{Unknown Gauntlet}
[Unknown star level]
Light spilled from streams of suspended energy, casting on the harsh edges of the jagged street. Branching passages tilted increasingly upward, pulling the adjacent road along. Alleyways sprouted off in every direction, twisting around one another, branching into smaller sub passages of their own, creating an irregular matrix of paths.
The other players stood in the center of a large flat area, from which all the paths stemmed.
Mikie stood up, squinting into the darkness. “What is this place?”
“What?” Sefawn asked. “Never seen a two-star dungeon?”
“This is a two star?”
She nodded. “A two star has enough power to substantially distort the dungeon, but not enough to re-order that distortion. So it’s usually a spaghetti mess.” A bow staff larger than myself appeared in her hand. “I wouldn’t worry.”
Ardendidi crouched down, grabbing several pipes and twisting them into a bed with her bare hands. “You have fun, Grind. I’ll be here when you need me.”
The lights flickered, and we were somewhere entirely different, trapped within corridors of stone walls.
It was just me and Ardendidi, who had been standing close together.
“And it can teleport,” she groaned. “That’s going to be insufferable.”
“Maybe not,” I muttered. “When Core puts most of their Exp into their abilities, they’re usually pretty weak.”
Bump.
Bump.
“Did you hear something?” I asked.
Ardenidi shrugged.
The lights flickered.
We were somewhere else, this time beside Matt, Makie, and Gunther.
Another flash, and we were somewhere alone, surrounded by metal tubing.
I spun around.
Ardendidi was gone.
Now it was just me.
I started running, ducking underneath two intertwining passages. There was a clicking sound, then a metered pulsing, trembling the walls.
Bump.
Bump.
Crack.
Mana tore through the dungeon, and I had moved again.
This time I wasn’t alone.
They just weren’t people.
Purple slime seeped through the ceiling, collecting in smaller shimmering orbs. Bumps hardened into teeth, forming hundreds of little mouths.
{Gloobules}
[Copper]
[100 Hp 320 Mana]
["But they’re squishy and cute so don’t worry about bites."]
[Detonates on impact.]
These guys would be pretty easy, so long as you didn’t directly come into contact with them
I just weaponized my aura and —
Explosive pain echoed around my mind.
{NOTICE}
[Your mental ability is being suppressed.]
[You cannot weaponize your aura]
Right.
I sprinted away, swatting at little drops of slime as they fell down, blasting into smoke. The damage would normally be minor, but with only ten health I was basically taking my full Hp every couple seconds.
At the very least, I was only getting blisters on one hand.
Bump.
Bump.
Crack.
I flung myself behind a wall, panting for breath. Smoke filled the air, and I’d burned my neck too, but overall, I wasn’t doing too bad.
This room was completely unlike the others. For one, there was a blackened lake, in a room devoid of any monsters.
The lake undulated in my direction.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I hissed.
A slime larger than most houses bunched up, shuddering with rage.
Slimes were only really good at absorbing physical and magical impact. Most abilities just didn’t work on them. Your only real option—other than elemental magic—was to cut them.
While slimes could be cut in half and survive, they still have a limited number of organs—transparent globs in their center. If you stabbed all of them, the slime died.
That just required a blade sharp enough to pierce their ridiculously thick skin.
Alternatively, since this was the second area, you could use mental force. Slimes are quite stupid, possessing mental resistance lower than a clump of dirt.
So what did I have?
Unless we teleported again, this slime would reach me.
I twirled Crapshoveler in one hand.
While I had a strong attack, magical damage wouldn’t do anything here. And with ten strength, I had no chance of cutting anything.
Meaning, I just had to convert one force into another.
I chucked Crapshovler into a hundred and twelve abnormality fields.
The lake bunched up and out, bristling at the taste of mana. Within this movement, I spotted slight discolorations in the back of its body.
Bingo.
I kicked Crashoveler midair, adjusting its course.
At the same moment, I detonated an abnormality the size of my fist.
There was a flicker of gold, and the slime had been punctured. The rest of its membrane shattered, spilling decaying goop over the room. That slime died, releasing Exp, while the rest of the slime hive mind turned against itself, each set of organs fighting over control of the exp.
I’d deal with them later.
Bump.
I started running.
Bump.
Orbs of Exp shimmered toward me..
Crack.
Cool energy sparked against my hand, followed by a drop in mental pressure.
[(+50) 50% progression to Tin]
I was panting, grabbing whatever part of the dungeon I know sat in.
Crapshoveler cracked against the ground with a ringing echo.
I blinked, picking him up.
Considering how far he’d been when I jumped, I’d have expected him to teleport too. Was the ability range increased, or was it just random?
Bump.
The most distance tunnels shifted.
Bump.
It was moving closer.
Crack.
Hang on.
I chucked Crapshovler into the air, as high as I could.
The lights flickered, enveloping the dungeon in a blanket of darkness.
Then, I was teleported somewhere new.
Crapshovler knocked against a metal wall, crashing into the ground next to me. He hadn’t even moved.
Something felt off.
Bump.
Bump.
Crack.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The lights flickered on.
“Crap.”
Tiny globules splattered apart in an instant, knocking me backward. More globs plummeted from the ceiling.
There was still one direction I hadn’t tested.
Bump.
I ducked down, slammed Crapshoveler into the street. Even with ten strength, the floor was unusually weak, blasting apart like sand in the wind.
Bump.
I dove down, entering a massive pocket of stale air. Wind hissed in my face. It was getting colder. The sides of the room tightened, pulsating.
Crack.
I slammed into the floor, wheezing for breath.
Orbs of exp drifted toward me popping on contact.
[(+50 Exp) 100% progression to Tin]
[(+30 Exp) 3% progression to Copper]
My body relaxed, crackling with a low hum of mana as my maximum stats increased to a hundred each.
These were probably from the slime. But why were they here?
I scanned the room. It was shaped like a pentagon with branching sides that extended higher up.
This wasn’t where I’d fought anything. Had another player been here?
But what self respecting player would leave loot behind?
What was the gimmick?
The shovel and exp were teleported around the dungeon, same as players. But the slimes weren’t really teleported. They remained in roughly the same spots, judging by the little ceiling slimes.
Slimes absorb physical impact, whether as a result of magic or physical attack.
There are two kinds of monsters in dungeons. Ones that wander in, which the dungeon core eats as food and ones the Core summons. These aren’t eaten. Instead, they are in some way essential to the function of the dungeon itself.
Slimes aren’t being teleported, even though everything else is, so it’s probably a result of their mana absorbing.
Bump.
The sound reverberated against my ears.
What was that?
Bump.
The second pulse actually happened at the same time as the first, exaggerating the ringing echo.
Finally, mana ignited, undergoing several magichemical processes.
Crack.
And I was somewhere else in the dungeon, in another room I’d never seen before. There were still slimes, bunched all around. Some overhead in tunnels, and others around me.
Why slimes though? Out of all the other monsters, why use the weakest, least efficient—
I’m asking the wrong question.
Where are the other monsters?
A dungeon like this should have more than one kind of monster, even if it were essential to the system. Different monster types build redundancy, allowing a Core to last longer.
Bump.
Bump.
Crack.
Little slimes clustered around me, bunching into piles.
Slimes naturally bunch up as much as they’re able. They’d only be scattered if they got hit recently. But by what? There’s no damage to the dungeon!
And where am I?!
There were flickering neon strings in the air, surrounded by a hum of mana and flashing on each teleportation.
What did they do?
There was a terrible shuddering within the dungeon.
Bump.
Bump.
The slimes bunched up even more, tighter and denser, moving to the largest stones in the streets.
Why…?
Judging from the bubbling within their membrane, the slimes were clearly frightened.
Bump.
Bump.
Bump.
Bump.
The beats were accelerating. More teleporting?
And how were we supposed to reach the second floor? We were already teleporting onto it?
Stop. Think this through.
How does the teleport work? Why can’t I stop it? Normally my latent mana would keep spells like that from being cast on me, in the same sense that a monster couldn’t control the water in my body with an element spell, while they could control the water in their dungeon—
My eyes snapped open.
That was it, wasn’t it?
Crack.
Dirt and stone enveloped my body.
There was never a teleportation.
The dungeon was moving.
By moving the ground beneath us, it could put us in separate rooms, and then separate us further.
Mana was used in bursts to change the entire dungeon.
Slimes were used because they could take the physical impact of being flung from room to room within a fraction of a second.
Players would fight the slimes, assuming they understood the dungeon.
But because the core is creating its own “teleport”, it can send players wherever they like. It has no rules to restrict its movement. Rules like, ‘you cannot teleport through solid objects’.
The gravel rammed into my face, sprouting nasty sharpened edges as the mana refined itself. And it continued churning, repeatedly damaging my body.
{Grind}
[(-100) 100 hp] [(-100) 100 hp] [(-100) 100 hp] [(-100) 100 hp]
I gasped for air, inhaling sand.
Bump.
Bump.
Chords of mana sparked, flashing red hot, even underground.
To get that much mana moved around in a short time, there was a system of veiny wires, bringing mana into the ground, absorbing the access, and repeating the process.
I smiled from ear to ear.
“Bingo.”
One hundred and twelve fields clustered around my hand, each the size of a basketball.
I concentrated.
There were few emotions in the dungeon, because there were few monsters in the dungeon.
Even so, the orbs didn’t seem to weaken with few emotions. They were just as strong as previously.
{Grind}
[(-100) 100 hp]
When the Core attacked, it had little control. It made everything, everywhere attack, which would kill its own minions. So, the Core summoned the only minions that could be ground up, knocked back and forth, and repeatedly trampled without dying.
Slimes.
{Grind}
[(-100) 100 hp]
Those slimes would be in quite a bit of pain right about now.
I’d have to thank them later.
Blackish-purple energy condensed into a liquid stream, sparking as it came into contact with other blackish droplets.
Soon, it was a solid mix of black and purple.
{Grind}
[(-100) 100 hp]
I pushed it up.
Despite its massive size, the condensed orb had little weight, bobbing steadily upward. On contact, rock liquified in plumes of gas.
For thirty seconds it drifted higher.
Then the orb brushed against a chord, sending a note of mana through the dungeon.
Everything went white.
Everything went black.
Purple sparks filled the air, twinkling softly as I plummeted into darkness.
Without the system of mana, there was nothing keeping this dungeon together.
“AAAHHHHhHHHHH!”
That would be several other players, screaming for their lives.
I believe I heard some faint snuffling as well.
One of the other players created a pocket of lick, casting silhouettes over the dusty air.
Twenty something players were falling.
I chucked Crapshoveler upward, before pushing off the denser mounds of falling rubble. Slimes bubbered, backing away as I drew near.
I reached toward the nearest player, catching her in my arms.
Ardenidi scowled. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“Good to see you too,” I muttered. “Hey, you have mushrooms that absorb an impact, right? Get a big one.”
“I’m not supposed to interfere…” She blinked. “H-how’d you know about those?”
I was already gone, grabbing another player, and then another. I didn’t know any of the players personally—excpet for Mikia, who continued to cast the light over everybody.
“There!” He shouted, pointing to the wall.
I jumped over, grabbing another player.
“That all of them?” I asked, struggling to breath in the rushing wind.
How far down did this tunnel go?
The other players had formed chains, failing to find a safe ledge or outcropping.
Finally, we saw the floor.
The floor covered in glistening, razor-sharp spines.
Crapshoveler snapped toward me.
“Uh, Grind?” Mikie asked, squirming in my grip. “You gonna do something yet?”
“Yeah.”
A hundred and twelve little fields opened up, directly in the path of Crapshoveler. Their sudden explosive force rocketed him upward. As the explosion happened, I tightened my grip on the invisible handle, summoning him down while he moved up.
Crapshoveler blasted away while I called him toward me.
The longer he spent moving, the more force he moved with. Each bounce steadily accelerated his force, over and over as the fields fed off my companion’s fears, creating blueish orbs that knocked the shovel higher with every impact.
I snagged the body of a slime, flinging us out of the way. “HANG ON!”
The fields dissipated.
Crapshoveler cleaved toward me, missing by an inch as we moved.
So Crapshoveler went straight down, right for a large, blobby figure in the center of a massive ring of steel.
Physical force passed through the dungeon in a roar, splintering the stone walls, flattening the spines below, and kicking up clouds of dust and rock.
{Gauntlet of Reorder: (-1) 1 Hp }
Just like that, the Core was already on its second phase.
Ardenidi shouted from the ground, waving her arms.
“Have a nice landing!” I called, pushing everyone into the path of a massive fungus. They’d be fine, so I spun, channeling my ability one last time.
Massive orbs of bluish fear stretched out, feeding into one another.
The core looked up. It had only a mouth on its face, rather than eyes or their impression.
A weak two-star.
“Eat this,” I hissed.
The Core screeched, staggering backward as its crystal heart drilled fifty yards into the metallic floor, utterly pulverized by a blast of destructive energy larger than most buildings.
{Gauntlet of Reorder: (-1) 0 Hp }
[This enemy does not meet the criteria for {Reaper Harvest}]
Was that it?
I spun into the air, thrown by my own shockwave.
That was it.
I laughed, crash-landing into a blossoming pile of orbs and exp, ignoring the shattering sound that came from my neck and shoulders as I fell unconscious.
[Progression to Copper : (+38%) 40%]
