Demon Lord of the Swarm Chapter 2 (Original chapter Chapter 86)
…a chest?
I blinked, rubbed my eyes and then looked again. No, seriously, it was a chest. The wooden kind you would see in those old RPG's.
[Reward Chest]
This is a reward chest. Every time you make a floor and populate it with at least three monsters, you receive a reward chest. They are filled with random items for you to absorb, granting you DP, unlocking monsters and traps and unlocking upgrade options and research.
Open it to see what you have. One will be a rare item.
Seriously? I got the crap scared out of me because I thought someone had snuck into my dungeon to kill me and it's a goddamned chest?! Urgh, a little warning next time, maybe?
Cursing to myself slightly under my breath, I stood up and stepped forwards, only to stumble. My newly enhanced chest was throwing my centre of balance off a bit. Urgh, more complications!
Fortunately, I was good at adapting, so this shouldn't be a problem for longer than a week.
Stumbling over to the chest, I opened it…to see about ten things inside. A coil of ordinary rope, three coins made, from what I could see, of copper, silver and gold respectively, a short sword, a round shield, a chunk of…wood? Yup, it was wood. Ordinary, bog-standard wood. The other items were a mace, a lump of melted glass, a lump of…wet clay? Glass and clay? Why?!
The last item was a box with a glow around it. This, I supposed, would contain the 'rare item' that the screen had mentioned. Flicking it open with one finger, I saw that it was…a book. Written in characters I couldn't recognise as being any kind of alphabet from Earth. Unsurprising because this place was apparently not Earth Bet or any of its alternates, but irritating as well.
With a huff, I spilled the contents of the chest out on the floor and hit 'Y' when a pop-up appeared asking if I wanted to absorb the materials on the floor.
[New Materials Absorbed!]
- Rope has been absorbed! Rope-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Copper has been absorbed! Copper-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Silver has been absorbed! Silver-related research and items has been unlocked where appropriate!
- Gold has been absorbed! Gold-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Coinage has been absorbed! You can now create money in the appropriate type of metal!
- Steel has been absorbed! Steel-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Steel Short Sword has been absorbed! Item unlocked for purchase!
- Round Buckler has been absorbed! Item has been unlocked for purchase!
- Wood had been absorbed! Wood-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Steel Mace has been absorbed! Item unlocked for purchase!
- Glass has been absorbed! Glass-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Fresh Clay has been absorbed! Clay-related research and items unlocked where appropriate!
- Item [Book of Enchantment] has been absorbed! Dungeon Skill [Loot Enchantment] has been unlocked! Personal Skill [Item Enchantment] has been learned!
- You receive 200 DP from absorbing a powerful grimoire!
- You receive 50 DP for the absorption of the other items!
My mind whirled at all of these things being unlocked at once. All of that from those things? Wow.
What really piqued my interest was the newly unlocked Item Enchantment skill. If it was anything like say, Dauntless' power, then I was so going to use and abuse it.
Unlocking materials does not just affect what monsters and traps you currently possess; they affect all other monsters, traps and items that you will receive in the future, granting them upgrade options if you possess the appropriate materials, making all future monsters and traps more and more deadly and powerful as you progress.
This concludes the Dungeon/Demon Lord tutorial. You will be concealed from detection and discovery for one week before your location is able to be detected by outside forces, so get cracking! It is the system's hope that you work hard for the sake of the world of Pangea and, once you have completed said work, you will be rewarded by reincarnation on Pangea itself as any race you wish to be.
Good Hunting!
I stared at the screen for a moment before shaking my head, dismissing it, which made the chest vanish too. Huh. OK. So, I was having another life dangled in front of me as a reward for saving the planet. It was certainly a better deal than I had for the last time I saved a planet, that was for sure!
Assuming this 'system' was on the up and up, I had one week, that is a mere seven days including today, to build up my dungeon before I was discovered. After that, who knew when a troop of the local heroes or adventurers or whatever the hell this world had as problem solvers came along to attack me.
And it wasn't just the dungeon that needed to be upgraded; I needed to get some upgrades myself. For all I knew, the first people in would be led by a Glorious Paladin with a Shining Sword of DOOM in one hand. Going head to head with that while barehanded…yeah, no. I was good, but not that good. Not anywhere close.
The first thing to do was upgrade my basic monsters as much as possible. The one I was keenest on making good was the Small Web Spider. It was the trap master equivalent of my spider monsters and would be the one that would not be used in direct conflicts.
Returning to my throne, I opened the menu for the Web Spider to see what I could so with it.
Small Web Spider Upgrades:
- Increase the intelligence of the Web Spiders so they are more cunning in setting their traps – 10 DP
- Increase the tensile strength of the web spun by the Web Spiders so it is tougher to break – 10 DP
- Have the Web Spiders automatically set their traps without requiring your direction to do so – 5 DP
- Add a mild poison to the webs spun by the Web Spiders – 10 DP
All of those were excellent upgrades. I bought them before cracking my knuckles and getting to work. This dungeon wouldn't build itself, after all.
Three Days Later
Dungeon Name: Dungeon of the Devouring Swarm (Temporary)
Dungeon Level: 1
Floors: 1
Rooms: 5
Room Limit: 4/8
Corridors: 2
Corridor Limit: 2/16
Monsters: 12
Bosses: 0
Traps: 12
Mana Available: 13/45
Dungeon Mana Daily Intake: 11
Dungeon Points (DP) Available: 420
Daily DP Allowance: 10
Mana to Create Next Floor: 100
Whew. Well, the last three days have been a lot of hard work. I had added two more rooms and was about to add a third. Fortunately, you could use DP to substitute for Mana when you were completely tapped out of the latter.
Each room so far had one of the types of spiders in them. The first had my Web Spiders, the second my Spinner Spiders, while the third had my Venomous Spiders in it. This fourth room (technically my sixth if you included my Lair) would include all three types of my spiders.
I had also set up some basic traps in the corridors between rooms; pits and tripwires, a handful of wooden arrow traps linked to tripwires…I really need to get an activation mechanism that wasn't a damn tripwire! Four of my traps were tripwires linked to other traps for crying out loud!
The pitfall traps weren't all basic ones; I had researched a couple of new ones, one of which that I had earned from emplacing my first Slime Trap.
Slime Pitfall: A pit that is filled with slime. Not only does it get you covered in slime, which is rather disgusting and tastes somewhat foul, it also inflicts damage on the equipment that the victim is wearing. Put bluntly, it eats clothes. Fabrics are the most vulnerable, followed by leathers. Metals are the least vulnerable, but they are held up by leather straps most of the time. If armour can't be worn, what use is it? 20 Mana/DP to emplace. Does not require resetting as the slime is immune to physical damage and auto-regenerates. Can be improved upon.
The other one was even more disgusting, in my opinion. At least for someone who wasn't as accustomed as I was at having their body covered with insects.
Insect Pitfall: A pit that is full to the brim with a host of various insects, from centipedes to millipedes to spiders to cockroaches. Aside from the mental damage from falling into a pit full of bugs, the contents of the pit swarm the victim, biting and scratching at them. Anyone who goes through this trap and comes out without a fear of insects must have either a will of steel or have something wrong with their heads. 15 Mana/DP to emplace, 5 to reset.
Yeah…that one is nasty. I put that one on the first step heading out of the third room. That exit has a bunch of thick webs over it and it just so happens that someone trying to cut them has to stand just where the slime trap leading to the pit is laid in order to do so.
Hehehehe…
Ahem. Moving on.
The two rooms had been a dome and a cube respectively, so I decided to get more complex with this one, choosing a small maze room. I placed it down and at an angle so that it wasn't a straight shot to the other side, spending another ten DP to shift everything after the maze room to one side. The cave walls looked very eerie when I close my eyes and used the ability I called [Dungeonsight] to look inside the room. Mentally rubbing my hands, I could see just how good this place would be was a hunting ground for the spiders. A lot of webs on the walls and ceiling and it would be a home for them.
Shelling out enough DP for three of each type of spider, I watched in satisfaction as the Web and Spinner Spiders scattered and started covering the walls in web. The Venomous Spiders had very little web capability and, now that I thought about it, I hadn't looked into upgrading them yet. Let's see…
Small Venomous Spider Upgrades:
- Grant a small poison spitting attack – 10 DP
- Increase length and strength of legs for quicker movement – 10 DP
- Add paralytic component to poison – 10 DP
- Increase poison virulence slightly – 10 DP
- Add additional chitin armour for better CQC survivability – 15 DP
- Add sharp spikes to chitin armour to additional CQC options – 10 DP
All of that was very good. Rather than remain as a solely close-quarters monster, this would let my Venomous Spiders be a bit more flexible. Stand on the ceiling, drop a glob of poison down on the intruders, and paralyse them, drop down and bang. Of course, there was no guarantee that it would work. Only time would see.
I bought all of the upgrades for the spider and was satisfied when the three Venomous Spiders' legs thickened and lengthened slightly, with extra chitin growing over the abdomen and bodies of my minions. The extra spikes growing in on top of the abdomen and on the legs was also satisfying.
[You have created a sufficient number of monsters!]
A Boss Room can now be built!
The Boss is the final obstacle on a floor to prevent intruders from progressing further into the dungeon. As you only have the one floor at the moment, it means that this boss is also the final obstacle between invaders and you as well, so you had better make a good one!
There is not a specific boss room that can be created from the menu. You create a room from the menu as normal and then summon a single monster in it, before choosing to upgrade it into a Boss for 30 Mana or DP. The boss created will be a very much enhanced version of the source monster, so choose carefully.
So even without the tutorial, I'm getting information on things? Useful.
I decided to make the Boss Room a triangle, although 'pyramid' would have been a better descriptor for it. It was indeed triangular in that the base had three sides to it, with one point being taken up by the door.
Then I had to choose which of my spiders to make a boss. This left me undecided for quite a while. I decided to investigate the spiders in the maze room and see if they could be upgraded any further. Turns out, yes, they could. A small arrow appeared at the right-hand corner of the screen when I was looking at the Small Venomous Spider. Pressing it switched the screen to a new one.
Small Venomous Spider #5:
- Evolve into Poison Fang Spider – 10 DP
- Evolve into Chitin Blade Spider – 10 DP
- No Unique Evolutions Available
This...was interesting. I decided to look at the options for the other spiders. All of the Venomous Spiders were the same, so I started with the Spinner Spiders next.
Small Spinner Spider #5:
- Evolve into Threadmaster Spider – 10 DP
- Evolve into Thread Gun Spider – 10 DP
- No Unique Evolutions Available
Again, interesting. Now for the Web Spiders…
Small Web Spider #5:
- Evolve into Trapmaster Spider – 15 DP
- Evolve into Whorl Constructor Spider – 10 DP
- No Unique Evolutions Available
Once I had the list of evolutions in front of me, I started to investigate what they were and what they did. All of the evolutions were about twice the size of the current roster of spiders that I had available, with better defences. Then there were the specific evolution quirks.
Poison Fang Spiders, as the name suggested, were again close combat oriented, with their poison being three times as powerful as even their upgraded pre-evolutionary form was right now. On the other side of the coin, Chitin Blade Spiders were defence-oriented that were almost spider-type hedgehogs that lashed out with the blades that covered their legs and abdomen.
Threadmaster Spiders didn't have a large abdomen…rather their main body was a bit larger instead, with spinnerets being at the tips of their eight legs, letting them fight at all ranges with the thread they spun from them. Thread Gun Spiders had a longer abdomen than average, one that could be aimed like some kind of turret. It could rapid-fire thread at twice the speed of the Spinner Spiders.
Trapmaster Spiders were the very epitome of ambush killers. They were highly intelligent, in a limited how-to-use-webs way, and frequently used all available terrain features as fodder for cunning and deadly traps. Whorl Constructor Spiders went the other way entirely, basically being dumb as hell minions with one purpose: cover the place in webs. Left unhindered, they would turn a room into one big mass of webs. Not just on the walls, but strewn on the floor, hanging in streams from the ceiling and in big webs filling the whole space of the room.
I didn't get that last one. Why would you want that? What possible advantage could that give me? If I saw a room like that, I'd hit it with fire until all of the webs were gone.
To experiment, I chose one spider in each room to evolve. In the first room, which had the Web Spiders, I chose to evolve one into a Trapmaster Spider. It was a rather…gross process to watch as the chitin shell cracked and expanded. Legs lengthened, fangs shrunk and hairs grew all over it. What remained was what looked like a Trapdoor Tarantula. It immediately started scurrying around to investigate its area.
Moving into the room next-door, I chose to make one Spinner into a Thread Gun Spider. Again, the evolution process was gross, and the abdomen of the new evolution ended up looking just like an ovipositor. I commanded it to fire as rapidly as it could at the wall in front of it, and wow. Rather than a stream of threads, the Thread Gun Spider fired a ball of liquid thread that expanded out into an entangling mess of threads that would almost certainly trap anyone it hit. And it could fire three of them in the space of twenty to thirty seconds.
The evolution for the Venomous Spider was something I hemmed and hawed about, eventually choosing to have one evolve into a Chitin Blade Spider. Even although the Venomous Spiders had been gifted with extra chitin armour plating and spikes already, seeing one literally bulk up and have said spikes multiply and turn into sharp blades was still something of a surprise for me. I confirmed that this guy still had his poison spitting ability before I moved on to the maze room.
In this room, I again evolved a Venomous Spider into a Chitin Blade Spider, with it being joined by another Trapmaster Spider and a Threadmaster Spider. That last one has an interesting evolution, as the legs looked about twice as thick as normal, while the abdomen was smaller than average.
Returning to the empty room, I summoned a Venomous Spider and evolved it into a Poison Fang Spider immediately. Watching it evolve was interesting, as the only major changes were that it doubled in size, changed colour to brown and the two chelicerae that contained the venom injectors swelled to be larger and more powerful. Wouldn't wanna be bitten by that guy, that's for sure.
Two seconds after the evolution finished, a pop-up appeared in front of me.
Do you wish to turn Poison Fang Spider #1 into the First Floor Boss for 30 DP?
Y|N
Hitting 'Y' and watching intently, I raised an eyebrow when at first, nothing happened. Then, a pillar of magic struck the spider and it grew like a weed. Its chitin changed colour to black, with a red death's head covering the back of the abdomen. The chelicerae shrank, but they also started to drip a purple poison that sizzled as it hit the ground. Holy hell, was its venom corrosive now?
As the monster finished growing, I was struck by its size. A Venomous Spider was small, about the size of a Jack Russel, while a Poison Fang Spider was about the size of a Saint Bernard. This…thing…was the size of a rhinoceros on steroids, maybe even a small elephant!
[Boss Created]
Your Poison Fang Spider has been upgraded to the Boss of the First Floor!
Its name is [Black Widow: The Spider of Death]!
Generating Boss Room Transformation…
The room that the Black Widow was in, previously a large pyramid of stone, changed. Soon, the walls were covered in web-like carvings, with a stylised spider crest spaced intermittently around the room. The space of the room also grew whilst somehow not being any bigger on the outside of the room. Weird, but Vista could do something like that too, so it didn't surprise me as much as it probably should have.
Panning up, I notices a ledge jutting out of the wall near the inside tip of the pyramid and recognised that it was designed to be used as a base for the Black Widow to build a nest.
[Basic Boss Room Completed]
Add upgrades?
Y|N
I was leery of this, but decided to see what options I currently had.
Room of the Black Widow Upgrades:
- Add doors to the entrances to prevent someone simply running through – 10 DP
- Add gargoyle decorations to the walls that also give Black Widow a foothold for added manoeuvrability – 20 DP
Both of those were actually pretty reasonable, so I bought them. The doors were…made of thin stone that looked as if a solid punch by a kid could break them. The gargoyles were much better, resembling sneering spiders jutting out of the walls starting a bit above average head height. I returned to the screen to see three new options appear.
- Improve doors to be thick and resilient – 20 DP
- Decorate doors with black widow motif – 2 DP
- Add condition for opening entry door – 20 DP
- Add condition for opening exit door – 20 DP
I bought all of them once again. Seeing the doors actually look intimidating with the black widow emblem on them was satisfying, as was having them actually sturdy enough to resist a kick or two. I was going to have to start being more sparing with my DP though, as I had less than a hundred left.
For the condition of being let into the Black Widow Room, I set it so that any invading party would have to defeat all of the other monsters on the floor before being allowed to. For the door that let them out of the Boss Room, I simply set it so that the boss had to be defeated before they could continue.
Achievement gained! [Like a Boss]! You gain 10 DP!
Achievement gained! [Be a Boss with Style]! You earn 10 DP!
[Conditions Cleared!]
1) You have at least five Spider-type monsters on your Floor.
2) You have evolved at least three into three different monsters.
3) You have a spider for a Boss.
4) You have at least 1 Spider decoration in your dungeon.
You may now designate this floor the [Spider Floor] for free!
If you choose to do so, you will receive a discount of 3 Mana/DP on further spider-type monsters purchased, as well as free respawns for all spider-type monsters. Additionally, you unlock some spider-specific decorations, a free pair of statues of your boss for your Lair and a Special Room.
Do you wish to designate your First Floor the [Spider Floor]?
Y|N
I could see no downside here. Hitting the 'Y' key, I could feel the dungeon shifting to meet the new paradigm being imposed on it. Webs covered the walls, spiders being produced and scuttling all over the place until the place looked creepy as hell. On the plus side, all the damp that was on the walls dried up almost instantly as well.
Effects of Spider Floor:
1) Spider-type monsters cost 3 Mana/DP less to create; respawning spider-type monsters on this floor is free of charge.
2) Numerous spider 'critters' are created by the dungeon automatically. They cannot be commanded by the power of the Demon Lord, but their senses can be used. Mostly decorative, but occasionally useful when they drop down invaders' armour and bite their unmentionables.
3) The First Floor is decorated in spider web for free.
4) Special Room [Spider Puzzle Room] unlocked! Free to purchase and place, AND adds to the DMDI and ULAM.
The second one earned a bemused look from me. I didn't need to know that my spiders went for the crotch, thank you very much.
On the other hand, the Special Room that was unlocked was very interesting to me. A puzzle room? Hmm…let's have a look at the description for it.
Spider Puzzle Room: A room that requires someone to solve eight spider-based puzzles in order to proceed further. If they succeed, the room generates a spider-themed reward before allowing them through. Should they fail, they are attacked by four randomly generated spider-type monsters. Games include Spider Rubik's Cube, spider checkers, Spider Mix'n'Match and a variety of others from this world.
Those were some odd choices for games, but hey, who was I to judge? If they couldn't figure out what to do with a Rubik's Cube, I was golden.
I wanted to put that as a further stumbling block after the Boss' room, but sadly it seemed that the Boss' Room HAD to be the last room on the Floor…or at least, the last one between the invaders and me. So, I spent another 10 DP shifting the Boss' room further towards my Lair and stuck the Spider Puzzle Room in between it and the maze room.
Basic setup of the dungeon completed, I couldn't justify spending more of my much reduced DP and almost-non-existent Mana on anything else, so I turned to try and design my Demon Lord Form. Unfortunately, I discovered that I could only make it once and I was limited in the design by what insect-type monsters I could summon. As I only had spiders, I was limited to them.
Attempting to get around this by commanding some insects on the surface to march over and enter my dungeon earned me a warning that I would be discovered prematurely if I carried out my plan.
So, I gave that up as a bad idea. I'd do it when the shielding from 'the system' went down.
That brought me to a new worry. That worry being, who was the system and were they playing straight with me? I wasn't sure. Thus far, they seemed to be OK, but this was only three days in. In my last life (if this wasn't a dream brought on by my powers driving me insane) I had been justifiably paranoid, as almost everyone was against me. That had evidently carried over to right now, as I was suspicious about this entire situation.
Namely, why me? Yeah, I'd killed Zion, but I'd done it by hijacking the entire population of Earth Bet's Capes. I'd done that because the idiots had been too busy arguing about useless things while the worlds burned. I had cut through that and, despite rapidly falling into insanity; I had killed the oversized space whale that had masqueraded as Scion, the world's first and strongest Cape.
Aside from that…OK, yeah, I had held my own against Lung, Mannequin and even killed the supposedly unkillable Alexandria. But why not Hero? The world's most famous Tinker? Or Alexandria herself (despite the fact the bitch had been a member of Cauldron), the exemplar of the flying Brute? I could think of dozens of Heroes, Villains and Independents that would fit this role thrust upon me far better than I could.
Sighing, I returned my mind to the interface before me. I had to figure out how to get my hands on some weapons…oh? A shop?
I scanned down it and grimaced at the poor selection, which was basically everything that I had absorbed from the Reward Box, with a couple of differences. The lump of wood had become a plank, the lump of glass had become a sheet and the fresh clay had become a pot of fresh clay.
Shrugging, I bought a short sword and round buckler. They appeared in mid-air in front of me, hovering there until I grabbed them. The sword was a bit light, but it felt easy in my hand. The shield was a bit small, but I'd make do.
A flash of inspiration flashed through my mind as I remembered the [Item Enchantment] ability I had received. I hurriedly opened the appropriate screen.
[Item Enchantment]
Available Enchantments:
LV1 – [Rustproofing Enchantment] – 0/100 Successes
LV1 – [Rot Prevention Enchantment] – 0/100 Successes
LV1 – [Anti-Warping Enchantment] – 0/100 Successes
LV1 – [Force Enhancement Enchantment] – 0/100 Successes
Further Enchantments Locked until unlock conditions met.
My eye twitched at the lacklustre offerings that my enchantment system had for me. Rustproofing? Anti-Warping? What the hell?! The only combat enhancement was something that sounded like it made the weapon hit harder.
Huffing again, I decided that if nothing else, this would be something to pass the time and maybe earn me some personal EXP. Yes, everything I had done so far in my dungeon had not earned me so much as a single point of EXP, so I still needed fifty to achieve level 2.
As it turned out, I had to play a 'follow the light path' mini-game of sorts in order to 'draw a mystic rune' and then guide it into the target. Even if I failed though, it only cost me something like five Mana at a time and I gained five EXP for my attempt. Embarrassingly, it took me five times to successfully enchant my short sword with the [Rustproofing Enchantment], which earned me twenty EXP.
Just enough to level up.
You have accumulated enough EXP! You have levelled up! LV1-LV2!
All attributes increased. Attribute link to HP/MP activated.
You have three Skill Points to spend.
Skill Points? What the…?
[Skill Points and their Uses]
Skills can be earned in one of three ways in this world.
First, they can be taught by teachers and instructors, which is the way most go about it.
Second, a person can learn a skill after fulfilling certain criteria. As an example, swinging a sword a hundred times outside of combat or fifty times in combat would get you the [Sword Mastery] skill.
Third, they can be bought from the Skill Shop. This is an option normally only available to the chosen of the gods or demons. As the chosen of the Planet Itself, naturally you can make use of this option as well.
It then went on to explain how buying Skills worked. I had to buy the skills and then unlock them. The more common the skills, the lower the purchase cost. For example, [Sword Mastery], the Skill that it talked about earlier, would cost two Skill Points to buy and add it to my Skill List. I would then have to unlock it using my last Skill Point. As it basically told me how to unlock it without spending my SP, I instead chose to purchase and unlock [Shield Mastery]. Then I started swinging my sword until I learned [Sword Mastery].
Oddly enough using both a sword and a shield together took some getting used to and eventually earned me the [Shield Stance] and [Shield Fighter] Skills. Once I learned both of those skill, fighting with both sword and shield in hand felt completely natural.
Why wasn't that a part of [Shield Mastery]?! Urgh, sometimes this whole system thing makes no sense!
I spent the next four days practicing my fighting style, as well as continuing to practice my enchantment skills. [Force Enhancement Enchantment] was a tricky one to activate and it had a shorter time limit to complete it than the other three.
It was on the eighth day of my new life on this world, a mere one day after the protection of the system ended, that the first adventurers invaded my dungeon.
A belated Easter present for you all. Now, back to my scheduled writing…