That New Fire Magic

"Good morning."

All three Adventurers were startled by her pleasantry, breaking apart from their huddled discussion.

After dinner with Rachel Taylor had ended up heading to bed without further work on the Dungeon.

There had been the sense of something slipping her mind, and she had decided that a good nights sleep coild be just what she needed.

Then, when she'd woken up, she decided to visit the prisoners first thing.

This way, should she upset them again, there would be time to cool down so she could visit again the same day.

After all, as she'd already discovered, there wasn't a whole lot she could do in the Dungeon to waste time.

"Y-you," the Enchanter stuttered, practically falling over himself as he tried to back away from her, "wh-what do you w-want with me?"

Taylor sighed.

"My main goals are to not kill people if I have the choice."

"Th-then why did you bring me in h-here?"

"After you fainted in the Entrance Hall I wasn't about to leave you where anyone could get you. Especially after one of the other members of your party tried to kill you."

Not that she'd been planning to let him go in the first place.

Too much risk of leading another party back that would try to kill her and who could force her to kill them.

"And yet you threw us in here when our party hadn't tried to kill us."

"No, but you did try to kill me," Taylor pointed out.

"A-are you going to l-let me go?"

The Enchanter seemed a lot more nervous and despondent than she'd have expected as he asked the question.

"I'm afraid not," she eventually answered. "I'd prefer not to have to kill any more Adventurers than I have to, and you leaving… I'm sorry, what is your name?"

"D-David," he stuttered in confusion.

"Taylor. David, if you left, you'd go to the guild and tell them where to find my Dungeon, wouldn't you? At which point I'd have to deal with party after party, who I'd either kill or get killed by. Not something I'm interested in."

"What happened to the dog girl," David asked, apparently growing resigned to the situation. "Did you take control over her or something?"

"As it happens we knew each other already. We've worked together before."

"And just like that you trust her enough to not imprison her with us?"

Taylor turned her gaze to the rogue.

"I betrayed her trust once. Despite that Rachel came to trust me again. She showed more trust in me than anyone else. I have no reason not to return that trust."

"Why do you keep coming down here?"

It was the mage, Valerie, who asked the question.

Wait, mage. Didn't she need to check the magic on her status screen?

"There is surprisingly little to do in a Dungeon while waiting for visitors. But I suspect I have more available to do than you. Plus I can hardly convince you that I'm not some kind of murderous monster without talking, can I?"

"You say that, and yet the last two parties to attack you have only two survivors each."

"The key word there is 'attack'. You can hardly expect someone not to defend themselves."

Taylor shook her head.

"I'll be back later."

She couldn't exactly just put off on the Dungeon work indefinitely.

{}

The classic image of a Demon Lord saw them seated upon their throne, looming in the darkness as they awaited the heroes approach.

Taylor took a different approach.

She had discovered that the throne wasn't exactly comfortable when used normally.

Instead the arms made quite a comfortable back rest when you sprawled across it properly.

Asa bonus it meant that any accidental (or even deliberate) uses of the spells she had access to would be aimed at the ceiling rather than risk hitting Rachel should she enter at the wrong time.

It turned out that adding a second floor and filling it with crabs had resulted in her unlocking a new spell for both the fields she had available (and that had been locked in).

As the system had informed her as she started constructing the Dungeon, she, as a Demon Lord, had three magic field slots (allowing her to instantly learn spells from that category of magic by achieving specific {poorly defined} milestones, rather than the usual approach of studying the spells until they made sense), rather than the standard Dungeon Masters two magic field slots.

On the other hand, the first slot was automatically assigned to Dungeon Magic (which was presumably the case for everyone selected by the system), and couldn't be changed, while the second had similarly been locked to Insect Magic, thanks to the experiences of her previous life.

Not that she was too upset by getting access to abilities so keyed to what she was used to.

What this actually meant was that under certain situations she would unlock insect or Dungeon themed spells and had one magic field slot she could fill as she chose.

In any case, she had two new spells that the system hadn't bothered to mention to her.

A personal range teleport spell, capable of bringing anything she was holding with her, that could be aimed across the entirety of the Dungeon (and which went some way towards explaining how she'd made it to the private area from the entrance hall without noticing).

And a carapace spell, which should act to provide her with greater resistance to damage (should she actually need it, with her resistance to non-magical injury).

It was something she should test before needing to use it in battle, but there was something else she was considering.

The empty magic field slot.

So far she had absorbed books on basic fire and ice magic, but had only unlocked the magic field for fire and that after absorbing the primer.

Which meant her only current option for filling her currently empty magic field slot was fire magic.

And fire didn't exactly go well with insects, as her first outing as a hero had demonstrated.

On the other hand, she could expect most of her battles with Adventurers to be in her throne room, which didn't have a lot of insect monsters for friendly fire.

And even if she did learn the spells, that didn't mean she had to use them.

Just like putting Black Widows on people didn't mean they had to bite them…

She shook her head, dismissing the memories.

So her current choices were start learning fire magic, which she might not have much opportunity to use, and switch it out later, when she had other types of magic available, or leave the slot empty until she had those other types of magic available.

With a mental sigh she selected the option to fill the slot with fire magic.

Fire Magic Assigned To Field

The system announced.

Spell List Compiled

New Options Available

That… wasn't exactly informative.

Taylor checked the updated list of spells she had available.

There was one for her new field.

Spark.

The ability to conjure a tiny finger of flame to try and damage the target before it fizzled out.

A process that took about a second.

Not exactly the all-consuming hellfire she'd been worried about.

"Are you planning on making an area of the Dungeon the dogs can exercise in?"

The question interrupted Taylors slightly hysterical laughter.

She swung herself into the throne properly.

"I'm… not sure," she told Rachel. "I mean, the rooms in the Dungeon proper are all going to have monsters in them, which makes things a bit dangerous for a casual walk. Until I can be sure they won't consider you an enemy while I'm not paying attention."

"And the private area?"

"Doesn't give the same level of control over room size."

"I'll be taking them outside then."

Taylor considered this.

"Actually, that isn't such a good idea."

"Excuse me?"

"The private area connects to the end of the Dungeon," Taylor explained hastily. "Which means you'd be going through practically the entire Dungeon to get in and out. So… I guess I need to make a safe space towards the end of the Dungeon after all."

"How long will that take?"

"I need to at least assign the terrain of the third floor before I can start work on the fourth," Taylor mused out loud. "Probably anyway. It's the first time I had multiple floors under construction at the same time. Or I could put the Boss room of the fourth floor near the start and the exercise area in floor three…"

"Which would be faster?"

Taylor hesitated.

"Not sure. But Dungeon construction doesn't tend to take long. Actually, I think the fourth floor would be best. That way it would take longer before I needed to construct another exercise floor."

Rachel nodded impatiently. "Fine, how long?"

"I'm already getting started," Taylor declared, opening the pages for the new floors.

First was the third floor, which required an environment choice between mine, volcano and ice cave.

While the dangers to her monsters from lava could be negated through use of upgraded Ice Crabs (probably) Taylor decided that volcanic terrain just wasn't appropriate as this stage.

And ice caves would negate the stealth advantages of both crab and spider.

As such there was no real choice but the mine.

Which the system accepted, presumably turning the corridor between two sets of stairs into something you'd expect to find in a mine, complete with support beams.

The fourth floor had different options.

Natural cavern, sea grotto and magma chamber.

Taylor hesitated a moment, before picking the cavern.

By the sounds of things it would be a lot more open and spacious than the 'cave' floors.

"Right, that's the floor types sorted," she said aloud, "now for the room."

Which should be simple enough after all.

Just assign a large enough space for Rachel to exercise the dogs and-

Achievement Earned! [Two in One]! Special room unlocked!

Taylor blinked, startled by the unexpected notification.

"Something the matter?"

"Just got access to a special room," she reassured Rachel.

The previous special rooms she'd unlocked had all been free to place and of a set size, so she was somewhat wary, but decided to check what the room was first.

She selected the option of [Pyramid Cavern], examining it in the construction system.

The room was massive.

Beyond the size of either Boss Chamber, easily.

What was special about it was the way that, apparently, monsters couldn't be placed within, but she could place traps (despite their usual corridor only requirement) including special ones unique to the room.

Plus it had a pyramid at the centre.

One that would house the floors Boss room.

Taylor paused.

"Okay, I think this room is just about perfect."

She dropped the room at the end of the pre-built corridor and looked up at Rachel again.

"Shall we check it out?"

{}

"What happened with your party?"

After the Demon Lord had left the Adventurers had been sitting quietly, waiting until they were sure she wasn't about to return.

After all, it was hard to come up with an effective escape plan when your captor was listening.

"We stumbled upon the entrance and our leader decided we should try clearing it before anyone else heard about it," Valerie stated in answer to the Tomanis question.

"And kept us journeying through the fucking Dungeon," Garrett added.

"Just because Cynthia isn't around any more doesn't mean you should keep swearing every other sentence!"

"What do you mean, 'kept you journeying through the Dungeon'?"

"We kept triggering traps. Well, Damien, our leader, did."

"You had a rogue as a leader?"

Valerie sighed as she saw David retreating into himself.

"No, he was a knight. He just decided that, as party leader, he needed to be at the front. But Rhett, I'm pretty sure you triggered a couple of traps?"

"Okay, that pit trap I'll accept. It was well set up, so you couldn't avoid triggering it. But the other one, that fu- uh, sodding crossbow trap? That activated from me disarming the tripwire."

David winced.

"There were a lot of traps?"

"Still better than fucking spiders," Garrett hissed.

"I guess it was the traps-"

"Nah, got passed them fine. Even the puzzle room, once we got Damien to stop interfering," Garrett interrupted.

"We even defeated a Boss monster, one with an unmarked door granted, but it was still a Boss."

"A great big fucking spider with backup and chunks of the floor suspended briefly by webbing," Garrett asserted. "We all made it though, even with Damien doing his best to commit suicide."

"We didn't know the floor could fall apart," Valerie reminded him.

"But… if you could beat the Boss, what happened?"

"The Demon Lord. She beat us like it was nothing."

"In all fairness, you were able to empower Damiens sword enough for him to do some damage."

"Which only got him killed! He might not have been the nicest person, but he was still trying to help people, and then my magic made him a threat to be eliminated!"

"She said he reminded her of someone," Garrett pointed out. "Sounded to me like it was going to happen regardless. It wasn't your fault." There was a pause in conversation, to give Valerie a chance to collect herself. "Anyway kid, what about your party?"

David considered arguing about the nickname for a moment, before deciding against it.

He was hardly an experienced Adventurer after all, and it was better than being referred to based on his race, like Markus had.

"I'm not really sure. They left me at the entrance hall. Didn't want a pacifist to fill one of the Adventurer slots."

"Entrance hall? There wasn't one when we came through. Which can only be a few days ago."

"The Dungeon did seem advanced for how new it is," Valerie noted. "So your party just left you alone at the start?"

"Not exactly alone. There was one to keep an eye on me."

"Do you mean keep an eye on you or keep an eye on you?"

David chuckled unhappily.

"Yeah, they weren't the party I'd have chosen if given the choice."

"What about this 'dog girl' you mentioned?"

"Not a beastkin, if that's what your asking. Our leader, Markus-"

"Markus? The only party leader I know of who made Damien look good by comparison?"

"You've heard of him? Apparently he was killed by someone else in the party. I'd thought the talk about mutiny was just talk before that… anyway, he recruited the girl shortly before we came out here, gave her control of the dogs he'd been trying to train. To cover for me, he kept saying."

"How does everything I hear about him lower my opinion of him?"

David grinned weakly.

"It's just something special about him. Anyway, I was waiting in the hall when the girl showed up, told us about the others dying and then the Swashbuckler attacked us, saying something about 'no witnesses'."

"Sounds like she was made an Adventurer to pay for her crimes," Garrett grumbled. "Too many beneficiaries of that policy don't deserve it."

"You do remember that you're one of them?"

"Are you saying I deserved Damien and Cynthia?"

That brought a reluctant smile from Valerie.

"So the Swashbuckler attacked you. I'm guessing this 'dog girl' killed her?"

"Actually I managed to stick her to the floor before she got that close. Never underestimate an Enchanter!"

"Leaving your actual party member the mobility to get around her and attack, I approve," Garrett concluded with a nod.

"Actually, she was stuck to the floor as well. It came down to her dogs killing her. Used a unique skill."

"I'd have thought a pacifist would sound more unhappy about someone being killed."

"It is said that our ability to fly was taken from us as punishment for our aggression, and so the clan fathers removed our ability to harm others," David all but recited. "There was nothing about stopping people get what was coming to them. Besides, there will be a lot less people being hurt without the rest around, even just from what I've seen personally."

"Yeah, I've been tempted to stick a knife in to most of his people," Garrett agreed. "That's one place I'll admit to seeing eye to eye with this 'Taylor' on."

{}

The stairs from the private area to the Dungeon proper led, not straight into a Boss room as Taylor had been getting used to, but rather to a stone slab.

As she and Rachel approached the slab shuddered, before raising automatically into the ceiling, the sound of gears acting as accompaniment.

There were even gear wheels in the sides of the doorway, to make it clear how this worked.

Not that they were immediately obvious, seeing as the doorway opening meant light rushed into the staircase, bright enough for Taylor to momentarily panic, believing she'd somehow led them outside.

Even once her eyes had adjusted this thought didn't immediately go away.

Somewhere above them was a light source bright enough to act as the sun, while before them the pyramids stone steps, the colour and style identifying the pyramid as mezo-american rather than Egyptian, led down into a forest.

Not directly, the pyramid standing slightly apart from the trees in a clearing, but to a forest nonetheless.

By straining her new eyes, however, Taylor was just about able to make out a greyish tone, marking the cave wall to act as boundary to the room, finally convincing her that this was all part of the effect of the special room.

Next to her Rachel took in the sight of the underground forest surrounding the pyramid and nodded.

"This will work."

Taylor wasn't able to stop herself from laughing.

{}

With somewhere for Rachel to exercise her dogs sorted out, Taylor turned her focus back to the second floor.

There had been something…

Right, she hadn't put anything in the room after the castle yet, had she?

She opened the monster screen again, thinking through what to use.

Shell Crabs were good at tanking, as Regent had called it, but they could also get Adventurers ready for the boss. Toxin Crabs had their positives, but needed to die to fulfill their role properly (unless evolved of course), while Ice Crabs seemed to need a frontline to hide behind, while Fire Crabs needed-

She paused, looking at the screen properly.

Yes, there was an option for 'Fire Crabs', which definitely hadn't been there last time she checked.

"Since when can I buy Fire Crabs?"

AN: I have been planning the addition of Fire Crabs for a while now. As to the chapter name, you might have noticed I'm not the best at coming up with names, so always expect puns or references. But in any case That Old Black Magic is a fun episode of The Goodies (for those who do not know of The Goodies, think 'life-action cartoon).

I have noticed that nobody seems to have noticed that I based one of the 'bandit party' on 'California Mountain Snake' from Kill Bill. It seemed appropriate.

And I finally finished with the accidental running gag of Taylor forgetting about her magic.

As a side note, each floor that unlocks a new type of monster (fifth, tenth, fiftieth and the hundreds) will only be built after the first time Adventurers battle the boss of the previous such floor, so don't expect a new species running around until that happens. Don't worry though, we're nearly ready for the next party to show up. And then we get to see Red Claw in action.

Partially because I can hardly wait for what I'm going to do in that battle.