We all stood there, thinking about that for a while, then Amanda spoke up. “I brought you more ghost jade, by the way. I went by to see Trevor before I headed home, and he gave it to me to give to you. He could only get four pieces, but I assured him that was enough to be getting on with.”
“Great!” I said, taking the four polished green crystal nuggets from her. “This means that we can create a new dungeon!”
Kyrine and Selena both excitedly agreed that they would like to help with that.
Astrid went off back to her vigil from the watchtower, while Belinda took Amanda off to the kitchen. There was a lot of explaining to do, about the new creatures, and the Technomancer’s scout, and the new watches we were taking. Belinda would bring Amanda up to date.
“Let’s go upstairs to the enchantment table,” I said. “It’s new dungeon time!”
We headed upstairs.
“What kind of dungeon are you going to create, Jeremy?”
I thought back to the options that had been laid before me the first time around. There had been the option to create a granite dungeon, based around a cave of rough granite. That was the one I had gone for before. I remembered that at the beginning, I had been given two other options for the initial floor—a dirt floor cave option, and castle flagstones option, and another labelled cobbled yard. Interestingly, the options hadn’t been clear what would lead on from them. Granite Cave and dirt floor cave were pretty obvious, but what about the others?
What would be unlocked by placing a cobbled yard as my first piece? A village? That seemed an odd setting for a dungeon, but after seeing Kyrine’s glamors on the mansion, I felt that nothing would surprise me. A village dungeon would be pretty unusual and unique at least.
As for Castle Flagstones I could only suspect that they would open up a castle-type dungeon. Again, I’d never heard of such a thing, but I thought that it would be pretty cool.
Excitement rushed through me as I considered the options. The Granite Cave dungeon had come with its own unique monsters—goblins and spiders. Would the other options come with new monsters for mobs as well? Would there be a crossover? How would creating a new dungeon affect the old one? Could I have them both active at the same time?
Eager to see what the answers to these questions might be, I took the stairs two at a time, Selena and Kyrine following more slowly.
“Come on, let’s create the circle!” I said, as we all arrived in the workroom. I went to the enchantment table and placed one of the new pieces of ghost jade in the middle of the heavy, sinister-looking black table. The runes and crystals glowed with a sinister light as the two women came up and took my hands, then each other’s as well.
The circle was complete.
As had happened before, the room darkened, and an eerie light glowed out of the table. Kyrine closed her eyes, but Selena watched in trepidation as the ghost jade glowed in preparation for the new dungeon creation.
“Here we go!” I said exultantly as the room around us faded and the familiar dungeon creation space appeared. It was less intimidating the second time around, but it was still disorientating, and Selena kept a firm grip on my hand.
“I’ll leave you to it then,” said Kyrine with a smile. It seemed that she was needed to activate the dungeon creation process, but when it came to the actual creating part of the process, I could do it myself.
A smile was on Kyrine’s face as she faded from view.
“Right, let’s start with the floor,” I said.
I brought up the stats again, and this time I chose the Castle Dungeon option. I really wanted to see what further options it would bring.
“All right!” exclaimed Selena, as I picked the next two options: Walls: feasting hall and Ceiling: cathedral glass.
It was like something out of a fantasy novel. The hall was long and rectangular, with ancient tapestries hanging from it. The floor was made of massive flagstones, and there were two ranks of wooden feasting tables running the length of it.
The tables heaved with food and drink of all different kinds—steaming stews, haunches of roast meat, bread, fruit, fish, steamed vegetables, cakes, pastries, wines, beers, and ales. There were wall sconces with torches, and also a massive hearth with a mighty blaze burning in it, but up above there was a huge, curved roof of stained glass. The sun blazed through the roof, changing the color of the light that played around the scene before us.
“Shit, I never knew dungeons could look so tasty!” I said, eyeing the feast. We weren’t here to eat and drink, but all the same I couldn’t resist a pastry.
I grabbed one from the nearest table and crunched into it. Hot gravy and savory meat with soft onions filled my mouth.
Beef Pastry Consumed!
Health increase:
2%
Stamina increase:
2%
Fire resistance:
3%
The appearance of my stats above the pastry was unexpected.
“What’s this all about?” I wondered.
Selena answered knowingly. “The food acts as low-level healing and buffs,” she explained.
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” I said, licking the last of the gravy from my fingers.
“That,” said Selena, “if because you’ve not played enough video games.”
It was true. I’d always preferred spending my free time learning how to do enchantments.
“So all these food items have some kind of healing or buffing capability?”
She nodded. “That’s how I read it.”
“Wow,” I said. “This means that people fighting here have a lot of options for healing and boosting as they fight. We can make the mobs in here much stronger, or at least we can make it so that there’s
