Chapter 5

Dorn had a problem. No one was coming to his dungeon. After finishing off his first three levels, purchasing to level 10, and buying instances from the dungeon store, he was about out of DP's, and no one was here to replenish them.

“Status”

Status

Name: Dorn'axial

Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon

Dungeon Level: 10

+1 for 11,000 DP's

Floors: 4/10

Dungeon Points: 10,370

Dungeon Rating: D0 – Seriously?

Three levels and no danger? Now I

feel like you're fucking with me.

“I don't understand, didn't people feel the earthquake from earlier? Why aren't they investigating?”

“I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that a silver dragon used to fucking live here and kill anyone who came near.”

“I know why they're not coming; I'm just complaining. I've got a perfectly nice inn, an elvish innkeeper and cook, as well as beast-kin to take care of horses. There's plenty of replenish-able copper and iron. What more could anyone want?”

“To not die in the fiery anger of a silver dragon?” Emelia said.

“I can't even start my first real dungeon level until people show up. No one told me that being a dungeon would be so fucking boring.”

“Yes well, most dungeons wouldn't be built in a former dragon's lair, and they wouldn't blow 850,000 DP's on building three non-dangerous levels as well as Dungeon Instances. Why'd you buy that again?”

“For the boss levels as well as the levels with tunnels and rooms. I don't want to be building a giant maze of tunnels and rooms so large that multiple parties can be accommodated. I'd rather have an infinite number of branching realities, where each party can conquer a level on their own, without fear of interference or assistance from other parties. It's why I also purchased Dungeon Rules, stating that the maximum size for parties in the instances and boss levels is five members. That is the ideal party size, as it allows for a tank, a healer, a ranger/scout, and two damage dealers.” Dorn replied.

“Ah yes, I see, it makes perfect sense to buy instances for your dungeon levels before the levels even exist, thus making them impossible to build because you're OUT OF DP's,” Emelia ended up screeching.

“I am playing the long game, Emelia; you simply can't understand the brilliance of my plans,” Dorn bullshitted.

Emelia, curious about something Dorn had said, decided to give up on his idiotic point allocation and asked, “What are tanks and damage dealers?”

Dorn replied, “Ah, it is common short hand speak for adventurers. The tank is responsible for using a shield and occupying the attention of monsters. The healer is responsible for healing the tank during battle and everyone else in between battles. The ranger or scout is responsible for detecting and disarming traps, as well as luring monsters to the tank. Finally, the fighters and mages, who are weak defensively but skilled offensively, are called damage dealers, and they're the ones responsible for killing the monsters.”

Emelia said, “I'm confused. Don't they just go in and fight? Why do they have to do all this weird role-playing.”

Dorn pulled a long face. “It's called strategy, why can you not understand the simplest con-”

Dorn paused and suddenly shouted, “Look, there's a human coming. And she's a pretty one, red hair and all. Nice, she'll make a good amount of Dungeon Points.”

“How exactly are you planning on killing her if your dungeon doesn't have any fucking danger?”

Dorn, reminded about his lack of actual dungeon-ness, suddenly turned downtrodden. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Maybe she'll stay here, like it, and then get the word out. The reward for finding new dungeons is 50 gold from the adventurer's guild.”

“You mean the adventurer's guild in the capital city of Khal? The one that's a two weeks ride on horse away? How exactly is the poor looking woman going to get there without a horse? And where are you going to get the DP's to build levels for when the adventurers arrive?” Emelia asked him.

“Fuck it, I've got enough DP's to build a horse. I'll just give it to her. Everything else will work itself out. Anyways, something happening has to be better than no one ever coming here.”

Emelia could only shake her head, “Just go make sure your elvish innkeeper is in place. Maybe she'll stay the night, and you'll get a few DP's.”

“Oh yeah. Hey, Jerry, go to the inn.”

Jerry, the newly constructed high elf, said, “Right away master. And thanks again for naming me, a high elf, Jerry.”

Dorn simply gave a crystalline smirk and said, “Gods, dungeon-born creatures are so much better than soul slaves. I should have made the transition thousands of years ago.”

“You couldn't, you were busy condensing mana crystals, remember?” said Emelia with a shit-eating grin on her face.

“I swear, I'm going to kill you some day.”

***

Kiera couldn't believe her eyes. She had stood in front of the two statues for the last hour. She simply stared and examined, from a safe distance, the carvings of two dragons and their breath attacks.

First, she had been stunned that there were enormous carvings before she realized what the statues meant. Holy shit, the farmers were right, there is a dragon living here. How the fuck did the dragon carve these statues, though? Did he force a group of dwarven crafters to do this? No way, the gossip-mongers at the farm would definitely have known about such an event. More importantly, if a dragon really lives here, why am I not dead yet? And they're so big, who could even build such large structures? And where is the dragon?

Kiera's thoughts were in turmoil, so she simply stopped thinking and stared at the statues. After admiring at the two larger-than-life dragons for hours, Kiera finally noticed the stele a little ways into the tunnel. Nope, no way am I going into the tunnel to read whatever's written there.

***

“Why the fuck is she just standing there? Get in the dungeon already,” Dorn raged.

“She's probably thinking that there's a dragon who will fry and eat her if she comes into the...oh wait she's coming.”

***

Curiosity was going get her killed one day, Kiera knew. She had spent a ludicrous amount of time inching her way towards the stele in the beginning part of the tunnel. When she finally got within distance to see what was written on the stele, she was so shocked, that she sat down. She couldn't even process what she was seeing. And there were only three, equally unlikely possibilities. First, the dragon living here had grown lazy and decided to try to entice stupid, but somehow literate, people to enter its lair and become its food. Second, someone had discovered a dungeon and then erected a glowing stele that welcomed people to a dungeon. And then told precisely no one that the dungeon existed. Lastly, there was the possibility that she had found an undiscovered dungeon with enough intelligence to erect signs.

There's no way someone discovered this place, erected a stele, and then told no one. The most likely option is a lazy dragon.

“Fuck it,” Kiera said out loud, “if there's a dragon, then I'll go and meet the lazy dragon who puts up steles enticing the zero people who come to this mountain.”

Kiera started walking into the tunnel, before she stopped and gasped. Looking around, there were lightly glowing carvings of dragons all over the walls. The globes of dim fire and carvings lightly lit the enormous tunnel. Over head, she stared at the fake stars. “Whoever made this place has a great eye for art. This is the most beautiful place I've ever been.”

Kiera walked up to the second stele. What a helpful dungeon. Or dragon with way too much time on its hands. I'm starting to think that this might actually be a dungeon. What dragon would waste this much time on an elaborate prank that almost no one would ever see.

When Kiera came to the third stele, she gasped again, and almost turned around and left right then and there. Kiera wasn't exactly a gods-fearing woman; in fact, she just about abhorred the churches and their draconian views on religion. What she was, however, was a church-fearing woman. If the churches ever got their hands on this dungeon, they would destroy it immediately. Such a good cash cow would not be worth the threat of demons escaping the dungeon into the world, at least in their minds. No matter what this stele said, the churches would simply say it's an elaborate deception by an infernal dungeon. And the fact of the dungeon's obvious sentience would lend credence to their arguments.

Kiera squared her shoulders and marched right to the middle of the teleportation glyph. As a bright light flared up around her, she shut her eyes tightly.