Evolution: A Warlock's Rise To Power

A few shark teeth appeared in Lucan's bag as his reward for defeating the creature.  He then quickly swam up towards the surface and deactivated his transformation.

He gasped for air as his gills disappeared and his limbs returned to normal.  Silent emrged from his shadow as they both began to look around.

They were in a cavern next to a pool of water.  The land space was nearly a hundred meters across.  A set of large double doors were imbedded into the far edge of the stone wall.  Crystals giving off light were placed into the wall at equal intervals lighting up the room.

"I am going to go take a look."  Silent said.

Lucan nodded and turned away from the dungeon entrance after she entered.  Even though this place was undiscovered, he hoped that it would remain that way.  Lucan spent the next hour placing several formations to protect this place.

Once Little Brown came off cooldown, He resummoned the little fish and placed it in the water.

Little brown swam towards the cavern entrance in the trench.  Once he arrived, Lucan began to cast spells through him.  He set up an illusion over the entrance along with several telekinetic walls.  This way it would be much harder for someone to stumble on this place.

Once he had finished with the various formations, he began to create a shadow tunnel.

Silent had come in and out of the dungeon several times.  She had informed Lucan that the door remained and allowed her to exit at any time.

They then went in together.  Once he entered, he was given the conditions to conquer the Instance and make it his own.  They were exactly the same as what Silent had found during her research.

They didn't attempt to clear the instance but looked around as much as they could.  The two poked into the party dungeon (5 person), the team dungeon (10 person), and then finished by taking a look at the raid (40 person).

Each version of the instance started the couple in a different location.  If it was like other instances, it had a little bit of a story that was told through out the experience.  The party dungeon would be the start.  Then the team dungeon would pick up where the party dungeon left off.  And the raid would be the finale.

Entering the beginning of all three gave them a general idea of what to expect, but they were both aware that nothing was certain and any of the dungeons could take a sudden twist.

After having collected a good deal of information, the couple pulled out return scroll and appeared in the mountain fortress.  From their they traveled to Destol.

Lucan and Silent entered the building where the warlock's public dungeon was held.  Heading to the basement, Silent led Lucan to a room where he could place his shadow tunnel.

By now, he was very familiar with casting the spell and it took him no time at all compared to when he first cast the tunnel.  Especially since he now had a left hand.

Since the distance was far, Lucan contacted Sturdy Willow and hired a few acolytes from the gaming organizations D team to run back and forth while enhancing the tunnel.

Sturdy didn't bother to haggle about price, he was happy to make a little bit of income with their weakest team members. Even more so since they weren't in any sort of danger and only had to run back and forth from one end to the to the other while enhancing the tunnel.  Lucan even provided them with the shadow tunnel spell so that they would be able to enhance it.

When Lucan and Silent left the room, they carefully locked up the door.  They didn't want to open the dungeon to the public until it was under Lucan's control.  Because of that, Lucan cast several spells to hide and lock the entrance until they were ready.

Heading back upstairs, Lucan was thrilled to see that the bar was still crowded.  He hadn't paid much attention on his way in due to his eagerness, but it was clear to see that the players were happy and many were discussing their wins while other teams were discussing how to avoid losing again before another try.

Before they left the building, someone called out to him.

"Lucan, Lucan Quilldrake!"  Said a man as he rushed out of his seat, leaving his team behind, and approaching the warlock.

Lucan looked over the player.  He was level 175 and appeared to be celebrating a win with his team after his turn in the dungeon.

"You're the dungeon master who set up this place right?"  Asked BillyHill, the player who just approached him.

"That's me.  Is the dungeon not to your satisfaction."

"No, not at all it is great.  I was hopping to set speak to you about a possible collaboration.  In fact, I am a dungeon master as well."

"Oh, if that is the case, what can I do for you?"

"Well, it is like this.  After trying out your dungeon, I really admired your set up.  I was wondering if you had considered adding another dungeon.  You only have a single one here and sometimes the lines can be a bit long."

Lucan nodded as the bar quieted down.  Most the people present also wished for more dungeons so they wouldn't have to wait as long.

"I am currently play testing an instance I am working on, but sadly it will be a standard dungeon not a versus dungeon, but I think everyone should find it pretty entertaining."

The room cheered.  They liked being able to visit a dungeon and return from the safety of the city, it really did make things easy.

"Ah, if you can create an instance you must be an advanced dungeon master.  I am only an intermediate dungeon master.  I understand that it is hard to get your hands on a pair of versus cores.  I wasn't implying that you need to create another version of your same dungeon.  I was in fact hoping that you would be willing to connect my dungeons to your establishment.  I am not affiliated with any guilds or big organizations, so like you can guess, all the dungeons I own are far away from the normally traveled locations and I don't get many visitors except for those who stumble across them."

Lucan nodded for him to continue.

"When I see so many people waiting in line for your dungeon, I can't help but be envious at the thought of the continuous dungeon points that you must have rolling in.  So, I was hoping that you could use your shadow tunnels to connect my dungeons to your establishment."

Lucan narrowed his eyes.  "It is an interesting idea, but wouldn't I be taking away my own customers and giving them to you."

"Ah, that… You don't need to worry.  While I have two versus dungeons myself, they are different games from yours, so you don't need to worry about direct competition.  And I more concerned with the dungeon points.  You can charge an entrance fee and keep it yourself.  I just want the DP and to have my entrances moved to the center of the city.  In total, I have four dungeons that I want to connect."

"I am not opposed to the idea. But I don't think we have enough room here for four dungeons. Even if we have the room downstairs, their will be more people waiting.  Look how crowded it is here with only one dungeon."

'Lucan, I already planned for expansion.'  Silent said telepathically to him.  'I bought up every business on the street.'

"But I think we should be able to work something out if I move up my plans for expansion.  But you should know that it also takes a lot of effort to shorten the shadow tunnels.  Depending on how far the location is from here it may take twenty people several days in order to allow players to reach the dungeon in a two-minute walk.  The amount of fees I need to collect would take months to pay off the workers before I see a profit.  And that doesn't include the cost of the expansion itself."

BillyHill rubbed his chin and thought.  "Alright, alright, since you are a fellow dungeon master, I think I can tempt you.  I got two sets of spares versus cores.  I need to save up a good amount of DP before I can move forward with my plan for my next versus dungeon.  I can give you a single set of versus cores to make it happen."

Lucan liked that idea very much.

"Sure, let's talk details."  He said pulling the man towards one of the tables to the side.

"Alright your boys talk.  I will go get our people together to play test your new instance."  Silent said before heading out of the bar.  She made sure to phrase it in a way that would make the other Dungeon Master think Lucan had already conquered the instance.

They ironed out the details and sealed their contract with pact magic.  BillyHill left his teammates and boarded Lucan's magic carpet and they set out towards the closest dungeon after creating a shadow tunnel in one of the empty rooms in the basement.

BillyHill began to tell Lucan all about his dungeons.  Lucan decided to come clean and admit that he was a beginner dungeon master once he realized how much he could learn from BillyHill.  Billy didn't care and only laughed before offering Lucan some tips.

Billy's four dungeons had been built form scratch by himself.  He gutted everything after he conquered each one and then built them to his liking.  His two standard dungeons were hack and slash boss fights with a little bit of puzzle solving if you didn't want to have to fight the boss at full power.

The one they were going to was a level one hundred dungeon.  His first creation.  It was a goblin stronghold in a forest.  It had two mini boss numerous different goblins and a goblin king as the final boss.  And to keep it relevant to higher level players, it had a hidden boss.  A level 150 goblin emperor that would show up if the players met the level requirement.

His second dungeon was an artic adventure through a snow cave.  It was filled with ice maidens and various snow monsters.  Like his other dungeon it also had a hidden boss.  But this one was level 175, while all the other creatures were level 150.  But unlike his first dungeon that was meant for a party.  This one was meant for a team.

His first versus dungeon was a capture the flag match that was located inside a gorge.  It was basic and straight forward.  It pitted two teams against each other.  Since it was also a team dungeon, each side could have up to ten players.

The last versus dungeon was originally a raid.  But he had transformed it into a volcanic racetrack. The player's means of attacks and combat options were restricted, and they were unable to use their own mounts.  At the start of the raid, numerous different land mounts were provided.  There were many varieties and duplicates, but each mount could inly hold two players.  The driver could only drive, but the passenger had his choice of different ranged weapons and traps.  There were even more weapons scattered throughout the course.

Billy explained how he set up a lot of check points so that even if a team of two died, they would respawn fairly close to where they died after a five second delay.  With a team consisting of two players, it could allow twenty teams to race at the same time.  Lucan was intrigued by the idea and thought it sounded like a lot of fun.

He was even more reassured in transforming Destol into an entertainment hub.  He would add these four dungeons, his own, and maybe even more.  And of course he would charge a few gold as an entry fee and slowly rake in the money.