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Dungeon Novel: Chapter Twenty-Three
🕑 Added 2021-01-19 18:50:16 +0000 UTCEventually Unbound finished the floor, he changed his wants to form different, unique, and self-sustaining floors and had instead built a death trap for Undead. Long, twisting tunnels barely wide enough for two skeletons to walk side by side.
It featured several traps filled to the teeth with Purge Undead enchantment sigils. The rooms had low ceilings, forcing any intruders to bow their heads to fit and several waiting elementals in ambush.
Unbound had seen several new traps he wished to buy within the shop but Unbound lacked the funds to purchase currently. The experience he had gained from defeating the Undead the necromancer had brought, Unbound had to find out people’s names, had boosted his level enough to build the new floor.
He carved out another room for his core and slowly and sluggishly moved his core into it. He didn’t know what creature he wanted for a boss yet and so waited to talk to Elvinia. He didn’t want a boss really either, they tended to be a single powerful creature and Undead specialized in overwhelming lone powerful figures.
Turning away from the conundrum Unbound focused upon Elvinia, the necromancer, and the trio of women. Unbound felt distinctly outnumbered by the number of women in his Dungeon, whilst he wasn’t male in the way he remembered he still felt masculine.
There was a small standoff, the three women did not like the necromancer and their stances were hostile. The necromancer had a sneer upon her face when she looked at the guards although it softened slightly when her gaze fell upon the Priestess.
Elvinia and the presence of the elemental were discouraging any violence that the beast-kin and elf wanted to deliver. The Priestess seemed to be conflicted with the necromancer’s location although she too had a less hostile stance. Interrupting the standoff Unbound asked Elvinia for all of their names.
“The Dungeon wishes to know your names?” Elvinia said, the familiar formal tone overtaking her voice, it seemed that she reverted to that manner of speech to represent him.
“My name is Shielen, Priestess of the Holy Church of the Lady.” The Priestess said to him. “These are my…. Friends, Ayren a Knight, and Elva a Rogue. They have worked with me for a long time.” Shielen had clearly not meant to say friends at first and Unbound had a suspicion that she was either nobility or royalty.
“I am Beda, a necromancer as you already know.” The necromancer said. “Is my own residence finished, I do not believe my presence will be conducive to a cease of hostility.” Once again, the necromancer’s words had regained their flowery lilt instead of the cruder manners when encountering the Void elemental.
Unbound had finished the residences for all of his guests, despite wanting to put them on the fourth floor he had decided he was unable to fully trust these guests yet and had instead built another cavern-like structure on the third floor for them.
The cavern-like structure is where the similarities stopped however, light affinity stone sharps peppered the ceiling like a starry sky and the walls resembled well-fitted bricks. It was hidden underneath a small rising stone boulder where the stone door required Unbound to open and close it. There were several rooms with one large communal room featuring a kitchen and dining area.
Now knowing the issues, the two groups had Unbound expanded Beda’s room to include a private kitchen and dining area. Her room was connected to a chamber from where she could work on improving the Undead within Unbound’s Dungeon.
He didn’t know enough about the trio to customize their rooms for them, he also needed to get the information that he would receive as the price for their sanctuary. Asking Elvinia to do that whilst he used two of the elementals to walk Beda to her own room.
Elvinia talked to the trio for several moments as Unbound used his mana to slowly reinforce the material composing the fourth level to another level of toughness. Unbound didn’t want anyone to be able to avoid any of the traps or defenders he had placed.
Once they had finished their discussion Elvinia relayed all of the relevant information to him. From what she understood they had looked into the rumors of a new Undead army forming and the bandits had ambushed them whilst they were looking for traces.
The bandits were some of the strange ones who operated from the outer edges of the Deadlands and attacked any merchants or travelers who passed by for cheaper taxes.
Once they had realized, they were now in the Dungeon, with the bandit’s dead, they understood they did not have the ability to fight their way out. Unbound was deep in the Deadlands, not close to the center, but deep enough that they would be unable to make it out, alive.
That is why they had asked for sanctuary, one to hide here in case the war did start because they had nowhere else to go and two was because Unbound was a recognized landmark in the deadlands and if the Church sent someone to rescue them, they would likely check here.
Unbound knew from what they told him that something didn’t add up. The fact that they were sent to scout for an Undead army when they didn’t have the strength to defend from a bandit attack was suspicious. Plus, he knew that the church had already reached here, he shouldn’t be too far away from the edge if those knights and the priest managed to get here.
The knight hadn’t lost anyone, but they had lost a shield to an attack by his weakest boss defender, the bandit leader was stronger than that so what was really going on.
It was clear though that they didn’t want to reveal why so Unbound resolved to monitor them and all their conversations closely. He did not like the cloak and dagger manner of these people and it grated that they were keeping secrets after they had asked for safety from him.
He couldn’t focus upon his other projects however when he realized several necromancers had ridden up to his Dungeon entrance upon several skeletal horses with a small legion of Undead with them. It seemed that Beda was correct, the necromancers wanted Unbound’s allegiance, and they were prepared to take it by force.
