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  [Dungeon]

  After nearly a day perusing the store, I had planned out what I wanted to buy. Mentally selecting them I looked over the store one final time before purchasing.

  Looking over my floors, I needed a lot of monsters, my list was the sphinx for the challenge, the balefire wisp cluster as my boss monster – I was excited for that one – as well as ten of each of the scoria, 25 flaming suits, 16 flare sprites, 6 ember hydralings, 5 pyroclaws, and 3 ashen wraiths.

  The total at this early stage was 30,465 dungeon points, meaning I needed another 13,825 points before I could get them all.

  I was currently level 48 so levelling up to level 50 would net me another 990 dungeon points, taking my required points to 12,835. My perk at level 30 was 6000 dungeon points, and at level 40 it was 8000 dungeon points so I was expecting at least 10,000 dungeon points as an option, assuming I had no special perks for achievements, then I would take the points and only be slightly less than 3000 points short. Hopefully some goblins would come to die soon.

  Otherwise, I could look into selling some things back to the store, but I wasn’t sure what I could sell, none of my monsters had bred enough that the dungeon was overpopulated enough to sell some monsters, my materials weren’t rare, and I had no loot from delvers yet either. Perhaps I would just have to level even more, level 56 to get the points. I was hoping that the perk would include more points than 10,000. I wanted to get this all done before the adventurers came back.

  Looking over the rest of the information, I could see my growth was looking good. I had finally reached a five in my rating.

  With little mana left I decided I would need to start the process of levelling up, I began to gather the mana I needed, falling into deep meditation as I did so.

  ~~Level up: 49~~

  ~~Level up: 50~~

  ~~Congratulations: You have reached the milestone: Level 50 and as such have been granted a perk. The following perks are available:

  Heal

  10000 dungeon points

  5000 tonnes of soil/stone/wood, 265 tonnes of rare materials

  Item: Treasure Blueprint Set 1, 2, 3, & 4, trap set 1 , 2,, 3, & 4.

  Mana boost: 190% total, 100% bonus mana gain for 5 months

  40% off next store purchase

  30% off boss price and mana respawn x10

  Choose wisely, your next perk is available at level 75~~

  Unfortunately, the perk only offered 10,000 dungeon points, and that would still leave me quite a lot short. However, the 40% off next purchase caught my eye, if I bought that I would only need 18,279 dungeon points to purchase all the monsters I needed for the three floors and given my two recent level ups I was sitting at 17,630, just 649 points short. Enough that I could make up by selling materials. Stone of differing types.

  It took me several days of selling, mining and selling some more before I got 700 dungeon points for my stone. In total I sold 5550 tonnes of stone as well as clearing my material storage of a lot of the more common rare materials to afford it. But it meant I had enough. I selected the 40% discount and bought the monsters.

  On floor 13 I placed 15 flaming suits, 8 flare sprites, 7 iron scoria, 4 night ember hydralings, 3 nightfire scoria, pyroclaws, and one ashen wraith. spreading them across the subterranean maze as well. The rest were all placed onto the 14th floor, with the six flame riddled wheels and the balefire wisp cluster remaining in storage for use on the boss floor.

  Last, and certainly not least to be placed, was the sphinx. I installed her down by the central column, in a small antechamber I had designed for her.

  The chamber was round, four metres in diameter and three high. Around the edges, braziers burned high, releasing a slight haze of smoke and the odd spark into the room. The braziers raised the temperature higher even than the desert.

  Hieroglyphic etching adorned the walls, and the focal point of the room was a large decorative altar that I envisioned the sphinx sitting upon, spreading her wings to block the way forwards as an adventurer entered the chamber.

  I planned for the adventurers to face a riddle to advance or face the wrath of the sphinx. If they failed the riddle and guessed wrongly then the opening to the boss chamber would seal shut and the walls to the antechamber would drop down letting the sphinx use the entire floor to hunt them, they would only be safe if they killed the sphinx or retreated to the outside of the pyramid, back to floor 12.

  Excited for the vision to come true I placed her down, watching as the golden light abated to reveal her.

  I saw the large, eagle wings first, the fierce body of a lioness and the snapping snake-like tail second. She had light blond hair that seamlessly turned into the mane of the lion’s fur. The mane then slowly blended into the smooth sleek flanks of the lioness and then into the golden feathers of the wings. Without looking closely, you wouldn’t be able tell where the feathers began, and the fur ended. It was beautiful, she was beautiful, and her golden irises gleamed with an uncanny intelligence.

  I moved my presence closer to get a better look, she turned her head, following me. I stopped in surprise. None of the other monsters could see me, could she see me?

  She wasn’t at my core which I had moved just below the cavern for the boss floor already. So, how could she see me? I moved again and she followed once more.

  “Hello master, I hope you have a nice dungeon for me, I would be most displeased if not. Oh, and I have a riddle for you… can you solve it? You have to solve it…”

  She spoke in a hushed tone that somehow pierced my soul and made me listen. I was shocked, she could see me, and that she could talk. Didn’t the store say something about that.

  “They possess the intelligence of a wise woman and the strength of a lion.” The description had said going on to say “Sphinxes are sentient gatekeepers”

  Yes, right there, ‘sentient’. I had missed that. How had I missed it?

  Uh oh…