Chapter 61

AN: Now Edited! There have been some changes at the end of the chapter, specifically regarding the 11th floor and it's... size.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Dungeon, Medea Island

-0-0-0-0-0-

I let my attention settle across the Tenth, watching all its creatures go about their daily routines. The Minotaur population had grown to almost triple the original group I raised to monsterhood. Given the females ' more verbose nature, I had expected them to be a matriarchy. Against those expectations, they had elected a "First Bull" and adopted polygamy; the stronger the bull, the more wives he gathered.

Their village was very visually interesting. The building style seemed to take inspiration from both tribal and feudal-era villages on Earth. Tall, thick, wooden walls enclosing wooden houses, roofed with bundled straw. The tree at the center of the town was fascinating. The little ritual they had worked out looked simple. A deeper look at the resulting material showed the wood hadn't just absorbed the metal and started using it as bark. The metal was a part of the tree at every level. Even its individual cells had metal armor.

I had some ideas for what to do with this new species, but that could wait for now.

The rabbits had settled into a stable population. Given the population numbers of each evolutionary line, I consider my little experiment a success. The three Evolutionary Alters were unchanged and fully charged. There were no of-age rabbits to prove they still work, but the already-evolved monsters are proof enough of that.

The Jackalopes had enthusiastically taken to their role as guardians of the boundary forest. They roamed in groups of six or seven, a decent number, given their size. They would come up to a human's waist on all fours, while their horns would likely surpass a man's height when standing on their back legs.

Their magic was developing as I had expected it would. Earth and Life mana in equal parts let them do incredible things to the landscape as they passed through.

The Winged Hares had settled into the treetops with only a little hesitancy. Their ability to climb and glide from branch to branch was aided by the unconscious use of air magic, and they would do well in harassing guilders from above.

The Unihares were lower in number than their fellows, perhaps a fifth of the total population. The pure-white monsters were solitary creatures when left alone and, in the past weeks, had gained a sort of dueling tradition. When they encountered another of their kind among the grasslands, the two monsters would display the spells they had worked out. Sometimes it was with a mock battle, and other times just a display of capability.

The winner of these 'duels' gained the right to learn a spell from the loser, which I felt was fair. It encouraged them to experiment and develop more exotic spells to overcome their peers while spreading that knowledge among the strongest of them.

After reviewing the floor, I began sculpting the Boss's arena. In the deepest section of the forest, I created a cave, one both recessed into the ground and surrounded by sharp rocks and bare dirt. I had the bones of various monsters brought down and scattered across the clearing outside the cave to set the correct atmosphere.

This Boss would be in two stages. The first stage would set the guilders off guard. An average-sized rabbit with white fur and blood-red eyes. Powerful legs to let it leap with great speed and force, along with razor-sharp teeth and claws. I named the resultant creature Caerbannog and set it to wander the bone-strewn area.

The second stage would be another monster altogether. It would be a rabbit with the traits of all three variations. The height of a fully grown man, with enormous feathered wings and pure white, tightly spiraling antlers. For this monster, I located the strongest Unihare, which happened to be the one with the most extensive repertoire of spells. I gave its snow-white fur golden markings, socks, patches, and facial lines.

This Boss would remain within the cave when guilders were on the floor, only emerging to fight those who managed to overcome the savage beast that lived among the 'bones of its fallen enemies.'

With the bosses completed, I carved out enough space for them to live in the cave comfortably. After that, I began seriously considering the theme of the Eleventh.

I had started a trend with the Eighth that I felt I should see through. From the tallest mountains, across deserts and plains... to the seaside. Yes.

The Eleventh would be an ocean floor and could be easily populated given the diversity of sea-dwelling creatures that lived around my island.

The problem comes with scale. My mountains were fine as just the peaks, but my desert was woefully small. While the Minos Plains could be more extensive, I was happy with its current size. The ocean... I didn't want a mere few miles of water to cross. They could just swim across such a distance. I wished for the guilders to construct boats to make the crossing.

A cavern of the size I required... It would take a long time to carve out such an area. I didn't want it to have enormous columns to hold up the roof, either. That fact alone would take a decent amount of magic to reinforce the walls to provide enough support.

Luckily, I wouldn't need such a cavern. At most, one with the size of the Tenth would do. Why? Because the group of mages and shamans I had assigned to work out the 'bags of holding' had been successful. They'd managed to reverse-engineer them and had finally created one of their own. A stable space triple the size of its container.

I couldn't wait to see the looks on the guilder's faces when they reached the Eleventh.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Crabby Tavern, Port Medea, Medea Island

-0-0-0-0-0-

Paetor was a devout man. He'd practically been raised in the temple district of the capital with how often his parents had dragged him there. At the Temple of Oshitar, he had suckled upon the teat of knowledge, learning everything he could with a voracity many praised him for. He'd learned of the gods from the priests who lived there and of how the gods had differing methods of worship. Over the years of his youth, Paetor had gravitated into the temple of Daedor more often than the others.

When he reached his majority, he dedicated himself to that god.

Daedor was the god of wind and travelers, patron of those who would roam the world with an eye on the horizon. The god was just as important to sailors as Heiroch, the god of water and storms. His parents had objected, as he had expected them to. He was their firstborn, after all. His duty was to inherit their estate and continue the bloodline.

But Paetor knew that life was not for him. His blood burned to leave the city. To escape the walls and travel wherever the wind might take him. He had brothers that could inherit; his family didn't particularly need him. He purchased a traveler's pack from a merchant and stole away early one morning, leaving behind a note of his intentions.

He passed the Guild Hall on the way to the port to find a ship to sign on to and found himself confused. The Guild Hall wasn't on the path he'd intended to take through the city. It was then that he remembered who he was sworn to. Daedor was the god of travelers. Paetor was sure the god had to have guided his feet to lead him here. There were dozens of stories of travelers who found great fortune following the nudging of their patron.

Without hesitation, he entered the hall and asked to join the Guild.

The rest was history. He was introduced to other new guilders and led on training trips into the capital's dungeon. They learned to fight, rely on, and trust one another. Over a year later, he found himself on a boat to a newly discovered dungeon and had risen two ranks in the short time since.

Him! A Platinum! One of the elites of the Guild! He'd gained more power in the last few months than more than a year on the mainland. All thanks to that dangerous, confusing hole in the ground.

He took another gulp from the tankard in his hand and wiped the foam from his facial hair. "I'm sorry, I was lost in thought." His companion waved him off.

"Don't mention it," Haythem answered. "I often catch myself in memories of days past, especially these days. Due to my changing circumstances, I think." Paetor nodded and raised his tankard. He could believe that.

"How's ___?" Haythem asked as he took another sip.

"Well enough," Paetor replied. "She's as energetic as ever, despite losing her hand. The healers claimed that the stump being burnt off the way it was... well, it did something to prevent healing. She's already approached a smith about having a prosthetic made. Something that channels mana well, so she can still use it to cast spells." He shook his head.

"At least it was only her left," Haythem reasoned. "I feel she would have been more discouraged to lose her right hand. Or more than just the hand, in the worst case."

Paetor nodded thoughtfully. "Aye, there is that. Do you have any weapons made from that strange metal we've been finding? The ones that glow in the moonlight." Haythem shook his head.

"I don't, sorry. I sold them to a smith off the main square," Haythem admitted. "You could probably commission him for something, though. Why so interested?"

"Something Isid mentioned during the raid," Paetor said. "Might be nothing, but who knows." Any future discussion was cut short by a dozen sailors bursting into the dockside tavern. They immediately launched into wild tales of an enormous sea beast offshore that almost capsized them as it passed beneath their ship.

Paetor drank another mouthful of beer and wondered where all these tales of sea monsters were suddenly coming from.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The Dungeon, Medea Island

-0-0-0-0-0-

With space-expansion enchantment on hand, I started on the next floor in earnest.

To begin, I carved out a rectangle half again long as it was wide, rounded off the edges to make a smooth surface, and started carving.

The runes weren't strictly necessary for the enchantment to take hold. Still, as I had found with that mana-water creation enchantment so long ago, it helped to have something to anchor the mana too.

The runes were angular and precise, a strange fusion of Latin and Norse runes. Though it had started out as something to mess with the humans, slowly, it had become an actual language. I'd created grammar rules, verbs, adjectives, conjugations, and more.

I made a mental note to go back and fix all the old carvings to tell actual stories and actually mean something.

Either way, I layered my runic language across every inch of space available. The meaning and contents of the lines varied. Some were poems about the ocean, others about great voyages and heroic deeds. Some were tales of dastardly pirates, and others were warnings of terrible creatures lurking in the deep. Interspersed between them were equations, those I could remember from Earth about space and time. They were two halves of the same coin, after all.

Once I was done carving, I spun up my mana and began layering it on the runes. Unlike earlier floors, where I added and layered enchantments on each other as I went, I would be doing this all at once. The enchantments would all tie into each other at a deeper level. I spent hours ensuring everything was perfect, not a strand out of place, before I decided it was ready.

With a twist, I activated the enchantment.

The walls fell away.

I wondered if I had gotten my calculations correct on the expansion factor as ten meters became ten miles, became fifty, then a hundred. It only slowed down when I realized I was still feeding the enchantment mana. I cut off the flow slowly, dialing it back until it was a trickle.

The expansion likewise slowed until it stopped, the mana that trickled into it just enough to maintain its current size.

So, at some point, I had made the enchantment far more efficient than I had intended. Beyond that, though... this was perfect!

I have a cavern about three hundred miles on the long side and two hundred on the short. Height-wise, it was 100 miles. It would certainly work for an 'epic voyage' feel. I'd intended to have the room half-full of water. For that, however... I'd need about... 29 million cubic miles of water. All in all, just under three times the volume of the Mediterranean sea...

That... Just isn't viable. I'd be lowering the water level of the whole planet a foot just to fill the floor.

I think I'll have it be four miles deep on average. Six at the most. A much more reasonable amount. That, however, would leave a lot of open space above the waves. Given there are only sixty-something miles of atmosphere until it's technically 'space...'

I'll have a lot of room to make some truly awesome things on this floor. My mind raced with the possibilities as I opened a half-dozen channels to the ocean floor above, and my vision for the floor slowly grew.

-0-0-0-0-0-