Chapter Forty-One

Dev Gets Some Things Done

Dev watched Toot take care of the delver. That bothered him. He was the dungeon and Toot was his companion. Toot was only meant to be a guide or at worst a last-ditch defender. He wasn’t supposed to be manhandling the first invader that came into his territory. He could see now that he had been doing a lot of things wrong, through no fault of his own. He had, after all, been struggling against his very nature and had not been thinking clearly. Toot, too, had been influenced by his struggle and so could not be held accountable for any shortcomings Dev found in himself or the way he had put his dungeon together. Until now.

Now, he was clear-headed and had no more excuses. Yes, he was supposed to not look or act like a standard dungeon, but the fact was he still had to be a dungeon and there were things that all dungeons had to do whether he liked it or not.

After gaining some territory, for example, most dungeons designed some defenders or traps to protect themselves. Then, in order to entice adventurers into their bosom, they had to come up with a reward system. He had only barely done the first and never touched on the latter. Trond Guro was his only true defender, and he didn’t act like it. He acted like a constable. He was still playing at being himself. That had to stop. Trond could still police the people of Goulcrest, but he was going to have to start being a defender. He should have stopped that Farmer Ted fellow, not Toot.

Right now, Dev was operating a squad of minions who were busy installing his harvesters. Which were working wonderfully, he noted with some pride. He was also, overseeing the building of his long-awaited shop, Weapon of Choice. Shu and the other merchants he had created were all busily going at it. Naturally, they pretended to nail boards and place stone, but it was really Dev doing all the work. Now that he didn’t have some insane part of his soul struggling with him Dev found that he could easily and safely allocate parts of his attention to what he was doing anywhere in his dungeon.

So, he had a full plate just making everything look normal. His people were relatively easy to handle, they all had free thought. He paused and wondered if they were really alive. Dev wondered what would happen to them if he were destroyed. Would they continue on or would they fade out of existence? He had specifically made them so that they had mostly free will, and would only come under his complete control when he was in danger. Dev didn’t want to be a despot; he wanted his minions to live happily in his confines to the utmost of their capability.

And that was where he had gone wrong with Trond. Trond should have never been remade. He should have been used as a template, but now he was stuck with him. He couldn’t just erase the constable and replace him. He was too well-loved by the people, and more importantly, feared by the mayor. That was what kept him from remaking the man all over again. The people’s love was important, but the fear generated by the mayor was magnificent. Dev wanted that mummer of a politician to quake in his boots every possible second. Even though he had never met the man he knew that he did not like him. Learning everything he had from the late Chozen’s head had given Dev insight into the utter callousness and depravity that Keong could sink to.

Another thing he had learned from Chozen was that Toot went by Tooth up above. He could guess that a man calling himself Toot wouldn’t inspire a lot of fear or admiration, and he had to do that up there. Besides, Tooth completely fit him. It was practically a part of his nature, and Dev suspected that he actually preferred to be called Tooth, so he decided that when his companion came back to him he was going to begin referring to him by that moniker. It was the least he could do.

Another problem that Dev faced was the upcoming raid. Tooth, it felt funny thinking of him that way, was up there now convincing families and shop owners to give up their homes and their businesses which would allow him to absorb them and everything inside and replace it all with enchanted materials that the raiders would have a hard time destroying. Anyone that didn’t opt for his protection was on their own. He couldn’t and wouldn’t waste time on people who refused to be helped. Tooth would be very careful to explain the way the deal would work and would offer fair recompense for their discomfort. Anyone foolish enough to pass up such an offer was free to handle things just like they would have if Dev hadn’t been here and a raid occurred; on their own.

So, Dev had to create some defenders, take over the shops and homes when they became available, and he needed to create some defenses. As a dungeon, he was supposed to employ traps to defend himself from adventurers. He also had to figure out a way for the people to protect themselves. Neither he, Tooth, or his defenders would be able to cover every square inch of Goulcrest. It just wasn’t possible. So he had to make the people capable of defending themselves. But how?

It wasn’t like he could just go around teaching them survival skills. He didn’t want to kill them and absorb them, but he would do that if they were killed. He would make certain that any who fell got a second chance at life. It was the least he could do for starting this whole mess. He wished he could just teach them skills, but that wasn’t how it worked. Skills were something that was developed through trial and error, through practice and repetition, they couldn’t just be handed out.

Or could they? Something nagged at his mind. He had made Toot, er, Tooth a cultivator by creating cultivation cores. Could he do the same thing with skills? He didn’t see why he couldn’t. He’d put skills into his creations, and Dev saw no reason he couldn’t do the same for regular people.

The question became how to give them the skills. He could not just implant the abilities into their heads. As living self-aware creatures, he had no power over them. Dev had to create a delivery system for them, and the only way he could see to do it was via gems.

The first thing he did was to create a test subject. He remade Chozen but gave him limited memories and no fighting ability whatsoever. The man stood there blankly staring ahead just waiting for a command from Dev. Dev ignored him.

Next, he created another diamond similar to the ones in the mana collectors. He took a longsword skill, level 5, from Trond’s file and infused it into the stone. To an outside observer, the gem looked normal, but to someone who could see various energies of the universe, the jewel appeared to have a ball of sentient plasma struggling to escape from the inside of the stone. It was purple and had a red ball at its center, but with electrical-looking bolts of energy striking throughout the interior.

He had the replicant Chozen pick up the gem. Dev watched to see if the energy would enter the man and willed it to do so, but nothing happened. The plasma of skill could not escape the jewel no matter how much he willed it to happen. Placing the stone in the false clerk’s body did nothing either. The energy stayed put. Disheartened and about to try something different he had the un-clerk draw the blade from his side.

Surprisingly, the faux man did so smoothly and in one quick motion. Encouraged, Dev had the man run through some simple practice swings and was amazed to see that the Fauxzen was skilled with a blade. He made the man an opponent, who had the same level 5 skill that was a part of him rather than through a second stone and set the two at one another. They matched each other’s moves fairly well. In the end, Dev dismissed the second man and removed the stone from inside the false Chozen. Immediately, the second Chozen reverted back to having no skill whatsoever. His stance was all wrong and the way that he held the sword simply was abysmal.

The skill hadn’t entered Chozen’s clone and remained there. It had only worked while he had been in contact with the stone. To verify his suspicions, he had the clone hold the stone in one hand while swinging his sword in the other.

It worked. That was the good news. The bad news was that he couldn’t have the citizens of Goulcrest carrying skill stones in one hand and a weapon in the other. But, he thought, maybe I can have them carry it all in one hand.

Dev took the stone back from the replicant and began to design a longsword that had a nice diamond stone in the pommel. He then made it enchanted so that it was sharp and hard to break. He made the cross-guard look like a mouthful of fangs in honor of Tooth, and had his tester pick the sword up.

Instantly, the cloned Chozen moved like a man who had been swinging a blade long enough to earn five levels in the longsword. Dev then made a duplicate of the sword, but without a skill in the pommel’s stone. The duplicate could not handle the blade at all. That meant that all he had to do was create a stone and infuse it with whatever skill he wanted it to have, and then place that stone somewhere on the weapon. This would allow the townsfolks to access a weapon and instantly know how to use it. They would have to come up with some excuse for the newfound affinity for whatever weapon they offered, but at least he now had something to provide the people to defend their lives and their homes.

Dev looked at just what Guro had to offer and saw Longsword Level 5, Rapier Level 8, Daggers Level 4, Swordstick Level 3, Truncheon Level 5, Black Jack/Sap Level 4, and Belaying pin Level 2.

He decided that there was no point in using anything under level 4. Doing so just made the townsfolks have to fight harder. He wanted them ready to go when the time came. He also had some other weapons from the three ambushers in the alley, and Thug Number Two as well. It wasn’t a ton of options, but it was better than everyone using a sword. Death diversity was important to him. Everyone should be killed in horrible, painful ways, but differently enough for them to feel special. None of his people would be using a hoe, though. That was just stupid.

Dev began to wonder about the quality of the villains in this world. The vast majority of the peons were downright dumb. It was evidenced in the way they spoke, dressed, and even acted. So far, the only upper-tier conniver that he knew of was Mayor Keong, and he wasn’t stupid. Even his right-hand man, Chozen, had serious character flaws that inhibited him from becoming a major force of darkness.

Dev realized that not all criminals were evil. Some were just people who had no other means to make a living or had to feed their families, but those were rare individuals and so he felt justified in calling a bandit a force of darkness in the same way a mid-tier bureaucrat like the mayor was. Was it like this because only the only people who would embark on such a path were stupid, or was there something else at play? Truth be told, the sheer number of villains seemed to outstrip that of the good people in the town and yet the good folk seemed to get by nonetheless. Only those who were foolish enough to risk going into the shadier places seemed to be affected.

There was something more going on. Dev was certain. That, however, was a problem for another day. At the moment he had more pressing concerns to attend to. He looked at his schedule. If he kept his current pace then all of the collectors would be installed by the morning of the next day, and he would be able to finish the weapon store after the town went to sleep. That would leave him the shoe store and the clothing shop to complete on the morrow. So far, he and Tooth would be ready for the raid. That meant that he had to consider what kind of defenders he wanted to design.

They would have to be human, or at least human-looking as was Tooth’s case. The good people of Goulcrest would not cotton onto inhuman hybrid defenders when they were about to be assaulted by every humanoid in the area that held a grudge with the settlement. That meant no spider or snake combinations, and no half-rat men or fungal humanoids for now. It was going to be boring, but then being boring never got you noticed. Dev frowned inwardly. There were times it was fun to be a dungeon, and then there were times that it utterly and completely sucked. It sucked doing boring work.

He decided he needed two guards for the main gate. They would be his early warning system. Their eyes and ears would be his, so while he couldn’t make them look like hybrids he could still cheat. Now it was starting to feel fun.

Dev pulled up his basic human mesh. It was male and had no outstanding characteristics. It was of average height and medium build. Dev could tweak those green wires made of light so that he could create a pudgy male or one so rail-thin he would have trouble holding up a sandwich. He didn’t want to play with the frame overly much. The average was his goal. Nothing was to stand out in any way. He wanted bland human males that weren’t ugly and weren’t handsome. It was the middle of the road all the way. So, he didn’t bulk them up.

Normally, guards were tall and well-built men. This was to deter average people from doing anything hinky. Dev wanted to encourage suspicious activity; if he made the guards too big and strong then the raiders might think twice about coming to town. Dev didn’t want people hurt, other than the raiders that is, but he craved the new meshes he would get that included humanoids, weapons, and clothing as well as the numerous skills and memories each of them carried. The big thing he craved was the blood. The raider’s blood would be enough to push him into the next level. He really wanted to level up. No one in Goulcrest ever seemed to get more than a broken nail or a paper cut.

Sure, there had been some back alley backstabbings, but it just wasn’t enough to meet his needs. What was the saying? Into every life, a little rain must fall. Well, Dev wanted it to rain blood. Blood made the grass grow. Blood would make him grow. So, he wanted the raid for that reason more than anything.

So, the guards had to look like cucks. Milquetoast cucks at the best, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t contain some surprises. His guys just had to look like cucks. It didn’t mean they would be wimps. He added muscle to them so that they were at the peak of human achievement but still didn’t look like muscle heads. When rebuilding Chozen, of all people, Dev had noticed that forty percent of his muscles were made up of something he termed fast-twitch fibers. Fast-twitch fibers seemed to enable high force and power but had lower endurance compared to the other muscle fibers. Dev cranked the mesh muscles to having seventy percent FTF’s. Which would make them almost twice as strong as a man but keep the muscle mass down.

He focused his attention on the left hand of his construct. Dev rotated the appendage so that he had a clear view of the palm. Next, he opened up his snake file and removed the head from the framework. He spun the snake’s head so that it was upside down and he slid it into the framework of the hand so that the lower jaw was based at the point that the wrist and the hand met. Once opened the fangs would be in the center of the palm and could bite anything his hand held. Feeling a bit malicious, Dev turned the strength of the venom all the way up. It added some energy points to the cost, but he had more than enough dungeon juice for it not to be a consideration.

He placed the cave spider’s spinneret at the base of the right hand. The webbing was made to be as strong as steel. He made the man completely self-aware, but with an undying loyalty to the dungeon core. He added a randomized skin to the mesh and he had his first guard. Dev named him Surebrec. He duplicated the design but added a different skin, and named this second guard Sibuna. They would be brothers sent by the empire to alleviate stress on the town guard. Thanks to the knowledge that Chozen had given them he would be able to convincingly make any documents he needed. It also helped that Chozen would be there to verify everything.

Now, Dev just had to figure out what other kind of defenders he needed. It was going to be a long night, but it was going to be a productive one. What he would have liked to have gotten his imaginary hands-on was that murderous duck that was sneaking about the town. Dev didn’t know how, but he kept disappearing from his view. Yes, ducks flew he realized, but he had never actually seen the feathered fiend take flight. If he could get just a feather, then he would be able to grow the little beast from scratch but for some odd reason, it never left a trace of itself. He really wanted that duck. After the raid, he was going to have Tooth hunt that thing down and bring it to him.

Dev paused.

Normally, it was right about this point that he would hear something like a solitary and predatory quack coming from inside his core room, but nothing happened. Everything was quiet for a change.

He began materializing his two new guards and thought about what else he could create that would help him, but be able to move about town unnoticed. It was a good thing that he’d gotten rid of his slothful side, as he had no time for sleep. It dawned on him that a good dungeon never took a break or nodded off for a few days. They had to be ever vigilant and always prepared. Dev would rest once his enemies, the Overseers, were finally dispensed of, and not a moment before. He didn’t plan on hiding forever and when he finally came out of the shadows the Overseers were in for a fight they had never gotten from the dragons. They were going to be dealing with an angry dungeon; something they had never faced before.

Still no quacking, so he returned to his work. Keeping one eye on the entrance to the core room for a certain feathered fiend.