Dungeon Novel: Chapter Nine (Patreon)

He had five, excepting the void affinity, that he could use. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind and Light, if he had Dark as well, he would have a complete set of basic affinity gems. The affinities were not necessarily weaker than others however they were a Forgotten level affinity. The Subterranean (common) affinity he could have chosen was a subtype of Earth. Their idea was seen as basic was because how they formed together to create the majority of reality, the building blocks of magical worlds.

Bringing up the pattern for a weak elemental in his mind he started to push mana into whilst simultaneously fusing the pattern of a Earth gem. When the defender formed it was humanoid, no discerning features and large cudgel like protrusions ended the elemental’s arms. It’s legs were small pillars of hardened dirt with mixed in stone chips and the earth gem protruded slightly from its chest. The gem pulsed slight, almost creepily like a heartbeat.

Testing the creature’s capacity for destruction he saw small earthen walls, spikes and large rocks thrown. These offensive and defensive abilities were in addition to the incredibly tough body it already sported. Its only weak point was the gem. Unbound ordered the creature do be hit by the rockfall trap and the pressurized spikes and watched as the rockfall was shrugged off and the spikes sunk slightly before stopping.

One of the pressurized copper spikes hit the elemental’s body at an angle and slightly cracked the gem at the front. The cracked gem caused parts of the body to slough off and the elemental reformed weaker and smaller. He ordered it into the hidden room with the void elemental before healing it.

He then continued to test and experiment whilst waiting for another incursion, and his next level and floor.

It was two days later when another undead creature walked into the dungeon. Two more of the zombies started moving in and he readied the new, poisoning eating ants. Following the two shambling undead was a person.

Completely naked and seemingly moulded from clay the person was pasty white and lacked features, no genitalia, no discernible musculature, or skeleton. Eyes and other sensory organs seemed present but almost like an afterthought. When Unbound peered closer he could faintly see almost light pink runes tracing the creature’s flesh.

Once again, the undead were far too strong for the first floor, proceeding past it without seemingly trying. Unbound ordered the ordinary and new variants of defender to stay away from the invading party, knowing their own attacks were far too weak for the current residents of his first floor.

The first change was when one of the two zombies waled through the pool in the sixth room. It killed all plant life inside and the underwater ant breed. The water turned poisonous and faintly green tinged, as the zombie strode out the other side.

“Note to myself and fairy, adapt the plant life.” Unbound muttered. Elvinia pushed herself off her stomach slightly and gave a mocking salute with accompanying salute.

The rockfall trap caught the doughy creature but the undead beast just melded itself around the rocks. Unbound didn’t bother letting them attack the boss but instead called out the earth elemental. It burst out the tunnel and a rock throw caught one zombie in its chest, the undead slammed against the wall and splatted. Unbound greedily ate the now full pattern and felt the knowledge recede to its place in his mind.

The follow up spire of rock that erupted from the floor tore the second zombie into three separate pieces. The sheer force propelled the head clean of its shoulder’s and the spike pushed into the zombie’s midriff. Unbound ate the second pattern and added it too the first.

None of the earth elementals attacks caused the dough creature any harm and the being was slowly enveloping the elemental, before Unbound called out the void elemental he had another thought.

Grabbing hold of the mana that made up the earthen elemental he twisted a tiny piece of it into the rarest pattern that the priest gave him.

Enchantment. Purge Undead.

As the enchantment took form, the creature shrieked as it’s flesh bubbled and receded from the elemental. Seeing the progress Unbound moved the enchantment to the elemental’s right fist. With a excited order to punch the shrieking beast.

The first punch caused an even louder shriek.

The second blew the flesh away.

Upon the third the undead gave a piteous whine before melting away.

Without the void elemental eating away the pattern Unbound could consume it. After he finished, he brought up the two new entries to his pattern list.

Rotted Zombie: Necrotic (2)

Resurrected Slime: Flesh (1)

Whilst Unbound had resolved to never use the Rotted Zombie the Resurrected Slime was different. A non-resurrected slime would be better. The being was nigh immune to physical damage and the only defender currently capable of taking it on its own would have been the void being.

The enchanted elemental was still stood there and Unbound ordered it back into the other room, although the fact the enchantment took hold on its rocky hide gave him other ideas for experimentation.

First of the pressurized spikes in the tunnel outside the core room was near useless currently for undead. Most of them were either armoured or immune to the weak copper spikes and thus Unbound took each spike and place the Purge Undead enchantment on it.

The fact his current entrance opened out into a paradise for undead beings meant he was going to have to deal with a lot more. The trend he noticed was slowly, stronger, and stronger beings were being drawn to the dungeon core.

During the time he was slowly placing an enchantment on the spikes two more of the strange skeletons entered the dungeon and were dispatched by the Spider Boss. The new pattern parts boosted the current pattern up a level but revealed no new knowledge for them.

The most important part of the two incursions was that Unbound had risen a level. The final level he needed to make a new floor and become stronger.