Hey all! Tom here. Today I'm going to be reviewing the Necromantic Enclave and its resident dungeon "Deadly Abyss".

On the Broken Continent up near the northern section, a city absolutely permeated with death mana exists. It's currently the only city in the world I know of that actively teaches the necromantic classes and has the highest number of undead residents. Vampires and Liches living in harmony with their "living" neighbors. I even saw a restaurant with a proper flesh golem as the chef during my brief stay.

An interesting factoid is this is the only dungeon that has a longstanding active quest to destroy it. Over the past decade, 3 crusades have been attempted against the enclave and each have failed. Now "The Holy Mother's" church has several active quests related to everything from harassing its residents to destroying the city itself or breaking the dungeon contained within.

Most dungeons that use Death mana aren't giving any trouble by the church but the "Deadly abyss" has supported the city that grew around it and actively protects its residents.

The dungeon itself rewards well and has a delightful ambiance reminiscent of the dungeon in Mur (Issue 102). If you wish to delve into it, no party member is allowed to wear religious symbology as the danger level spikes from lower D grade to B- Grade on the patented Tom Danger Scale. This includes brooches and embroideries in your clothing depicting the "mother's embrace" and actively praying inside the dungeon. Once a vaguely religious warrior got startled by a ghoul and screamed "Oh mother's mercy". He and his whole party were attacked by some vamperic swarm ghouls normally found 4 floors deeper. The dungeon is great, but this is a very important warning parties must follow if they want to delve it normally.

Finally, while the church despises the enclave, there are many unique dungeon materials that have entered the market through its continued existence. "Abyssal Vines" for example took the alchemy community by storm and while no guild has actively endorsed the enclave, many put pressure on the church to let it be.

Next Issue I'm going to be exploring the Trap dungeon of Yale. See you next time!

Excerpt from the popular serial "Tom's Dungeon Reviews Issue 123"

Innearth received a pop-up.

TheAbyssStaresBack has invited you to the "friendly group" server. Accept? Y/N

He hit the yes button less than a second after it appeared.

I'm so ready.

As he accepted the invite his message panel warped and brought him to a new group chat. There was currently 1 other person in the group

TheAbyssStaresBack? I guess that's the core Amy found to host the group for us.

Innearth: ...hey I guess. I’m Innearth. Want to introduce yourself?

Before they could respond properly the rest of the cores started filing in all at once.

Abe: Let's goooooooooooooo.

Amy: Oh good, you guys managed to make it!

Fated Eternal Design: Salutations!

Doc: Why have I been added to this?

Innearth: ...stop changing your name Bose. Feed isn't a good name.

Fated Eternal Design: Divine meaning resides in my new moniker. I must insist you don't shorten it so crassly.

Amy: let him call himself whatever he wants Innearth.

Abe: I'm with my main bro on this one. I've gotten used to bringer of something eternal. Change it back!

Fated Eternal Design: My name is everlasting. Simply think of my calling having been reached now that I have the eternal mana I've always been destined to have.

Innearth: So you chose Eternal mana? Nice. My 3rd choice is Void...don't change the subject though. I've gotten used to Bose :3<

Fated Eternal Design: ...I don't want to.

Abe: What?

Fated Eternal Design: I don't want to okay?

Innearth: :3<

Doc: I would love to hear your reasoning for picking void? I made a similar choice. I wish to pick your brain.

Innearth: oh uh...it felt like the best? 3rd rank choice was at 40% and that's less than my rank 1 penalty. Solo is a better choice because it's a higher increase and I wanted something that let me continue expanding if my storage is full. Also void seemed like it would make stronger monsters than space would.

Doc: Interesting. I picked up double combination of space and void. Your reasoning is about what I expected I thought you might have thought of something else I hadn't have.

Abe: oh boi. Guys, someone should talk me into not regretting my choice. I picked Entropy because it sounded cool.

Innearth: one sec @Abe. @Doc if you thought about the same things as me why did you not pick the same? You chose a double...what was your reasoning?

Innearth: Nice Abe. I bet Entropy will make even stronger explosions.

Doc: It's simple. I simply thought the interactions between two extremes. Might be more interesting than what I could obtain on its own. Demons are the fascinating result of Life and Death mana. Maybe Space and Void can create similar excitement?

Doc: Also. I figured if I'm already basically forgoing some affinities. It would be better to forgo 2 than 3...there are more experiments I can do with both.

Abe: so between the 4 of us we have the 4 Rank 3 affinities? Amy what did you pick?

Amy: ...I chose harmonic Life+Mental. The harmonic options are pretty strong and well...I got to try all the rank 2 types out and I wished I was better at using mental mana. I want all my monsters to be able to communicate with each other and thought I could use the two to make really relaxing safe spots for adventures. Adventurers love me btw. I'm so popular! I nearly have a group delving me a day now and the frequency is increasing!

Abe: Booooo I forgot you already started to get adventures. Ur making sure to put them through proper trials right? They aren't just wandering around taking stuff you give them?

Amy: of course I'm treating them fairly! They have to work hard if they want to be rewarded!

Amy: ...I have started leaving healing pools everywhere just in case they get hurt though. I don't want them to die and stop adventuring In me. The last visiter to die in me was the monster Innearth sent and he hasn't wanted to send anything since.

Abe: ...I'm confused. Why? Lol. They are adventures - they know what they signed up for when they started delving you. Like, not telling you how to design your dungeon or anything...but you are doing it wrong! You're supposed to reward them after the boss. Move your healing pool to the other side of the boss room not before :3 It will work much better like that.

Amy: Oh I have a pool there too! They can heal after their fight.

Innearth: Amy you're much too nice. Are you making sure they aren't just filling containers with your health potions and leaving?

Amy: ...yes.

Innearth: that doesn't sound very convincing Amy. I didn't realize you were this dumb.

Amy: I'm challenging them properly! They had to fight monsters to get to the potions! Health liquid is also sooooo easy to make. It's like life and water and water you know? Besides. They should be fully rested before they enter a boss room. That way they can fight at their fullest potential and it's much more entertaining! I'm the oldest here why am I being called out like this.

Innearth: Okay

TheAbyssStaresBack: I think I'm a weee bit older than you... Anyway, hey everyone! Glad you are having fun! I don't really want to impose on this little group you have here. Feel free to pretend I'm not here!

TheAbyssStaresBack: As long as Amy is having fun that's great! Being nice to adventures is a good trait. You want them to keep coming back! Get em hooked!

TheAbyssStaresBack: Anyways you kids have fun! That's the most important thing!

Abe: ayy m8. I was wondering when you'd say something. Introduce yourself to us! If you have to stay in this group we might as well get to know you! Let's go!

Innearth: Yep. What are your affinities? What’s your dungeon like!

TheAbyssStaresBack: My affinities are Fire, Death and Void.

TheAbyssStaresBack: Rather than tell you about my dungeon why don't we do this.

A new bar popped into existence right below the member list. Awesome Tour Stream>

…

Innearth focused on "clicking" the bar and a new panel expanded beside the chat.

There was a brief moment where he felt vast amounts of information rushing into his panel. Trying to touch it like he had been doing for a lot of the system controls nearly made him blackout.

When he finally refocused he saw something other than his dungeon for the first time in his year of life.

…How.

“TheAbyssStaresBack” seemed to have several spots pre-saved. They panned over several rooms – a flat view into shambling zombies with glowing red eyes and thin black shifting figures with long claws and shrouds of darkness flowing off their limbs. It was slightly disorienting having a flat area show a moving area – Innearths regular sight let him look from multiple angles by default – but that quickly shifted to wonder as he stared through the looking glass into a wonderland of dungeon building.

As the older core continued to flip between areas Innearth was starting to realize just how massive they were.

Abe: Bruh. Really showing off aren’t you…really showing us up.

Abe: Do you have any adventurers to show us? I haven't gotten any yet and there's only so much I can get from listening to Amy.

TheAbyssStaresBack: It's daytime, Sometimes I get late “night” delvers but a lot of my regular adventuring groups like to start around midnight local time.

Innearth: Not sure how personal of a question this is…but how many floors do you have?

TheAbyssStaresBack: Close to 45.

Innearth: …hooookay. How old are you – just to help my ego a bit because that’s just floored me.

TheAbyssStaresBack: Just over 14 years young.

That…makes me feel a bit better I guess. I have 7 floors right now and I’m just over a year old. Although…that’s still a staggering size. My floor splitting has started taking longer and longer.

The older core was now showing off a truly massive maze of complete darkness.

TheAbyssStaresBack: You’re not a proper dungeon till you’ve made a maze blanketed by a darkness field and watched adventurers fumble around like they are blind. DungeonBuildingTip!

Fated Eternal Design: ... eerie. I like it. Are you interested in becoming my disciple?

TheAbyssStaresBack: You’re about 15 years too early for that lil guy. Love the enthusiasm though. This is my final bragging point.

The stream flipped to a single Cubed monster in a truly massive room.

TheAbyssStaresBack: Look! I got my own cube!

Innearth: …okay?

Abe: No offense m8 but I don’t get it.

TheAbyssStaresBack: …I forgot how new you guys were for a bit. Adventurers are terrified of these things. I think they are afraid of the corners!

TheAbyssStaresBack: This is on my lowest floor and I’ve had 3 groups reach it this far so far. Each have turned around and run as soon as they saw the majestic cube!

Abe: …Is it strong?

TheAbyssStaresBack: Think so? It hasn’t fought anything yet.

Innearth: Don’t you want to send some of your own monsters against it? Test it out by ranking it between things?

TheAbyssStaresBack: Wheres the fun in that! It's much more fun if I don’t know how strong it is. That’s why so many cores like watching each others streams despite having their own adventurers. They are less able to predict the outcomes and that makes everything much more fun! Having fun is the most important thing!

As the older core finished talking, they closed the stream.

Innearth pulled back and thought of the dungeon he had just been exposed to. They had only seen a portion of it, but it had felt like it just kept going and going. …I want that. I want that to be me. I want 100 floors and thousands of adventurers delving me daily!

Innearth kept a small portion of his attention on the group chat he had been so excited about and started reviewing his own dungeon instead. I think I should start consolidating floors better. Really make the divisions clearer and start theming them stronger. …I’m sure the Abyss could tell me quite a lot of information, but I don’t want to just mooch off others. I’ll ask if I can’t figure something out myself. That’s a promise to myself. I’m thinking 3 floors per zone and I’ll make some sort of pattern.

As Innearth started to try and plan out what he wanted his floors to look like he was distracted by something entering his influence.

Several somethings. Focusing near his entrance he found 3 furry, 4 legged creatures wandering into his influence. One of them was quite a bit bigger and after looking closer Innearth found they had tendrils of a strange looking Water mana twisting about them.

Adventurers?

…No. These are animals. Innearth tried to categorize his first look at a new species.

Shifting through definitions and descriptions he finally settled on “Otter”. The lead otter looked like it might be a low-level monster considering it had mana.

I guess I’ll see how they do? Not quite adventures, but it will have to work for now!

Innearth watched as the trio slowly descended deeper into his bowels. The lead otter kept pushing them to continue; but the two behind it seemed to want to turn around. They kept glancing about as if scared, while the monstrous version ahead of them confidently walked deeper.

I haven’t finished sorting out this first area… let's see. The area between the magma halls and the surface is currently full of a bunch of lesser snakes. Oh and a few monsters that like to wander around.

By that he meant a curious water slime that had been making it's way closer and closer to the surface ever since he broke through; and his “snake king” who had stayed in the area since it had fought the weird expanding metallic cockroach.

Hey, you’re on boss duty lil buddy. I haven’t shifted around and made new bosses yet, so you’ll have to fill in for the beginner area.

Looking up, a single crystal snake nodded, accepting its new position hastily given and returning to its mana practice.

The Otters came upon the first lesser snake and immediately one of the normal otters started making a chirping noise.

The monstrous one in the lead made a humming noise in return before rushing forwards. The beast seeming to glide through the air before smacking the snake's spiked head downwards into the ground in one fluid motion.

Holding it down with one paw the otter seemed to consider the struggling snake then coming to some sort of decision pushed it away and flowed back to the pair behind it.

Circling the smaller otter on the right, the magical beast nudged its side towards the lesser snake. Looking between its larger brethren and the snake that had started to regain its composure the otter seemed panicked.

What are they doing?

Finally seeming to have accepted its fate, the nudged otter crawled forwards hesitantly.

Reaching to the side it picked up a stone and lifted up onto its back paws. Holding a rock above its head as it crept forwards made a sight Innearth found thoroughly amusing. It looks so serious! The otter waited till the lesser snake got within range before throwing its rock downwards with a chittering battle call.

Immediately the lesser snake flinched, dodging its clubbing and struck forwards. The snake's head stabbed the lower thigh of the otter that had so rudely tried to drop a rock on it leading to the otter jumping back with a yelp.

In the back, the 2nd normal otter made a move as if to step in seeming worried. Stepping up, the monstrous brethren stopped them. Grabbing their side with a single paw and hissing as they pulled them back.

Circling each other the snake and the otter lashed out several times.

…are the beginner monsters too hard? This is just a lesser snake, but I mean I did iterate it quite a bit…and it has a liquid crystal body instead of a liquid metal body…hmmm.

I mean, the lesser snakes are a dozen times stronger than the “tutorial slime”…slimes are just so annoying to make when they are so fragile. I’ll think about it. Maybe I should have a single floor before the 3 beginner floors that’s a “tutorial” of sorts. I don’t have enough splits to match that up though.

Finally scrambling over and re-picking up its rock, the otter made a mad hissing cry and launched itself forwards onto the snake. As the rock hit the snake's head it became dazed. Once. Twice. A third smash shattered the spiked casing of the crystal core that made up its head. The small fight between weaker beings was finally over.

Immediately the monstrous otter in the rear rushed forward and held the smaller otter in an embrace. Checking its injuries, the monster seemed pleased and turned as if saying “see look I knew they could do it” to the otter in the rear.

I wonder. Is the monster trying to evolve the other two into monsters as well? Are they friends? That’s my current theory. It seems the most likely.

Innearth watched the group descend further and further into his dungeon. They came across half a dozen more "lesser snakes" – each time the magical beast checked their strength and then pushed one of its two companions forward to fight instead.

I can’t wait till they reach the “boss” of this area. As fun as this is to watch I want to see a stronger fight. I want to see the leader fight for once!

Passing the area with the expanding metal caused this party to halt immediately.

The magical beast sniffed the metal and then made several humming noises and seemed to warn its companions to stay away from it.

It's inert right now…I don’t think you guys have to worry. Still. Smart call, smart call…that’s pretty nasty stuff. I should make sure to clear it out of the beginner area before I get more visitors.

The otters couldn’t hear the dungeon core chatting away in the background. He quite liked the trio. They had fought well. He didn’t know how to reward otters – but he knew if they beat the snake king he wanted make sure to get them something nice for their effort.

I could…make weapons for them? They seem to like smashing rocks on things – what if I made a super magical rock for them?

Nah. That doesn’t seem like the best of prizes. I’m sure I can come up with something better. Hey, maybe I could try and shove a bunch of mana at them and see if that helps their evolution to level 1? That seems to be their goal for this delve…Although they seem awfully smart in comparison to how my description of animals made them out.

As Innearth thought about how to reward his animal adventurers the trio finally made it to the room the snake king was practicing in.

Immediately sensing the difference, the magical beast flung its two companions backwards and jumped into the room a rushing sound accompanying its charge.

As the otter ran, translucent streams of water seemed to materialize in the world around it. Ribbons of greenish blue mana clumping together into an almost solid stream beneath it as it made its attack.

Seeming surprised at being attacked so immediately, the snake king accepted the charge in stride. Immediately the boss grew a long upwards bridge of crystal and slid up it – its motion sped up as the bridge continued to grow underneath it.

Crashing into the base of the crystal the otter turned as a whole stream of water crashed into the post and spun around it in a whirlpool.

The river of water attempted to follow the snake king up its bridge, but the snake was not having that as crystal spikes extended to and from the roof latching its makeshift platform in place.

The path behind it broke as soon as it had enough support and the snake turned to face a frustrated otter. Fumbled now that it had lost the initiative the otter growled and came up with a new plan.

Circling around into a spout. The rush of water climbed higher and higher as the otter struggled to reach the platform above.

Waiting till the otter was roughly halfway towards it, the snake jumped downwards. A spike grew beneath its scaly length as it fell and hit the otter's outstretched paw – raised last minute in an attempt at blocking the sudden attack.

Crashing to the ground the magical beast growled in pain at its pierced arm and shoulder, while the snake king slithered back out of reach and circled around the otter.

Instead of fleeing at this point where it was semi-evident the wild monster was outclassed, the otter attacked once more. Weaker streams of water flying forwards with each swipe as the otter attempted to land a hit. Any hit – for the otter hadn’t even gotten close to damaging the snake so far.

Dancing around the larger beast on transient bridges, the snake king drove several crystal spikes into the otter and periodically lunged forwards whenever there was an opening. Slowly but surely the fight dragged out before finally, the otter stopped moving. A final weak swipe of its claw before the furry adventurer fell to the ground. Dead.

Dashing forwards in a rage one of the onlooking otters – the slightly smaller one – attempted to attack its brethren's killer. As it charged forward in anger the other made hissing sounds that fell on deaf ears. Unable to stop its “friend” the otter glanced around and spotted a lump of the expanding metal it had been warned away from earlier. Lunging forwards it grabbed it with two paws, spinning around on its back and clutching it to its stomach in a “classic otter” manner.

What is it going to do with that old thing? Innearth wondered before decisively the otter bit down and swallowed the material whole. Oh. I guess that’s what it was going to do…wait what? Why?

The crystal snake had stabbed the revenge-filled otter's side and was watching it rush towards it amused. Each attack painfully slow in comparison to the magical otter it had just slain – when suddenly! A large silver hand entered its vision moving at an incredible speed.

The otter was partly transformed. A single paw was now the same size as its body and attached to a long flexible arm. Faint whines and pants came from the otter but other than the aforementioned arm and a few strands of fur that had shifted hues from brown to grey it seemed to be sane.

Grabbing its comrade, the otter turned and ran. Scampering up through Innearth’s tunnels it carried its only surviving party member up to the surface and disappeared.

A dungeon core felt guilty.

Not for the reason a human might expect. Innearth didn’t feel guilty the magic beast died – it could have escaped but it got overconfident and tried to show off. Adventures should know when they are outmatched.

Nor even did he feel guilty about the potentially negative transformation the one otter went through to save its comrade – It seemed to know what it was doing…and honestly seems better off with it.

No Innearth felt guilty because he hadn’t rewarded either of the escaped otters for all their effort up to the boss.

I should have given them a magic rock. I hope they don’t hate me… Come again! I’ll have a proper reward for you then!