Chapter 6

After the master left another apprentice came in and started to transfer their mana to me. I would absorb it then recreate a skeleton as commanded. This process repeated 13 more times. Each apprentice seemed weaker than the last, so each time it would take longer for the mana to be transferred. Indeed the last apprentice was so weak that the figure collapsed right after completing the transfer.

Each transfer I would have to fight with my inner self to not create the skeleton as soon as I received 50 mana. The conflict took a fair bit of willpower, but not once did I fail. Actually each time it seemed to get easier. I do not know if my mental willpower was getting stronger or the dungeon instincts were just learning that I would create the skeleton as commanded and not fighting so hard.

Regardless of the exact cause, I was able to save 50 mana from each transfer. Using the mana I managed to achieve level 5. I made sure to save enough mana that I could create a full sized skeleton as I was commanded.

With the last apprentice on the floor just outside my binding circle, the master necromancer entered my chamber. I immediately transferred the crowd of skeletons to her. The world around me went dark once again as my senses were cut off. I sighed in dejected resignation and waited for the horde to leave my territory.

“Dungeon, you will command the skeletons to follow my orders and only my orders. I will be their master.” I only half listened to the command having already done so, even including the proper commands to draw their mana needs from her.

A short time later they all stepped out of my zone and I was alone once more to begin my count of time. Thus a routine began. I would take 16 apprentice’s mana and create 16 skeletons, which averaged 16 hours to complete. The first apprentice’s wood complete the task quickly while the last would take longer. After the creation of the skeletons the master necromancer would appear and leave me alone for 25 hours. This went on for a mind numbing 75 cycles. I had no idea what anyone would need with 1200 skeletons but I never saw any of them again.

During this time I was not totally idle though. It took me a few cycles to remember the old RPGs I had played all had status screens. With the pop ups I knew there must be something similar. It took me a full cycle to come up with the correct command. In the end it was a mental process of focusing on my own abilities. I had tried all the basic “Status”, “Info”, and “Stats” commands I could think of. I was at the point where I was just trying to judge my current IQ versus my old one, when the prompt finally appeared… I just stared at it for a moment, then I grunted in amused disgust and closed it. I focused on the sense of introspection again and it reappeared. This time I took the time to study it.

Name: Alex

Species: Dungeon

Variant: Slave

Level: 5 50%

Common Statistics

Health: 10 / 10

Health Regen: None

Mana: 250 / 500

Mana Regeneration: 1 / Day

Core: Diamond / 5cm Heart

Strength: Locked

Dexterity: Locked

Constitution: Locked

Intelligence: 10

Will: 10

Charisma: 10

Stat Points: 5

Dungeon Statistics

Type: Undecided

Territory: 1m

Rooms: 1

Floors: 1

Dungeon Species: Undead

Dungeon Points : 50

Population Statistics

Family: None

Slaves: None

Minions: Brownie Skeleton: 1

Inhabitants: None

Pets: None

Titles / Achievements

List: Yes / No

Titles / Achievements

Title: Touched by Divinity

Your soul has been touched by a God or Goddess forever altering you.

Effect 1: Astral Projection

You can project your soul into the Astral Plane between worlds.

Effect 2: Unknown

Effect 3: Unknown

Effect 4: Unknown

Effect5: Unknown

Show: Yes / No

Achievement: Touched Ellinoria

You have touched the Maiden Goddess Ellinoria in an intimate way.

Effect 1: Mindspeak with Ellinoria

Effect 2: Connected to Woodlands and Fae

Effect 3: Skill Sylvan

Effect 4: Locked

Effect 5: Locked

Skills

List: Yes / No

Skills

Creation (Dungeon): Beginner: 23 91%

Mana Control Beginner: 26 12%

Show Affinities: Yes / No

Earth Affinity: Beginner: 1 5%

Death Affinity: Beginner: 5 42%

Show Languages: Yes / No

Language – English Advanced: 97 85%

Language – Spanish Beginner: 51 3%

Language – Japanese Novice: 3 92%

Language – Sylvan God-Like: 100 100%

“Holy shit!” I thought.

“Hey I heard that!” the goddess’s voice echoed in my mind.

“Oh great this is what she decides to respond to.” I thought with an angry shake of my mental head. I guess it wasn’t worth responding to, because after a moment of no response I started to consider the screen before me again.

“So the United States education system must be really bad if a college degree only warrants an Advanced level of mastery. Or maybe I’m just not as good at the written rules as I should be? Meh.” I mentally shrugged and moved on.

The second cycle I had used my spare mana to expand my territory until I was finally beneath the stone floor. Doing that had had the prompt appear saying I got the Earth Affinity, so that wasn’t a surprise. What did surprise me was the title.

“With a title and achievement like this I sound like a perv!” Sure I had created a skeleton laying down the other day, in hopes that it might be able to see up some black robes. I was disappointed when it did not work… Not because I couldn’t check out any of the women… No it was because I had hoped to see if there was anything I could learn under those thick black robes… If a bra size or two was one of those things then it was all the better.

The apprentice had took one look at the prone skeleton and immediately ran off. Shortly afterward the master came in angry as ever. She then proceeded to give me yet another set of commands on what not to do with the skeletons. I hadn’t even thought about creating their heads in odd places, but now I couldn’t even try.

Directing my thoughts back to my status I continued to examine it. When I saw the name of the single minion I had I smiled. So it wasn’t a miniature skeleton, it was a skeleton of a Brownie. I must have used my connection to the Fae to somehow create that. “I wonder what else I could do with it.” I mused. Although after some experimenting I was unable to come up with anything.

Last thing to note was the shape of my Dungeon Heart. At some point it had shifted from a perfect sphere into a heart. Now we are not talking a heart like in Valentine’s Day. No this heart was a perfect copy of a human heart carved from smooth diamond. Also instead of pulsing with an inner light the diamond contracted with a real heartbeat. Although I soon discovered that no one other than myself saw either the light pulsing or the beating of the diamond heart.

For other growth I continued to expand my territory vertically. At first I was upset to see that in territory size never changed in my Status window, but I soon came to grips that it must measure a full circular territory. This means I could have a tunnel or hall running from her to the sun and never increase my listed territory. As for increasing the sphere the blasted circle imprisoning me still held.

After my territory did reach downward 10 meters though I noticed the apprentices were removing the now extremely rotten corpses. During a break I used my Raise Zombie spell to raise 5 of the corpses. Under my crystal I created a small room and placed them in it for safe keeping. I closed the room up entombing the zombies.

Studying the newborn zombies I discovered a few things different between a zombie and a skeleton. First the zombie had a need to consume flesh to stay alive. I was able to place my zombies in a kind of suspended animation but if I wanted to use them I had to feed them. Second I found out a zombie had the ability to learn. I created a newborn that had no memories, skills, or abilities, but they could learn if they lived. Lastly I learned to pull up the Status window of my creatures.

Name:

Species: Zombie

Variant: Human, Dungeon Minion

Level: 1 0%

Common Statistics

Health: 100 / 100

Health Regen: 10 / Day

Mana: 30 / 30

Mana Regeneration: 0 / Day

Core: None

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 05

Constitution: 10

Intelligence: 03

Will: 01

Charisma: 01

Name:

Species: Skeleton

Variant: Brownie, Dungeon Minion

Level: 1 0%

Common Statistics

Health: 30 / 30

Health Regen: 3 / Day

Mana: 10 / 10

Mana Regeneration: 0 / Day

Core: None

Strength: 03

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 03

Intelligence: 01

Will: 01

Charisma: 01

The basic human skeleton that I never got to keep had 50 health, 5 STR and CON, with 10 DEX. Everything else was the same as the Brownie version.

Over the course of the 75 cycles I was able to create and store a hundred Brownie Skeletons. I was worried that one of the necromancers could sense the undead so I kept my growing force at least 10m from them. The rest of my appropriated mana was used to expand my pillar of influence. On the 75th cycle two things happened. First was a change in the pattern. The apprentices came in and gave me mana as normal. They had all gotten better and instead of a full 16 hours to complete it would only take around 8 now. That left me alone for even longer. But this day they returned and I heard the sounds of picks, chisels, and hammers. The second thing is I reached 80 meters up and down away from my Dungeon Heart. Not that big of a thing it was all just types of stone, sand, soil, and a small bit of tin. But at 80m down I broke through to an opening. The ceiling felt like stone that had been carefully bricked, like a tunnel.

Dungeon Statistics Sheet

Name: Alex

Species: Dungeon

Variant: Slave

Level: 10 0%

Common Statistics

Health: 10 / 10

Health Regen: None

Mana: 0 / 1,000

Mana Regeneration: 1 / Day

Core: Diamond / 10cm Heart

Strength: Locked

Dexterity: Locked

Constitution: Locked

Intelligence: 10

Will: 10

Charisma: 10

Stat Points: 10

Dungeon Statistics

Type: Undecided

Territory: 1m

Rooms: 3

Floors: 1

Dungeon Species: Undead

Dungeon Points : 100

Population Statistics

Family: None

Slaves: None

Minions: Brownie Skeleton: 100, Human Zombie 5

Inhabitants: None

Pets: None

Titles / Achievements

List: Yes / No

Skills

List: Yes / No