DungeonFall – [A Dungeon Creation / Cultivation Story]

Nate was able to keep one eye on the dungeon throughout his next class. The monstrous beasts that were appearing were being taken care of by the traps, for the most part. He had seen a couple more of those strong shadow monsters appear and race unharmed through the dungeon.

It was a worrying trend, but there was nothing that he could do about it, even if he hadn’t been at school. Those particular beings were outside of his reach, and he well knew it. Being torn apart by one once was more than enough.

It was near the end of that period and just before the last class of the day that the cultivators he had been expecting finally made their appearance.

Appearance-wise, they looked somewhat similar to the first group. They were dressed in a mix of cured beast hides and manufactured materials. The weapons they carried had all been handmade instead of inside of a factory. There had been a resurgence of blacksmiths and bowyers after access to gunpowder dwindled.

It had never fallen away entirely, but in the early years of the ‘Dimensional Zones’ easy access to the traditional supply lines had been fractured. Each city had been forced to come up with their own way to make ammunition and other weapons. Plus, depending on the zone closest to them, bullets might not even be effective on the monsters that had appeared.

That was when the more traditional weapons began to reappear on the battlefield. Someone with more hubris than brains had dared to attack something that bullets had done nothing against. He had died with a mighty ‘splat’, but somehow, against all odds, his death hadn’t been in vain. Someone nearby noticed that the sword he had been using had managed to scratch the monster.

It wasn’t a deep scratch, but it was several inches long in length and easily visible. The beast was vulnerable to cutting weapons. That was all it took to ignite feelings of hope, and the experiments began.

Supposedly, stories of similar idiots happened all around the world, sometimes sooner, other times later. But they always appeared.

It was only a little later that people began to discover cultivation in mass, and then things really began to change.

Nate mentally compared their weapons to his own kukri’s and shrugged. His blades looked nicer, but that meant little these days. He knew they were sharp, but were they as sharp as the weapons these people carried? It was impossible to say.

The visible group had paused just inside the entrance to the dungeon and was looking cautiously around.

That was when he remembered he had never even tried to upgrade the dungeon for sound or anything else, so he could tell what they were saying.

Unfortunately, it was too late now, not that he had any idea on how to go about doing something like that. It just would have been nice to hear what they were saying, or even see it if subtitles were an option.

“Are you with us today, Mister Holmes?” The teacher asked, being overly polite while getting his attention.

“Hmm, oh, um, no, I don’t think I am, sorry.” Nate grabbed all his supplies and stuffed them back into his bag, leaving the dumbfounded class behind.

He was getting good to excellent grades in all of his classes, skipping out on the last class of the day like this wouldn’t hurt him any. Besides, he was more interested in what was going on in the dungeon by that point than anything the teacher was saying.

Nate quickly found an unoccupied room and locked the door behind him. Even those few moments rushing through the halls had been painful for him as he had missed the group entering the room. By the time he managed to look at the screen again, they were standing in the middle of the trap-triggered room. Each of them had a few scrapes and bruises, but none of them had died.

And he had missed how they had accomplished such a feat. It was enough to make him scream.

He settled on the cold linoleum floor, with his back against the door, and focused. He was desperate to not miss anything they did. This was his first true chance to study some proper cultivators in action, and he wasn’t going to miss it. Those people from before didn’t count. He hadn’t seen them do anything but die.

This group, however, had actually made it inside. They were worth watching and learning from. With one hand, he dug out his notebook from his backpack and propped it on his knee so he could take notes.

He had no idea what he would be able to learn from them, but anything could help. Right away, the first thing that struck him was while the dungeon might be set up decently for monsters; for humans, it actually wasn’t the best design. The corridors and doors that monsters struggled with were no problem for them.

They moved on from the first room and halted in the short corridor that separated it from the next room. With that, he got his next point of comparison. He had never seen the monsters or beasts halt in the hallways to plan or look around. However, for humans, that was something normal and expected.

They were going to take this dungeon, run slowly, and inspect each room one at a time. Again, he wished he was able to hear what they were saying. If he could hear what they were noticing, then he could fix them in later versions.

Depending on what they did next then he would likely need to change his own terminology. He couldn’t call it ‘perfecting’ a trap room anymore, but merely upgrading it.

While he waited for the group to make their move, he idly waited and watched.

Finally, a few minutes later, the first of them stepped forward. The fairly small woman jumped lightly from foot to foot, cracked her neck, and then stepped forward. She surged forward and ran quickly around the long room, triggering the traps. With that done, she headed for the exit, mere steps ahead of the arrows rocketing after her.

Now the rest of the people in the group knew what the traps in the room were and what to expect. It made sense to Nate now how they had gotten through that first room. The traps didn’t reset while enemies were still inside the room. It thought they were still alive and that they needed to be kept getting skewered or flame broiled, as the case may be.

With this group of cultivators that were working against the dungeon. One of them would trigger the traps and then the rest could walk through them with minimal difficulty.

He groaned and thumped his head against the door. The dungeon was so screwed. If this alone was their plan, it was probable that they could make it to the portal or even farther in.

For now, at least it didn’t look like they were trying to destroy or even attack the dungeon itself. That didn’t mean it was off the table though. He wasn’t the only one taking notes.

Through the screen, Nate could see each of them scribbling down what he assumed were their own impressions of the room and traps.

He opened up another screen and found the current beast… just as it died to the traps in its own room. Snorting, he flicked the screen closed and went back to the cultivators. It had been silly to even think for a moment the monsters might be able to help the cause. There were only a couple that might stand a chance against these people, and the odds of them appearing were low.

Nate glared down at their notepads, a feeling of irrational annoyance flickering through him. He didn’t like the idea of people bringing out information about his dungeon. That was the danger of letting humans inside the dungeon though, they documented things.

A few moments later, they finished talking and writing everything down and moved toward the next room.

Above his head, the bell ending the school day rang. They had taken the rest of the class period to just go through those two rooms.

He didn’t really want to waste the time it would take going home. At the same time, he also couldn’t just stay at the school after it had closed. Besides, his mom or dad was probably already out in the parking lot waiting for him.

With a grunt of annoyance, he packed everything into his bag and opened the door into a busy hallway. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Angie gesticulating wildly as she talked passionately to Jace. Her usual sidekick, Lindsay, was nowhere to be seen.

He didn’t think he had ever seen either of them alone at school. Outside of maybe, when one of them was in line for something. They had all the same classes together and everything.

Casting his eyes about the packed corridor, he spotted the other girl a few moments later. She was being delayed by a few of Chad’s flunkies. The large brute himself wasn’t there.

Grumbling under his breath, Nate turned around and headed for Lindsay.

‘Why do I even care? I’ve known both these girls less than a week, and look at the trouble they are already causing me?’ He muttered under his breath as he stumbled into one of the boys, waylaying Lindsay.

They hadn’t touched the girl, merely tightly surrounded her, which kept her from moving on. When Nate bumped into the boy, it broke the formation. It was an opportunity that Lindsay made sure to capitalize on as she slipped through and hurried towards Angie.

Nate, for his part, did his best to blend into the crowd after bumping into the boy, and never looked back. All he did in recognition of the event was send a message to Lindsay, making sure she was alright.

With that completed, he hung around for a moment longer as he watched one girl rescue the other. That was about all he could manage with his body in its current shape. If he tried anything more and one of the boys hit him back it would end badly for him.

His body had already deteriorated too much as it was. The only reason it wasn’t worse was because of the residual energy it had managed to store inside his typically unused or specialized meridians. That bit of energy had done more to keep him alive and healthy than he cared to admit.

Even if it hadn’t been enough to save the original Nathan of this world. Though, that might have had more to do with the shock of the half-formed core shattering than anything else. Not that he would ever know for sure.

Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he headed towards the doors and the parking lot. One of his eyes flickered to the screen above his arm as he twisted among the crowd. It was excruciating knowing just how much useful information he was missing out on due to life.

Outside, both his parents were waiting inside their car, shuffling papers back and forth between them as they talked.

“Didn’t you drop those off with the city this morning?” He asked as he opened the door.

“Hmm? Oh, hi, honey. No, these aren’t the papers for creating our own company, those were submitted without a problem. It actually went off rather smoothly, far more so than I think either of us expected. These are just all the regulations and everything else we need to know.” She smiled tiredly. “How was school?”

“It was fine, and before you ask, nothing is going on between me and Angie… or Lindsay. She just wanted to talk this morning.”

His father snorted and nudged his wife while raising his brows twice. “Right, talk. Remember when we used to just talk on the way to school? In fact, maybe we should do some just talking tonight?”

Nate faked a gag. “You are disgusting! Parents don’t have sex or anything of the sort. As soon as kids come into the picture, they become smooth dolls down there. All future babies get delivered by the magical stork.”

Niall and Nina laughed at the image he had put into their heads. “What do you say, dear husband? Let’s find out how true his words are.”

“Agreed, I’d like to meet this stork.”

Nate blinked, unsure if they were joking or not. In his last life, his mother hadn’t been able to have more kids after giving birth to him. Just the one pregnancy had been rather rough on her. So, he had never had a younger sibling before.

“Can you have another baby, mom?”

“I’m not that old.” She shot back playfully.

“No, I guess you’re not.”