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  [Dungeon]

  The mirror level worked far better than I had dared to imagine, and even an experienced group had completely fallen for it. I believed the low light level to be a massive contributing cause though.

  I had watched, tense, as they worked up their plan of attack. They had seemed oblivious to the fact that it was an angled mirror showing the cat to them, but I had still expected them to realise it was only an image and adjust from there. They hadn’t, and when they charged forward it went badly. From bad to worse really as their healer was closest to danger and got savaged by the cat. Beautiful.

  I laughed to myself as they panicked, and I could feel the connection to the healer begin to form, her mana leaching away from her – to me – as she started to die.

  Recovering as quickly as such an experienced group did, they pivoted and quickly dispatched the cat before tending to Jenna.

  When they fed her whatever medicinal herbs they had, I felt the mana flow diminish as she improved slightly.

  Once stable I watched them pick her up and make a hasty retreat. Unfortunately, I thought that regardless of whether she lived or died, it would not be inside my dungeon to find out.

  They ran through the levels making good progress, and when they stopped to make a stretcher, I was impressed with their ingenuity. That definitely had secured her survival at least till exiting my dungeon.

  Perhaps they would actually make it to help. I wasn’t sure, it was a gruesome injury.

  Exiting the dungeon at a full sprint, they left and I was taken aback at the solitude that came with them leaving. Whereas before, the thumping beat of their presence had distracted me from working, annoying me, especially when I was working close to them.

  Now, I felt the loss. It was quiet, peaceful and although in its own way it was nice, it was also lonely and empty. The moving animals and monsters providing little in the way of companionship in comparison to the group. Like a candle to a bonfire.

  I was sure they would be back soon though, and they would be bringing others with them, hundreds of people, and hundreds of deaths. I couldn’t wait, the companionship and challenge of engaging adventurers was satisfying, but killing them, snuffing out their lives was true pleasure. Worth the momentary loss in company.

  Oh, it would be great. I would lead the foolish and proud to their demise, savouring the sweet release of their deaths.

  For now, the solitude would be the perfect motivation to improve myself. No distractions, no limitations just free to build and improve over the next week or few and then I would be ready for the influx.

  Sigurd and his group had made it decently far through. With only the ice level boss and the first level of the fire floors in hand, I felt nervous, that wouldn’t do, I needed more depth for my defence. Surely there would be stronger people than them coming to delve?

  The desert of floor 12 was mostly complete, but I had to finish it off, and then I had the rest of the fire levels to build. But first, I had lots of corrections to make.

  The first level I had thought was a bit too easy but seeing how it had claimed the lives of three, it seemed to be ok for now, the eagle and tree having done the job extremely well. For now, I broke down the bodies and used the rotting flesh as mulch for the plants, feeding them.

  When Sigurd and his friends had ran back through the level, the bodies were in plain view, resting against a tree, blood pooling on the ground, staining the earth. They didn’t spot them, which I was slightly surprised at. Well only that Kael didn’t spot them, the rest weren’t as observant as him. But perhaps events had them more distracted… I thought to myself, amused.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I left the blood-stained earth alone for now though, a memento to the first adventurers killed on the floor.

  I considered making the grass more interwoven and harder to push through, but I reconsidered. It was already quite difficult, and it wasn’t even supposed to be a difficult level, just a teaser of what was to come, heck there were no active mobs, except the eagle. Just the sharp hedgehogs and trees.

  Floor two, similarly had no changes, there really wasn’t anything I wanted to do with it, especially as it hadn’t really been tested that much. John and his party hadn’t made it down there, and Sigurd and his were far too experienced to be challenged by it.

  The swamp though was in need of a few tweaks. Mostly just related to do with the paths, making them a bit harder to see. On the way back, when carrying Jenna, the group had managed to avoid most of the level, and I didn’t want that route to be easy to see.

  With 100k mana to spend I was glad I didn’t need too much to reorganise it a bit.

  The jungle was a good level and I was happy leaving it alone and so too was the boss. It had challenged them, and I was certain it was a good fit.

  The ice levels made me think though, there were a number of corrections I wanted to make. Firstly, the ice phantasms. Whilst it might be useful for them to be an unknown quantity once the new adventurers arrived, it wouldn’t do to have them afraid of a little fire aura. That certainly wouldn’t do.

  I dove headfirst into trying to fix the issue, but I couldn’t find a fix for it. Modifying my mobs came with significant limitations and although physical changes were harder to force than mental compulsions like aggressiveness, it seemed that my compulsions would not be able to override their basic instincts, they had only a few; food, fight and flee, and since they were made of ice it seemed they were deathly afraid of fire. Having such simple brains meant there wasn’t much I could do to override this.

  I pondered the issue for a few moments before deciding on an approach; to raise the temperature of the room a touch, hopefully it would encourage the adventurers not to use a fire aura and then the ice phantasms would be back in the game. Certainly, I would have some adventurers without it, but I wanted the ice phantasms always in play.

  Continuing in the theme I made the ice run a tiny bit warmer and the ocean stayed the same. The mirrors got colder and the boss even more so. As adventurers descended the cold would become more and more of a problem and I was sure this would cause issues.

  The ice run had its paths completely refreshed, although I left the path that led to the secret treasure alone, I guess it wasn’t secret since it could be seen from the start, but how to get there was secret.

  The ocean felt like it was a good level, and I couldn’t wait to see the orcas come crashing down on some poor fool’s head. This would stay the same.

  The ice mirrors had worked better than expected and the boss had yet to see action, so I left them well alone. Things were looking good, and I had almost all my mana to work with, more than enough for a couple of floors. It was time to get going.

  Thump, thump, thump, came the beating.

  Oh, interesting, were they back already? I pondered.

  No, it turned out, no they were not. Instead, it was the goblins, led by that green bastard that hurt my cat.

  The goblins, now with a few new faces to replace the ones I had killed, descended quickly making quick work of the trees, wolves and cats and onto the swamp. My new paths created more forging necessities and in each case the piranhas struck, bleeding the goblins slowly. Unfortunately, they didn’t panic and soon had killed the alligators and advanced to the kobolds where they proceed to wipe out the village once more.

  Damn it, I thought, I would have to spend more mana respawning them than I gained from the length of time they would stay on the floor. But then they decided to have a nap, cooking and eating my kobolds which I wasn’t sure how to feel about. I knew I didn’t like it, but how much I didn’t like it I wasn’t sure.

  Once rested, the goblins advanced to the boss, it was comical looking at the half metre tall goblins and my four metre tall boss, but I thought that the goblins would win, I hoped to get a couple kills, but with the tenacity they had showed so far I knew they would get the best of my boss.

  As it dropped down creating a surge of dust, the goblins bunched up, taking the chance to fire arrows at it. Marrok drew attention and dodged out of the way before the group proceeded to kite my monster round the floor firing arrows at its face in hopes of blinding it, luckily the extended brow and huge height meant they were unable to achieve it.

  When they ran out of arrows, they split in two and toyed with the boss, pushing it across the distance between the two groups and hacking it apart.

  Damn it, not even one proper engagement I thought watching the boss stumble. This was embarrassing. I would have to add some command to fix this issue I thought, something that draws focus to one combatant.

  The goblins surged around the fallen beast hacking it apart.

  ~~Congratulations: you have reached 2x mana concentration including reserve, as such you have been forced to level up: Level 48 ~~

  The message popped up as I felt an inrush of mana. In its final flailing the beast had managed to slam its fist into a goblin that had strayed to close, pummelling the little green man into the floor. Crushing him to paste. I laughed, pleased at the death.

  That makes seven kills. Four humans and three goblins. I checked and realised that I had got 450 points for that kill. He had been worth more a lot more than the human child I had killed before without the bonus. Excellent.

  Unfortunately, the goblins decided to leave after killing the boss. They were injured from the flailing and one had died, so they retreated to lick their wounds but I expected them back very soon. They had entered immediately after the other group had left so I knew that they had been waiting for the chance, I was confident they would not wait long, unlike the humans who had had to go back to their main civilisation or some such nonsense to get the process of getting adventurers here going.

  The goblins on the other hand must be living on the mountain and would be back before long, of that I was sure. They had the drive to get stronger and I could do that for them. Bait them in deeper than they could handle and I would have a steady source of kills coming.

  Excellent I thought, I would be rubbing my hands in excitement if I could.

  When they left it meant I could focus on the task I had meant to start on a day ago, finishing the desert, my 12th floor.