Dungeon Master (Karma System)

The Goblin Foundry was ready for adventurers.

Hizon was less certain that it was ready for war.

He stood inside the foundry’s control room while the Hobgoblin Artificer directed another test of the ventilation system. Blue smoke poured from clay containers on the upper workshop floor. Goblin workers opened the first set of shutters, and the smoke bent toward the heated shafts above the furnaces.

Most of it disappeared.

A thin layer collected beneath a loading platform near the western wall.

The Artificer struck a mark onto his slate. ”The replacement intake is too narrow.”

”It cleared the last test.” Hizon said.

”The last test used half as much smoke.”

Hizon watched the blue haze gather around the platform supports. If it represented spores, the workers stationed there would already be breathing them.

”Widen it.” Hizon said. ”Then test it with twice this amount.”

The Artificer nodded and began issuing orders.

Hizon left the control room. The foundry could be improved through repeated testing, but smoke could only teach them so much. They knew how the fungal dungeon’s earliest defenses operated. They did not know what waited beyond them.

Brannik and the other scouts were gathered in a sealed room beneath Hizon’s Undercity office. The equipment spread across the central table bore little resemblance to what they had carried on their first expedition.

Each scout had a fitted breathing mask. Flexible hoses connected the masks to small filter canisters worn between the shoulders. The equipment would not allow them to survive every poison or airborne spell, but it offered better protection than cloth wrapped across the mouth.

Their packs contained sealed sample cases, waxed maps, oil flasks, fire-starting stones, and narrow blades meant for cutting fungal cords. Two glass spheres held small ember slimes behind metal screens.

Brannik lifted one of the spheres. The creature inside flowed toward the warmth of his hand.

”If this breaks while I am carrying it, I will have more to worry about than spores.”

”Do not break it.” The Artificer said.

Brannik looked at Hizon. ”His advice has improved since our last journey.”

The Artificer ignored him and tightened the clasp holding the sphere to Brannik’s pack.

Hizon pointed to the map created during the first expedition. ”You are not going back to confirm what we already know. Pass the cavern containing the Stalkers and determine how the dungeon develops beneath it. I want to know which creatures command the others, how quickly they respond to disturbances, and whether the passages lead toward a central area.”

”You want the location of the core.” Brannik said.

”I want it if you can find it without losing the group. I will settle for information that helps us survive long enough to locate it during the battle.”

Hizon had once treated scouts as expendable because goblin spawners could replace their bodies. Brannik and every member of this group were Eternal Souls. They would return if killed inside Max’s dungeon, but the fungal dungeon offered no such protection.

Hizon placed five thin metal disks on the table. Each had a raised arrow on one side and a circle on the other.

”If the spores interfere with speech, use these to leave directions. Do not create an entire language. An arrow marks your route. A circle marks something dangerous enough to avoid.”

Brannik distributed them without discussion.

”You leave separately from the Undercity and meet beyond Crag Mountain.” Hizon continued. ”Do not use my stores along the road. Do not return by the same route.”

The goblin tracker checked the seal on his breathing mask. ”And if the dungeon already knows we belong to you?”

”Then learn how it reacts to that knowledge.”

But honestly. Hizon was fairly sure that his preparations to conceal where the goblins came from was a bit overkill, but it was good practice.

The scouts departed before noon.

They reached the logging settlement four days later without traveling together until the final night. Brannik entered the forest from the south rather than approaching the abandoned cutting site. The others joined him beside a dry streambed beyond sight of the road.

The forest had changed.

Blue fungus now grew on trees that had been clear during their first expedition. The patches remained small, but their placement formed a broad curve around the depression containing the dungeon entrance.

”It expanded its hunting ground.” The tracker said.

Brannik crouched beside the nearest patch without touching it. Tiny white cords entered cracks in the bark.

”Or it is watching for us.”

They moved around the patch and approached the entrance from higher ground. No bones remained outside the split in the rock. The abandoned human pack had disappeared as well. Pale fungus covered the places where both had rested.

The system identified the independent dungeon when they crossed the boundary.

The cave moths did not attack in the descending passage.

Brannik considered that more dangerous than finding them.

The scouts reached the first cavern and found the animal remains arranged into low walls. Mycelial Stalkers waited behind them with their bladed limbs folded against their bodies. Gray dust covered the ground between the barriers.

”It prepared for another group.” One goblin whispered through his mask.

Brannik released the ember slime from its sphere. The creature spread across the floor, burning a clean route through the dust without producing enough flame to fill the cavern with smoke.

The Stalkers moved before the scouts entered.

One circled toward the left wall while two remained behind the bone barriers. Their feet stayed connected to white strands running beneath the remains.

Brannik threw a stone to the right.

All three Stalkers turned toward it at the same moment.

The goblin tracker drove his narrow blade into the pale growth at his feet and pulled. A web of hair-thin cords lifted from the ground.

The nearest Stalker stumbled.

Brannik understood. The creatures were not simply sensing vibrations. Something in the fungus was passing the disturbance to all of them.

The scouts burned two sections of the cords. The Stalkers continued fighting, but their reactions stopped matching one another. Brannik’s group passed them without attempting to kill all three.

Beyond the cavern, the passage divided.

Warm air flowed from the lower route. The right passage carried the smell of wet soil, while the left held the same sweetness as the blue mushrooms outside.

Brannik marked their position and chose the warm passage.

The walls narrowed before opening into a chamber filled with upright fungal columns. Membranes stretched between them like the walls of translucent tents. Shadows moved inside.

The scouts stopped before crossing the threshold.

Four squat creatures emerged from different membranes. Their broad bodies were protected by overlapping plates of woody fungus. Each carried a stone-headed club grown into one arm.

None looked toward the scouts.

They faced the passage the group had not taken.

A moment later, moths flooded from that route.

”It knew where we were going before we arrived.” The tracker said.

Brannik examined the ground. Thick cords ran between the columns and continued into every passage. The entire chamber was a junction.

He pointed toward the nearest cord. Two goblins poured oil while another prepared a fire stone.

Brannik stopped them.

Burning the junction would announce that they understood its purpose. More importantly, it would encourage the dungeon to protect every similar location before the battle.

Instead, he released the second ember slime near a smaller strand along the wall. The creature consumed the growth and continued toward the nearest membrane.

Brannik’s group followed it as though they depended upon the creature to find safe ground.

The armored fungal guards turned. The moths descended.

The scouts retreated through the warm passage, drawing both groups after them. When the first guard reached the narrow section, Brannik cut the thick cord running beside the wall.

The pursuing creatures hesitated.

The scouts changed direction and entered the wet passage before the network adjusted.

They found three more junctions over the next several hours. The dungeon responded faster near each one. Creatures waiting several chambers away changed positions whenever the scouts disturbed connected growth. When Brannik cut a major cord, the response slowed until smaller strands reconnected the damaged section.

The network could be wounded. It could also heal.

They eventually reached a cavern crossed by a black underground stream. Fungal platforms floated upon the water, joined by pale strands that tightened and relaxed with the current. On the far side, a tall figure stood between two columns.

He was shaped like a man but built from layers of dark fungal plate. A mantle of pale caps surrounded his neck and shoulders. Amber light moved beneath the surface of his chest in a slow rhythm.

The figure did not approach.

Every floating platform turned toward the scouts.

Brannik felt the dungeon’s attention settle upon him.

The male creature raised one long hand. Fungal growth closed over three passages behind him while the route back remained open.

It was not an invitation to advance. It was a warning that the scouts were being permitted to leave.

Brannik bowed his head as though accepting the command.

Then his group withdrew.

They took a different route through the upper caverns and destroyed two pursuit nodes after they were followed. None of the dungeon creatures crossed the entrance behind them.

Brannik did not return to Crag Mountain until eleven days after leaving it.

Hizon listened to the entire report before asking questions.

”The tall creature was the Dungeon Master?”

”I cannot confirm it.” Brannik said. ”But the dungeon reacted through him. When he raised his hand, the passages closed together.”

”Did he speak?”

”No.”

The tracker placed a new map over the first. Their route formed an uneven descent around several marked junctions. None led clearly toward a core chamber.

”It allowed you to leave.” Hizon said.

”It wanted us gone more than it wanted us dead.”

That told Hizon something important. The fungal Dungeon Master had learned enough to consider the scouts a threat, but not enough to know who stood behind them. While this dungeon was run by an intelligent monster, it didn’t seem to fully understand. Or maybe fungus was just that different.

Hizon studied the junctions marked across the map.

The fungal dungeon did not possess a collection of independent rooms. It possessed a single living network spread through many rooms. Instead of defeating many individuals, they would have to defeat a collective.