, rolling to her feet at last.

“Master?” Nate returned in confusion. “Is that a thing your race does to people who save them? And I’m not entirely sure why I saved you myself. Something about your story, and being attacked by the other beasts, it just-“ He cracked his neck while he vainly searched for the right words to convey his thoughts. “I don’t know. I guess it just resonated with me for some reason.”

“No, it is not a custom of my race, but a result of what I now am. You are the master of this place, and by healing me and allowing it also to absorb my blood at the same time, a pact was formed between all three of us.”

“You don’t sound unhappy about that, at least.” He said tentatively.

“I received much knowledge while I was healing, and I understand you didn’t know what you were doing. The point remains that I am now bonded to this dungeon and in a way know more about how it functions than you, yourself do. It is interesting.

“At the same time, I have been given a form of immortality. Even if I die, I will come back anew at the beginning of each day. I will be able to grow stronger faster with less regard for my mortal form. You have given me many boons. There is no need to fear me trying anything against you.”

Nate took a moment to digest all of that, noticing how much clearer her thought speech had become as well. “Um, alright then. I guess I look forward to any advice you can give me. I’ve just been muddling my way through everything up to this point. What should I call you? My name is Nate.”

“My name is Aura.”