My current goal to fend off any dungeon delvers seeking to destroy the dungeon core is to train up the group in front of me. Eventually, I want them to be able to train up the other dungeon monsters with what they’ve learned. This should increase the difficulty of the dungeon without me having to spend Entropy on purchasing stronger monster spawners. I can modify the number of monsters that come out of a spawner, but eventually, a person’s skill can overcome a large mob of weak monsters. The only issue in the way of this plan is the current layout of the dungeon. Each floor is essentially set up in a grid, but the connecting tunnels wind from side to side, resembling an intestinal tract. There are only two directions in the dungeon, forwards and backwards, nothing else. There is effectively no way to get lost in the dungeon or for monsters to effectively escape encounters with dungeon delvers. A straightforward path means a monster will eventually fight a dungeon delver, unless they’re able to make the choice to hide, which most monsters won’t do. To increase the chances of monsters being able to survive longer than the current few-day lifespan, especially in the upper floors, I’m going to modify the layout of the dungeon.
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Specifically, I’m going to alter the fourth floor so that it’s more mazelike. I can’t add more rooms; I don’t have enough Entropy to do so, but I can rearrange the connecting tunnels. I can’t modify a dungeon floor that’s currently occupied by dungeon divers, so I have to wait until both scouting parties are resting at their second-floor camp. It still costs a little Entropy to move the tunnels around, but I have enough to do this. There are 20 rooms on the fourth floor, arranged in a five by four grid, with the entrance set in the bottom right corner and winding between the left and right side. I would have preferred a different room layout, but I’ve gotta work with what I’ve got. Without changing the number of tunnels, I move them so that the path winds down the interior rooms, T-intersections branching off of the main path into dead ends. It’s not the most complicated maze, but it should still be harder to find the exit to the fifth floor without spending more time on exploration. When I have enough Entropy, I’ll probably add more rooms and redundant paths to increase the difficulty.
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I didn’t know what to expect after creating these changes, so I observed the dungeon as it began to conform to my changes. The walls of the tunnels pulsated, growing like a mass of flesh to cover up the now removed paths. Once the tunnels were filled in a matter of minutes, flesh-like stone hardened, making it look like there never was a tunnel in the first place. Meanwhile, the new tunnels continued to pulsate as the walls slowly parted until the whole process was complete. It was, frankly, kind of gross. The shifting dungeon behaved like the pulsating flesh and organs of a living being. Are dungeons a living being? I don’t think so, but I don’t really have a way to tell one way or the other. I’ll just file it away as a quirk of Chaos’ design and move on.
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One of the strong parties I’d passed by a while ago finally made it to the sixth floor. I’m able to monitor their progress as one of the privileges of being a dungeon master, but this is slightly concerning. I don’t completely know their intentions, so a confrontation we might not win is always a possibility. Thankfully, the worst never comes to pass as I eavesdrop on their conversation between their fights and disarming traps. Their scout had examined the walls and determined that the dungeon had recently expanded. I couldn’t tell the difference between the new dungeon wall and the old dungeon wall, so they must have plenty of experience with shifting dungeons. Their leader mentioned that the recent expansion would explain the drop in difficulty on the floor. He was perfectly able to guess that the rest of the dungeon had nothing of value for now, so they marked the sixth floor as the end of their adventure and began their return trip. They already had a good amount of materials, so they’ll probably fill up their bags on the way back to the surface. Hopefully, the next strong party will come to the same conclusion and leave after experiencing the dungeon in its current state.
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I’m still a little confused, though, about their reaction. They viewed a shifting dungeon as a normal matter, not afraid like the dungeon delvers higher up. Was my presence the actual reason for their level of response to the dungeon? I need to discover their reasons to try to destroy the dungeon. The dungeon delvers on the second floor are currently resting, but their apparent leader is currently taking a report around a fire. I’ll start by listening there.
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Dungeon Delvers Pov:
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Currently, the vanguard of the dungeon delver’s dungeon eradication operation was positioned at the dungeon entrance, the first floor, and the second floor. Their goal was to destroy the dungeon core to prevent a potential dungeon flood that could wipe out the nearby town. First, they need more information on the changes in the dungeon besides the warning delivered by Garrus before he lost consciousness. To fulfill this role, the town paid for this expedition, starting with 15 dungeon delvers to begin an initial probe. The rest of the forces that would bring their full force down on the dungeon were currently gathering supplies to make it down to the bottom of the “Hill-Valley Depths”. But the continuance of this operation hinges on the scouting party finding sufficient evidence of the reported threat that the dungeon poses. Specifically, they were on the lookout for a dramatic increase in difficulty and the presence of a unique monster. Changes in a dungeon weren’t too uncommon, even in the central regions with fewer dungeons than the western kingdoms. It was the possibility of a unique monster, one capable of higher intelligence and magic, that served as the clincher to stoke fears of a dungeon flood. The scouting party had now spent over a day in the dungeon, and one of the squad leaders was delivering his assessment of the dungeon to the head of the operation.
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“What have your parties found?” A grizzled man in his forties asked of the younger dungeon delver.
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“We’ve been able to get to the end of the third floor out of the five previously explored floors. However, there haven’t been any signs of changes to the dungeon. Monster and trap activity matches the current records reported to the guild, and we haven’t caught sight of abnormal monsters, unique or otherwise.”
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“What are the chances your parties have just missed evidence of any changes?”
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“We haven’t been able to look in every nook and cranny, but the dungeon is fairly straightforward. Neither our mages nor scouts have detected the presence of any strong monsters. The strongest we’ve found so far are just ordinary Lizardmen and Quazits, the same as usual.”
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“Then we just need to explore deeper to flush out the unique monster. If we still can’t find it, we can keep going until we reach the core.”
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“There’s a chance it could be deeper, but the changes were reported on the second floor. We should have seen something already. This might just be-”
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“Quiet. I was hired by your guild to provide my expertise in destroying dungeons. If I say this dungeon still poses a threat of destroying everything in the vicinity, then that’s the truth as far as you are concerned. Proceed to the fourth floor in the morning. The rest should be arriving as soon as the day after, so I want enough intelligence to confirm why this operation should continue.”
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“...Yes, sir”.
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The dungeon delver returned to the corner of the room with the rest of his party, relaying their orders for the morning after their rest. They accepted these orders, albeit reluctantly, with dissatisfied faces, setting up the watch order until the end of their too-short break. The grizzled man was left all alone, staring into the dancing embers of the fire. Disgust pervaded his eyes, disgust towards the dungeon and to the dungeon delvers he needed to use to see through his desires. He was hired by the dungeon delvers guild to provide assistance in this operation, but he wanted to ensure the destruction of the dungeon. From his neck hung a pendant, the symbol of the Tristar Pantheon. He had come from the Eastern Radiant Theocracy, and now his eyes were set on the next vestige of Chaos to destroy.
