Chapter 53: A madwoman and her stone
I checked every nook and cranny in the basement. It was a fairly spacious room, filled with all kinds of different stuff. On one side there was a wooden bookcase, filled with old looking books with plain covers. I couldn’t understand how anyone would be able to tell them apart. Having to open each book to figure which one it was seemed a bit dumb to me. The saying goes ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ but nobody will judge it if there’s no cover in the first place…
“Looks like this elf was quite heavily influenced by dwarves…”
Opposite side of the bookcase were some casks stacked together, and I’d bet they were filled with alcoholic beverages. Having met her dwarf friend, I had to assume that was her beer.
On the far end of the room, some scrolls were messily lying on a desk. An old oil lamp hanging from the ceiling directly above it was its only source of light. I had a feeling reading like that couldn’t be particularly good for your eyesight…
There was yet another thing that caught my eye: an iron closet. I was itching to know what was inside, so I asked Limy to open it. That’s when we realized it had 3 different locks on it, which made me even more curious.
“How naïve of you to think that this would stop me from peeking inside. Come on Limy, sneak inside and bring out whatever you find.”
“Understood master.”
She produced a tentacle that she managed to squeeze inside through the narrow opening between the doors of the closet. She blindly moved the tentacle around until she managed to get a hold of something, put it inside her inner space, and extracted it from the closet.
“Let’s see what you found.”
She handed me the loot
“This is…”
I found myself at a loss for words. That was a tight leather suit, black as night. It even had its own mask.
“I knew she was a perv… but I didn’t think she was into THAT kind of stuff as well… Whatever, just return it…”
Let’s leave it where it was and pretend that we didn’t see it. And let’s stop snooping around, lest we find something even more disturbing… Alright, back to the original plan. It’s time to find a wall that’s not covered with junk so I can get started
“Here will do. Limy, I am going to drill for a bit, please clean up the debris.”
I proceeded very carefully. I did not want to cause a landslide, so I drilled diagonally while at the same time reinforcing the walls. Once I figured the tunnel was deep enough, I opened the map to check my whereabouts
“This seems like a good place. Let’s begin by making this a little more spacious.”
I set out to create a small chamber, of about 10 square meters. Once I finished cleaning and reinforcing, I ended up quite satisfied with the results.
[Magic “Mold earth” is now at level 4.]
Would you look at that, I even managed to squeeze an extra level for ‘Mold Earth’. It seemed well deserved after all that work, after all, it took me a good 3 hours.
Alright then, all preparations are complete. Let’s see what I can do. But first of all, Status!
Status:
Name: Peter Gravel
Kind: Magic stone | Race: Dungeon core
Level: 4 | Experience: 195/1012 | Grade: 1
HP: 115/115 | MP: 258/258 | Mana well: 400/400
Classes:
- Mage: 1 | Experience: 378/500
Stats:
Vitality: 0 | Strength: 0 | Agility: 0
Intellect: 22 | Magic power: 43
Resistances:
- Dementia: 4
Abilities:
- Mana bomb: 2
- Mana cannon: 3
- Mana control: 3
- Roll: 5
Special abilities:
- Magic analysis: 1
- Help: 4
- Mana well: 2
- Parasitize: 4
Hidden abilities:
- Trump
Magic:
- Air:
-- Air bullet:1
-- Wind whisper: 1
- Earth:
-- Mold earth: 4
-- Stone shoot: 2
- Fire:
-- Fireball: 1
- Water:
-- Water Cannon: 1
Titles:
- Arsonist: 1
- Dungeon conqueror: 1
- Dungeon master
- Inner aggressor
- Racist
- The bomb
- Thinking stone
- Wandering stone: 2
————————————————
‘Maybe I should get back to leveling at some point… Anyway, how did this thing work again? Dungeon!’
Dungeon:
Name: Nameless
Level: 1 | Upgrade points: 0/20000
Dungeon points: 5618
Abilities: Create entrance Create Monster Create room
_________________________
Where have all those points come from? Helpy!
[Dungeon points: Numerical representation of the power accumulated by the dungeon core. They are needed to use dungeon abilities.
It is possible for a dungeon core to transform mana into dungeon points. The exchange rate is 1 dungeon point per 10 mana points]
‘Mana… so I can turn my own MP into dungeon points. But I do not recall having done that, so where have all those points come from?’
[The surplus of mana from the dungeon core is transformed into dungeon points automatically]
‘Well, that’s interesting… and unexpected. So, I can generate dungeon points just by existing. The rate is quite stingy though. Hmm, this is rather inefficient indeed, I really will have to focus on leveling up and increasing my mana. Crap, had I known about this earlier I could have accumulated way more points…’
[You did not ask.]
‘I know! You didn’t need to reply to that. Just tell me how I can earn more dungeon points.’
[Any mana from a non-dungeon created entity can be converted into dungeon points.]
‘Crap… that means I cannot have Limy assisting with this. Are you sure you’re not just messing with me?’
[…]
‘Alright, fine, I will trust you on this time…’
“Limy, let’s get started!”
“Understood, master.”
I did have one little problem though; I had no idea how to create a dungeon. It could not be that complicated though. I figured it would be enough with concentrating my dungeon core power and using it to warp the space around me. So, I did just that, I focused and then released all my power, and soon enough I started feeling how my mana was filling the surrounding area.
‘Alright, focus. Warping space, tearing a hole, shattering reality…’
I was dead set on tearing a hole in the space-time continuum. I kept releasing more and more mana. I was so focused on the task that I shut everything around me out. Soon, I started noticing how everything around started shaking more and more. That was a clear sign that something was about to happen.
“Open up, dungeon!”
Some cracks started to appear in the floor of the chamber. The space was warping indeed!
“Master, everything is shaking.”
“Wait, what?”
[New magic acquired: Quake (Lvl 1).]
I hurriedly stopped doing whatever it is that I was doing. I then realized that all the walls of the chamber were filled with cracks and rifts.
“Fuck… I almost tore the place down! Crap, how does one go about creating a dungeon?”
[Do you want to create a dungeon?]
“................ You have got to be kidding me! You didn’t think of telling me this earlier?! Of course!”
This time space started warping for real. An entrance for the dungeon formed, right where I wanted. This dungeon was nothing like the one I had visited earlier; it was basically just a cave that expanded towards the depths of the earth. Its rock walls were illuminated by the same kind of light I remembered from the other dungeon as well. The light was able to illuminate even the part before the entrance that I just dug up.
[Dungeon management panel unlocked.]
[Dungeon map unlocked.]
“And so easy it was…”
“What was that tremor?!”
Soon enough, Aeldrya’s voice could be overheard, coming from the other end of the tunnel.
“I know this is your doing! Where the hell are you? Stop hi…ding…”
The sound of someone hesitantly stepping inside the tunnel that led to this chamber echoed through the tunnel. Shortly after that Aeldrya emerged from it, looking mightily upset. She looked just about ready to start lashing out at us, but as soon as she found what was in the chamber, she froze in place. She obviously could not believe what her eyes were seeing.
“Did the quake wake you up?”
She started moving her right hand, which wouldn’t stop shaking, until she managed to point at the entrance of the dungeon. After struggling for a moment to find the right words, she finally managed to articulate a question:
“Is that…?”
“Well, just a dungeon. What do you think? Cool, right?”
While she processed what was going on around her, she fell silent as her face started twitching…
“Why… is… that… thing… here?”
“You told me to create a dungeon, so I did just that.”
“I sure as hell did not tell you to do it in my fucking basement!”
Her furious outburst made the entire chamber tremble again.
“Just calm down, this can’t be good for your heart… Or do you want to die of a heart attack? Just relax.”
“Relax you say?! I won’t relax until I have killed you with my own hands!
“Oh, crap!”
Aeldrya dashed towards me with bloodshot eyes. I had no intention of staying there to see if she planned on making good on her threats, so I ran like I bat out of hell. I left the basement and returned to the upper floor, with Limy chasing closely behind the both of us.
“Stop running!”
“Stop chasing me! Besides, I’m not running, I’m rolling!”
“Like I care!”
“Master, wait for me.”
I dashed through the house, wrecking all kinds of havoc on my way, until I managed to escape through an open window.
‘I better wait for her to calm down….’
But shortly after that, I heard a door being slammed open, and Aeldrya emerging from it having gone berserk. She scanned the streets around her until she finally spotted me, leaving me no choice but to flee once again.
“For how long are you going to keep chasing me?!”
“Until I have turned you into gravel!”
“I’m already Gravel!”
I rolled through the entire town with the erofu and Limy following closely behind me. We ran into a drunkard, who, after seeing us, muttered to himself that it might be time to stop drinking once and for all. Anyway, Aeldrya did not stop yelling for even a second, causing a great ruckus in town. I felt like a certain centipede started whispering to me from its grave: “Now you know how it feels. I hope she kills you!”
This absolutely ridiculous chase went on for a while, until she finally managed to catch up with me, but not before having woken up the entire city…
“There’s no escape for you. I’m going to rip you to shreds and hopefully get rid of that hideous thing in my basement.”
“What in the world is going on here?” The voice of a man interrupted her verbal abuse.
We found ourselves surrounded by 4 well-armed soldiers. They were all staring at the erofu as if she had lost her mind. She looked at the stone she was holding in her hands (me), then back at the soldiers, and so on and so forth for a few times, until she finally realized she was in quite the predicament.
“It’s not what it seems.”
Sure, those were the best words for that moment.
“She was chasing after my master through town, and she wouldn’t stop yelling that she was going to kill him.” Limy intervened
“Who is this master of yours?”
Limy pointed at me. The four soldiers exchanged glances between them, barely able to hold back their laughter.
“Let us walk you home. You'd better stay in there until the effect of whatever you've been drinking wears off.
“Understood…” Aeldrya replied, defeat apparent in her voice.
“Whatever you do in your private life is your business, but dragging a small kid into it is a no-go. I could arrest you for that, you know. If you put up another show like this one again, being arrested is going to be the least of your troubles. “
“Understood…” She repeated, fighting hard to hold back her tears
And just like that, we were escorted back to her place. Rumors spread through town like wildfire, earning Aeldrya the honorable ‘Stone Slayer’ title among the soldiers.
The rumors, as it often happens, started shaping up the story into something outlandish, not that the real story was much better, mind you. Soon enough, people started whispering about “The stone-wielding witch”, a tale about a deranged woman who chased after children with a rock, and after capturing them, she sealed away their souls inside it for all eternity. Fortunately, nobody ever learned about the truth behind that story character… For my part, I wasn’t completely unscathed either…
[Title ‘Wandering stone’ is now at level 3]
[New ability acquired: Impulse (Lvl 1).]
I did level up my ‘Wandering stone’ title, and even learned a whole new skill during the chase, something great! The problem was…
[New title acquired: Troublemaker.]
I really hate titles!
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone