My Dungeon Daddy System: Raising Monsters and Waifus Underground

The Dungeon of the Teasing Tomb was currently operating at maximum capacity, which meant it was loud, crowded, and vibrated with the distinct energy of five monster girls who had too much energy and not enough square footage.

Reed stood in the Core Chamber, staring at the holographic map floating above the crystal.

[DUNGEON MANA (DM): 42.5] [CORE XP: 85 / 100]

The numbers glowed with a beautiful, golden promise. Forty-two mana. It was a fortune. It was enough to buy a small army of goblins, or a dozen elaborate traps, or—if Reed was feeling particularly reckless—enough to drill a hole straight down into the water table and flood his basement.

"We're doing it," Reed said.

Riva, who was currently hanging upside down from the ceiling by her talons, swayed back and forth like a metronome. Her messy hair brushed the top of Reed's head with every pass.

"Dig?" she chirped. "Dig deep? Find worms?"

"Find water," Reed corrected, gently pushing her swinging head away. "We need a second floor. The first floor is getting… tight."

He wasn't wrong. The Core Chamber felt increasingly like a clown car.

Seraphine was coiled around the dais, her massive tail taking up forty percent of the floor space. Grika was sitting on Reed's bed because her workshop was currently "too clean to think in" thanks to Maira. Luma was in the safe room, but the squishing sounds emanating from there suggested she was practicing her "bouncing" again. And Maira was currently dusting the air. Literally. She was snatching dust motes out of the sky with a pair of tweezers.

"A second floor," Grika mused, hopping off the bed. She adjusted her goggles. "You said 'water level,' right? Like… pipes? Steam?"

"Springs," Reed said. "Caverns. Pools. Slippery tiles."

Luma burst out of the safe room. She moved so fast she lost cohesion, sliding into the room as a blue wave before popping up into a humanoid shape right in front of Reed.

"Water?" she gasped, her eyes shimmering. "Real water? Not just slime?"

"Real water," Reed promised. "Underground river. I can feel it below us. About thirty meters down."

Seraphine hissed, uncoiling slightly. The sound was like heavy stones grinding together.

"Water is cold," she stated, narrowing her eyes. "Snakes do not like the cold, my Lord. It makes us… stiff."

"It's a thermal river," Reed lied (he hoped). "Or at least, we'll make it thermal. Grika can build heaters."

Grika scoffed. "I can build heaters if you give me materials. But water and iron don't mix, Boss. Rust is the enemy. I'm gonna need to grease everything."

"Grease is unacceptable," Maira interjected, not looking up from her dust-hunting. "It leaves stains. If we open a water floor, it must be sterile."

"It's a dungeon, Maira," Reed sighed. "It's going to be wet. It's going to be messy. And we're going to build it right now."

He turned to the tunnel mouth that led to the "Stairwell" stub he'd built earlier.

"Everyone, grab a shovel. Or a wrench. Or… a tail. We're breaking ground."

The Excavation Site

The designated spot for the descent was a dead-end corridor behind the Knight's Gallery.

Reed stood before the blank stone wall. He placed his hands on the rock.

He closed his eyes and reached out with his senses. He pushed past the granite, past the limestone, deeper into the dark.

He felt it.

A pulse. A heavy, fluid pressure moving through the earth below them. It was the subterranean river, blind and deep, flowing through veins of quartz and old magic.

"Okay," Reed whispered. "Here we go."

[CONSTRUCTION INITIATED]

Project: Floor 2 Descent (Spiral Ramp)

Cost: 15 DM Proceed?

Push.

The mana surged out of him. It was a rush—a physical release of energy that made his knees weak. The stone in front of him didn't just break; it flowed.

The floor dropped away. A spiral ramp carved itself into the bedrock, twisting down into the dark. The sound was deafening—the grinding of earth, the crack of stone, the roar of displaced air.

"Whoa," Grika yelled over the noise, her goggles sliding down her nose. "Boss is digging deep!"

Riva shrieked with joy and dove into the hole before it was even finished.

"Dark! Fast! Mine!" she screamed, her voice fading as she spiraled down.

Reed kept pushing. He carved a central shaft, then widened it at the bottom into a massive, hollow cavern. He shaped pillars from the living rock to hold up the ceiling. He smoothed the floor, creating basins and channels.

He burned through 20 Mana in ten minutes. It felt like running a marathon while solving a calculus equation.

Finally, he hit the seal.

The layer of rock separating his new cavern from the water table.

Reed panted, leaning against the wall of the ramp. He was sweating. His clothes stuck to his skin.

"We're there," he wheezed. "One more push."

He looked at his team. They had followed him down the ramp.

Seraphine looked uncomfortable in the damp, cool air. She had wrapped her tail around herself like a scarf.

Grika was inspecting the structural integrity of the ceiling, looking impressed.

Maira was holding her skirt up, looking at the floor with deep suspicion.

Luma was vibrating so hard she was blurring at the edges.

"Luma," Reed said. "You might want to stand back. This is going to be… wet."

"I'm ready!" she squealed.

Reed focused on the floor of the new cavern.

Break.

[HYDRO-BREACH]

Water Source: Tapped.

Pressure: High.

The floor exploded.

It wasn't a trickle. It was a geyser.

A column of water, pressurized by miles of rock, blasted upward. It smashed into the ceiling, spraying outward in a torrential curtain of liquid.

"GAH!" Grika yelped as a wave of cold water slammed into her.

The cavern filled instantly with the roar of rushing water. It surged into the basins Reed had carved, swirling and foaming.

But it wasn't just water.

It was mud.

Silt, clay, and ancient sediment churned up from the riverbed. The water was brown, thick, and heavy.

"Oh no," Maira whispered.

The wave hit them.

Reed was soaked instantly. The water was tepid—not freezing, thankfully—but it was gritty. He wiped his eyes, spitting out a mouthful of dungeon water.

"Success!" he shouted, giving a thumbs up.

He looked around to gauge the team's reaction.

It was… mixed.

Luma was in heaven. She had dived headfirst into the nearest mud-pool. She wasn't just swimming; she was absorbing. The water rushed through her semi-permeable form, turning her from a pristine blue to a murky, swirling turquoise. She surfaced, spitting a fountain of water like a happy whale.

"It's so thick!" she cheered, slapping the surface. Splat. "And flavorful!"

Riva was clinging to a stalactite on the ceiling, shaking her wet wings like a angry dog. "Wet! Heavy! Can't fly!"

Seraphine was hissing. Loudly.

The water had soaked her scales. She was currently coiled tightly on the highest majestic rock she could find, looking like a drowned cat. Her hair was plastered to her face. Her bronze armor was dripping.

"My Lord," she growled, her teeth chattering slightly. "This is… indignity."

But the worst reaction—by far—was Maira.

The Demon Maid stood in the center of the splash zone.

Her uniform was soaked. Her pristine white apron was brown. Her glasses were fogged. Her hair, usually in a severe bun, hung in wet, heavy strands around her face.

She wasn't moving. She was shaking.

Reed waded over to her. The water was up to his knees.

"Maira?" he asked carefully. "You okay?"

Maira slowly removed her glasses. She wiped them on her soaking wet apron, realized that was futile, and put them back on.

She looked at Reed. Her eyes were burning with a cold, terrifying fire.

"Master," she said. Her voice was calm. Dangerously calm.

"Yes?"

She held up a hand. It was covered in mud. Thick, brown, sticky mud.

"This," she said, letting the mud drip from her gloved finger. Plop. Plop. "Is filth."

"It's… earth," Reed tried. "Natural sediment."

"It is chaos," Maira corrected. She looked at Grika, who was currently wringing out her tank top, creating a puddle of grey water.

"Look at her," Maira pointed.

Grika's white leather top had become… transparent. The water had turned it into a second skin. The denim shorts were dark with moisture, clinging to her thighs in a way that would have been incredibly distracting if Reed wasn't currently terrified of his maid.

"What?" Grika asked, wiping mud off her cheek. "It's just mud, lace-curtains. It washes off."

"It gets in the seams," Maira hissed. "It stains the fibers."

She turned to Luma, who was currently making mud angels in the pool.

"And the Slime Unit," Maira said, her voice rising an octave. "She has become… turbid."

Luma stopped splashing. She looked at her own body. She was indeed cloudy.

"I'm an earth elemental now!" Luma beamed.

Maira closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. Her tail lashed behind her, spraying a fan of muddy water across Reed's face.

"New Protocol," Maira announced.

She opened her eyes.

"Floor 2 is designated a Bio-Hazard Zone."

She marched—or tried to march, but the water drag made it more of an angry wade—toward the ramp.

"Where are you going?" Reed asked.

"To the laundry," Maira snapped. "And then to the sewing room. If we are to operate in this… swamp… we require appropriate containment gear."

She stopped at the ramp and looked back at them. Her gaze lingered on Seraphine's shivering form and Grika's clinging clothes.

"The current uniforms are compromised," Maira declared. "They retain too much moisture. They are heavy. They chafe."

She pulled a notebook from her (miraculously dry) pocket.

"I will design new specifications. Hydro-dynamic. Minimal drag. Quick-drying."

Grika perked up. "Minimal drag? You mean… less fabric?"

Maira's eyes flashed.

"I mean functional," she said. "Swimsuits. But mandatory. And standardized."

She turned and stormed up the ramp.

Reed stood in the knee-deep water, surrounded by his wet, muddy monster girls.

"Swimsuits," he whispered.

He looked at Grika, whose "minimal drag" outfit was already pushing the boundaries of physics. He looked at Seraphine, whose massive tail glistened in the dim light. He looked at Luma, who was basically a living water balloon.

The System chimed.

[NEW QUEST: THE GREAT SWIMSUIT CRISIS]

Objective: Approve Maira's designs for "Water-Safe Gear."

Reward: +10 Morale. Increased "Teasing" Reputation.

Failure: Maira burns the dungeon down to sterilize it.

Reed wiped mud off his face.

"Okay," he said to the room. "Someone get Seraphine a towel before she goes into hibernation. Grika, check the water pressure. Luma… please try to filter yourself."

He looked up the ramp where Maira had vanished.

"I have to go supervise the… design process."

Grika smirked, wringing out her hair. "Sure, Boss. 'Supervise.' Just try not to pass out when she breaks out the measuring tape again."

Reed waded toward the ramp.

Floor 2 was open. It was wet. It was messy.

And it was going to be expensive.

But as Reed climbed out of the dark, imagining his team in "hydro-dynamic" gear, he decided that some investments were worth every point of Mana.

Later – The Core Chamber

Reed sat on his bed, wrapped in a blanket Maira had aggressively provided. He was dry, mostly.

Seraphine was coiled around the Core itself, soaking up the heat. She was still shivering slightly.

"Cold," she hissed. "Nasty wet cold."

"I'll build a sauna," Reed promised. "Heated rocks. Steam. You'll love it."

"Promise?" she asked, one eye slitted open.

"Promise."

Grika walked in. She had abandoned her wet clothes entirely and was wearing just her tool belt and a towel wrapped around her waist.

"Hey Boss," she said, leaning against the wall. "Good news. The water flow is stable. I can rig up some pressure jets. Make the floor slippery. Maybe a few water-cannons."

"Non-lethal water cannons," Reed reminded her.

"High-pressure bidet," Grika agreed with a wink.

Luma flowed into the room. She had filtered herself somehow and was back to a sparkling, translucent blue.

"I love the pool!" she cheered. "It's so big! I can stretch all the way out!"

She flopped onto the floor, spreading into a puddle that covered ten square feet.

"See?"

Reed smiled. The family was growing. The dungeon was growing.

But he couldn't shake the feeling of the red warning window from earlier. The Authority.

He looked at the new path leading down to the water floor.

"We need to be ready," he muttered. "If they come to inspect us… we need to make sure they see what we want them to see."

"Which is?" Grika asked.

Reed looked at his towel-clad goblin, his shivering snake, and his puddle-slime.

"That we're just a normal, wholesome dungeon," Reed said.

Grika burst out laughing. Seraphine snorted. Luma made a rude bubbling noise.

"Yeah," Reed sighed. "We're doomed."

"At least we'll look good going down," Grika said, snapping her towel at him.

Reed caught it.

"Yeah," he said. "We will."

[FLOOR 2 ESTABLISHED]

Biome: Subterranean River.

Current Status: Muddy.

Next Step: Sanitation & Outfitting.

Reed lay back on the bed. Act 2 had begun. And it was already sticky.