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  [Dungeon]

  The desert was great, and I was extremely pleased with it. From the ice hotel safe zone, the adventurers would have to venture out into the baking heat of the desert gorge, having just been frozen for the past few floors and work on descending the cliffs while contending with the monsters I had placed, the giant salamander, and the scoria. I was disappointed that Sigurd hadn’t reached the gorge because it was another step up in difficulty and I had wanted to see how they dealt with a scoria.

  Being completely resistant to fire and arrows, it meant that Lorelei and Kael couldn’t help fight the scoria. Sebastien similarly wouldn’t have been much use and so it would have been down to Jackson and Sigurd to try to crack their rocky bodies open. I wondered if they would have succeeded? Imagining the scoria exploding upon death and the shrapnel flying out and taking them by surprise. Would they have known? Could they anticipate it? I couldn’t wait to find out.

  At the bottom of the gorge a small solitary stream trundled along, twisting, and meandering about as if it hadn’t a care, carving patterns in the rocks. On a whim, I added a few fish to the bottom, it would be a safe place to relax before taking on the desert and they would certainly need the time to prepare for it. Having battled exploding rock golems in the scoria and the lightning-fast salamanders that hid in the cracked walls along the treacherous cliff side path, the adventurers deserved a peaceful riverside stop to prepare for the desert, for the desert was dangerous beyond anything I had implemented thus far. With burning temperatures that would kill in minutes and solitary oases that provided a brief refuge from the ceaseless heat but forced a fight, it would be a very tough challenge. And that was without the giant desert mole that burrowed around and the manticores that patrolled the skies.

  Though floors 11 and 12 were complete there were a few more things I needed to change. Firstly, was a way down to the desert, at the moment it was just a hole in the floor that dropped down a few hundred feet; certain death. If adventurers couldn’t progress, then they wouldn’t bother trying to complete the challenges. No adventurers meant no deaths and no mana and perhaps more importantly no interesting events and companionship. Companionship I now realised, was very important to my wellbeing.

  So, I changed the deadly drop to a set of stairs; not deadly. I had finally finished off the 11th floor. The little stream flowed alongside the stairs and ran into an oasis that was at the bottom of the stairs, giving one more safe zone before they braved the desert and I liked giving a sense of continuation between the floors. The stream running down the stairs and feeding the oasis was that.

  The desert was complete now, though with no end goal in sight I didn’t know exactly where the oases should be, strategic placement would let me manipulate the paths through the dungeon and that was an invaluable tool. So where was the end goal then?

  I had been thinking of what to do for the fire levels for quite some time now, and I had concluded that, like ice, there wasn’t that much to the natural environments that would lend itself to being a dungeon floor. I also wanted to change up the flow that they would have got used to. Just like the mirror floor, when faced with the unexpected, adventurers could misread the situation or be taken by surprise. So, anything that could throw them off their stride was good, and it made the dungeon far more interesting.

  Unlike every other floor, there would be no end of the level, no stairs or archway leading to a clearly marked floor. Instead, in the middle of the desert, hidden by the heat mirages and the endless flowing sand, I would have a temple or pyramid, like some forgotten civilisation had lived and perished millennia ago, a relic of the past that preserved the passions of some mysterious king. But, unfortunately, this forgotten temple had been taken over by monsters. Vicious monsters that stalked its rooms and hallways.

  In a slight dip, hidden from view, the granite steps of the temple reached upwards. Plain and unobtrusive, perhaps even boring, and banal, except for the fact that it pierced the desert. Isolated by the lonely and level sands that stretched far away from it. Somehow, that made it seem grand and imposing. Illustrious.

  I started out by raising a flat square platform of white marble 200 metres a side and six metres high. Cutting in six steps of one metre increments in the middle of each side I was ready to begin. Summoning granite, I began work by cutting out great blocks of the stuff and building up a large ziggurat one layer at a time. The base of the pyramid was slightly smaller than the platform I had raised, and it took me a long time to finish it off. Columns inside acted as support for the structure of my build and as the last few blocks were placed and the space enclosed.

  In the end, I had a structure with enough space for what I wanted.

  I was rather pleased with myself and I took a few moments to look over it with pride. One final modification and I was done.

  At the top of the pyramid, a gleaming, white, cut stone arch bent. Shining like a guiding star in the dead of night. Drawing you closer. Only this would be visible from the surrounding desert.

  Inside the pyramid I created a circular hollow pillar in the very centre that extended to the top as a support and here I cut a small hole in the side, this would be the exit to the boss floor. Adventurers would have to fight their way up the two internal floors – floors 13 and 14- until they reached the entryway before they could drop down to the boss floor below – floor 15.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Once the column was sealed all around, I could begin working on the two layers I would build up to the top of my pyramid.

  The first layer extended up 30 metres, and from the entry hallway to the outside, adventurers would climb up a series of staircases around the column and out onto a connected set of balustraded balconies that connected to the rooms and inside surfaces of the pyramid walls. Tastefully detailed with engravings and golden artwork that I creatively destroyed as if the room had been left alone for millennia, time enough to rot to dust.

  Fading patterns and royal insignia half brushed away like some desert rulers’ palace-come burial chamber.

  Hanging lanterns powered by magic and broken furniture littered the rooms providing lighting and ambiance to complete the look.

  As well as these rooms and balconies, I made a small tunnel that led to a subterranean network of chambers that contained a variety of traps, from closing doors, to spike pits and crushing hallways. A maze of tunnels leading to rooms filled with treasure and danger acted as a subterranean area, providing extra challenge to the adventurers for those that wished it.

  The maze of tunnels also had many concealed passages, barely big enough to fit through and they led to treasure troves. Unlike with the previous floors, I didn’t use chests this time but rather piles of gold and treasures. The more concealed passages would have tougher monsters and more prizes, and it would be up to the adventurers how much they chose to plunder.

  A series of these hidden passages led to my main secret room for this level, which would of course contain the greatest treasures.

  Advancing up the staircases in the main floor of the pyramid – instead of down to the maze – took adventurers to the 14th floor. They passed through my intervening ceiling that separated the 13th and 14th floors which was required for me to mentally assign the place as a separate floor, the singular entrance via stairs seemed to help on that front.

  Similar to the 13th floor, the 14th had more rooms and balconies, but I provided significantly less lighting and the monsters would be much harder here, well I planned for that to be the case. I was doing alright on points but I knew I wouldn’t have enough to fill the floors up.

  I was less certain on the planned decorations, but I figured an honour guard for a now deceased king would work well for where I was going. I would need something that could see in low light and fit this theme. Unfortunately, I hadn’t stumbled across it when perusing the store, but I had vague thoughts about something similar to my winter soldier on the ocean floor.

  Moving on, for now I finished crafting the physical layout and looked around my creation. Upon reaching the top of the 14th floor, adventurers would reach the exit, the entrance to the central pillar and when staring down from the top I hoped it would be like looking into an abyss. It was at this top of the pyramid by the pillar where I would challenge them more.

  They would have to face the trial to proceed to the boss floor, they could engage in either a variety of logic puzzles to progress, or a fight, both of which were presented by one sort of monster. A sphinx. I had seen the entry in the dungeon catalogue a while back, but it had been tremendously expensive and though it had caught my attention I had dismissed the idea back then. However, I had since passed the requirements in points and so I looked back over it now.

  Looking over the information again, I made my mind up. Yes, I would have a sphinx for the trial, but first, I had to finish the fire levels.

  My idea for the boss floor would be an erupting volcano, which sent gouts of burning magma up towards the temple, spraying the steps down the pyramids support column with the molten rock. Descending to the boss floor would have adventurers walk down open air staircases on the inside of the central pillar whilst being barraged by the magma eruptions. When adventurers got below the level of my subterranean maze and into the cavern assigned for the boss floor, at ceiling level, the stairs would loop around the volcano until they reached the sandy floor. Ready to face my boss (as yet undetermined). Because all the stairs were going to be open air they would get plenty of time to observe the floor so I wanted the boss to be tricky and not straightforward. But I had some browsing to do first as I hadn’t a clue what I wanted.

  Polishing up the temple took me the best part of a day, I added some unlit torches to the walls of the second level, allowing adventurers to light them in order to see. I decorated the rooms in greater detail, like a grand dining hall full of golden cutlery and plates and the armoury which held lots of weapons that would likely be a huge improvement for whoever found them. Of course, only the weapon suitable for whoever found the room would be there, I wasn’t going to chock it full of excellent loot. But enough to reward those brave enough to scuttle round the tight tunnels in search of reward.

  Once I finished that, the only task left was to populate the temple. If I wanted to buy the sphinx, I had only eight and a bit thousand points to work with for other monsters. It should be enough for a boss and the sphinx but I wasn’t sure. Certainly, it wasn’t enough for all the monsters I would need. To fill the temple with.

  But I could plan it out as I levelled up. I was due my next perk at level 50, and I would certainly benefit from the points. If I could finish of these fire floors I would feel much safer than I did currently. Another five levels between my core and adventurers was a good thing.

  The first level had more scoria, similar to the ones from the gorge. This time the scoria was an iron one, it was smaller but much tougher than the stone one and had the added benefit of being able to hide in plain sight as the shell was able to be modified to be decorative, and the creature would be able to blend in with the rubble and abandoned temple look.

  Because the iron scoria was an advancement of the stone one, I got a discounted price and so too did I for the fire one, which I chose to evolve into a fire-darkness scoria that hid in the shadows, pulsing slightly with a faint red aura, it would be a far greater ambush predator than previously. Both versions were deadlier than the ones in the gorge. I would have a few of those.

  In the store I stumbled upon a great number of potential options: a lizard called a komodo dragon (similar to the noxious komodo dragonlings I had used before) and although they weren’t related to actual dragons, they were fearsome enough. A fire cloud, a fire fox, a flaming suit were amongst the number, all of which intrigued me, and they were fairly cheap. Higher in price were the fire tiger and fire lion as well as the flame kilted rhino. But those ones didn’t speak to me the same way the flaming suit did.

  I still had the flame riddled wheels that I had got with the fire and ice pack I had bought a while ago, and that was a good thing, as they could go on the boss island floor as a distraction.