Dungeon Novel: Chapter Sixteen (Patreon)

A lot of bandits died within the ant’s tunnels, unable to go back they had to continue as more and more of them died. The larger ants blocked them and allowed the other smaller ants to sneak past and kill the trapped individuals. Their numbers, having been advantage in the first level, worked against them with the tight quarters and noise that drew the ants to them.

The women were ordered to be unharmed by Unbound, when he had seen an ant go to bite one. The fact that these bandits hadn’t just raped then killed them was strange and the fact that the leader went to the effort of protecting them more so.

The bandits had seen the flooded tunnels and moved to another path, most of the tunnels were new and dug out by the ants instead of by Unbound. The group was swiftly approaching the boss room now and Unbound would see his new boss in battle for the first time.

There were forty-four bandits that entered the ant’s nest, now there was less than twenty. The sheer lack of maneuverability that the bandits possessed as a group was staggering. They were unable to operate as a group and as a result killed themselves along with the ants.

Only seventeen bandits entered the boss chamber and three were holding onto the women. Similarly, to the last floor the bandit leader attacked the boss whilst the others tried to defend themselves and attack when their boss gave them an opportunity.

However, the Queen forced the bandit leader into a defensive block from one of her strikes and the small coating of Void upon her axe like limb sliced through the sword and bit deeply into the leader’s chest.

The shocked look upon his face caused laughter to bubble up from within Unbound, the bandit leader was so confident that a newly born dungeon wouldn’t have anything capable of threatening him and now he paid for that arrogance.

The other bands gave out cries of shock and fear when their leader slumped over, and the Queen turned her massive body towards them. But as the bandits pulled up their guards to try and defend against the massive, bladed forelimbs several rock spikes shot up from the floor and tore through weak armour.

It turned that very quickly that the final bandits died and the only living creatures in the room were the Queen and the three living women. Unbound thought for a moment and consulted with Elvinia, he was curious what had happened in his dungeon and why?

So, he created an undamaged elemental and ordered it to grab the three, still unconscious, ladies and bring them onto the third floor where Unbound was building a small structure to hold the women in until they were conscious and could answer questions.

It was a small stone room built by the river, no windows and two rooms for them to be placed within. A small affinity gem was placed within as a light source and a small mound of dried out moss was made as a bed.

Unbound waited for the elemental to finish placing the women inside before he sealed of the structure only leaving a few small holes for air. He then proceeded to continue onto the next plan of action.

He wished to reduce the Queen’s intelligence, from the fight with the bandit leader the cunning shown to force him into taking a hit was immense and far beyond what Unbound wanted as a second-floor boss.

If he could not remove any intelligence, he wanted to give another disadvantage to the Queen to reduce the power slightly.

A thought sprung to mind and Unbound spawned several ant eggs within the chamber, these ant eggs would never hatch but only when invaders destroyed them would it drive the Queen into a rage state and covering her animal instinct with a haze.

Unbound then left the second-floor boss alone, he wanted to see her in action again before changing anything else. The several bandits had boosted his level twice, not enough for another floor but what the deaths had brought was a large amount of shop points.

“Elvinia?”

“Yes.” She replied.

“Can you tell me why sentients are worth so many more shop points, these bandits were not stronger than the Undead horde, yet I have gained far more points.”

“It is down to several factors.” She started, her general demeanour changing into teaching mode. “The way shop points are gained are through amount and quality of an absorbed objects life aura, or remnant life aura because you are absorbing a corpse. The other factors taken in the level of the corpse, the knowledge once held, the difficulty of their fight and many, many more factors.”

“Do you know them all?”

“No one knows them all apart from the system. We have worked out the known factors through large amounts of time and effort.” Unbound could understand that, maybe once he had grown more, he could add to this pool of knowledge.

Shop Points: 215

Defenders

Traps

Plant Life

Environment

Skills

For the first time ever Unbound didn’t immediately proceed into the Defenders or Traps tab but instead a new tab he had never used before. Skills.

Shop: Skills

Material reinforcement 50 Points

Extra entrance (Repeatable purchase) 50 Points

Creature fusion 150 Points

Effect field creation 200 Points

Creature manipulation 200 Points

Summoning 80 Points

Contracting 80 Points

Almost immediately he asked Elvinia, the lack of knowledge he had before he purchased the object was startling and could lead to massive point waste. The diversity of skill names was good however, if this were what he could purchase at a low level.

“Don’t bother buying either of the creature skills.” She said immediately. “Currently they are useless to you until you can buy a skill which you won’t unlock for now. All you may do with the skills are create things that will die immediately.”

“Why is that?”

Unbound questioned.

“It is because you can technically use both of the creature skills now but realistically you need a skill further in the future that helps acquire the knowledge for their usage. For now, I would suggest Material Reinforcement, contracting and an extra entrance.”

Unbound simply waited for a moment whilst she went to explain.

“Material reinforcement will allow you to make all your traps stronger and if you want to continue with preventing people escaping your dungeon you need a way to stop them simply mining their way through the stone.” Unbound gave a small not of acknowledgment before asking her about the other options.

“Extra entrance will do exactly what is says, for most dungeons it is a waste until they have another skill but with a Void dungeon you have other options.” Unbound felt his excitement increase, it wasn’t often that something would work for his Void affinity. “Technically we are not bound to this world, we made the dungeon within the Void and the only thing stopping us closing the entrance is the need for sustenance to grow and we could put an entrance anywhere on any world and have access to the rest of creation”

That was exciting, most dungeons only experienced what they found around them and what they could purchase through the shop, being able to place another entrance anywhere was a huge bonus.

“And contracting?” Unbound questioned.

“Contracting?” Elvinia asked back nervously.