King of the Mountain

Chapter 48: My Plans Never Work

It has been 3 months. 3 months and I still have not made it to the Amazon rainforest. Not every dungeon is created equal and some of them are definitely harder than others. I forgot that the Lvl indicator is just a recommendation and not a hard and fast rule. Everything started out roses and sunshine. The Taj Mahal dungeon was oversized “normal” animals like 10 foot tall tigers, but other than size nothing really special. The end boss was a winged tiger but with 4 dragons and my blink ability his being able to fly did not help him at all. The golem dungeons however were brutal.

I guess I just assumed that since I did so well against the golems way back in the beta test that these would be a piece of cake. I was wrong. A true golem that does not die conveniently from a riddle being solved and is much harder to deal with. Each type of golem has a specific type of magic that hurts them the most and sometimes they are impervious or very close to it when it comes to magic. Then you have to destroy them physically. With my stats it should have been easy, but since this was the first time I encountered many of these golems I had to figure out their weaknesses while myself and my team was getting thrashed. It was a painful learning experience.

I gained 4 levels, Walter gained 6 levels and the kids are all in the 90’s now. I have high hopes that the Mount Everest dungeon will put them over the level 100 threshold. I think that they might gain the ability to transform or talk. Either one would be excellent and help out. I am starting to run into a problem with the kids. They are all over 9 meters long and 2-3 meters tall when on all fours. They are starting to have a hard time fitting into many of the dungeons. Most of the dungeons we have gone into are underground or at least enclosed in buildings. With their size there have been a couple times where I had to store them in my inventory and bring them back out in larger caverns. This has slowed their progress down immensely the last couple of weeks as they only get experience when they are out and present with me.

Come to think of it, when I checked the Himalayan dungeon it was a combination of outside on the mountain and inside ice caves dungeon. I think I will just skip to the Amazon to get the experience until they get past level 100 and find out if they will gain size control. I will come back and try the Mount Everest Dungeon in the future. It is definitely not going anywhere and it will be a while before anyone else hits a level or has the ability to reach it so I should still get the first clear bonuses even if I put it off for a while.

I teleport to the area selected for the forward Amazon Field Dungeon base. I will spend today and tomorrow with Walter’s help to create some basic fortifications, walls and buildings using Earth magic. The kids can hunt around the area while we work. When the work is done we can have, one good night’s rest and then start on the large Amazon dungeon. Before I enter into the dungeon I better check up on everything. I am going to use the communication crystal to contact Jacob and check in. I decided not to bother Randolph this time for two reasons. I always seem to default to him and I would like another viewpoint and I would like Jacob to prepare a celebration for the final Great Game integration. It seems like a funny thing to celebrate, but the celebration might help with morale and help some people realize that things are never going to be the same.

“Jacob.”

“Yes my king”

“Is there anything pressing I need to know before I give you my update?”

“No sire, everything is running smoothly. There is a possibility that the council might want to contact you soon about trying to send out a delegation to talk to and negotiate with the two northern groups.”

“That’s fine, they know how to get a hold of me. I am about to start my exploration of the Amazon Field Dungeon. I will be building a rough staging area with Earth magic. Please let the council know that they should avoid sending anyone until I give the all clear.”

“Very well my lord, is there anything else?”

“Actually yes, I want you to prepare or arrange a festival to acknowledge the final change over on the Summer Solstice. We will finally be fully integrated into the Great Game and I want people to have a positive memory associated with it instead of being depressed and remembering the hard transition we have had so far. I want there to be a memorial to those who have fallen. Hire someone to create a statue to memorialize those that did not make it. I want it tasteful not gaudy. I will cover the expenses up to 100,000 gold pieces for basic needs for the festival and a separate 10,000 gold coins for the statue.”

“Excellent, my lord I will get on that right away.”

“Fantastic Jacob, please remind my daughter to message me when she gets done with each dungeon, I would like to keep up with her progress.”

“I will remind Nicole when she returns sire.”

“Thanks Jacob, I will talk to you soon, signing off.”

After two days of work the outpost I thought looked pretty good.

“Walter, what do you think? Do we need to add anything else?”

“No master, this is much better than what I was imagining.”

We had cleared an area of about 200 meters square in the jungle and then raised stone walls 25 meters high and 5 meters thick around the entire thing. There is only one entrance through the wall. We placed a meter thick section of stone in the middle of this entrance that any Earth mage can remove when they are ready to build an actual gate. It is just there right now to keep animals and smaller monsters out. There were several 3 floor square buildings also constructed from stone scattered around the walls as housing areas. Finally, with Walter’s help I was able to construct a 75 meter tall tower in the center. It is nothing fancy with just a ramp continually spiraling up the middle and a few break alcoves on the way up. It is just meant as a watch tower and is between 5 and 10 meters taller than even the tallest surrounding trees to allow long distance viewing. With this all completed we can finally start on the Amazon Field Dungeon in the morning.

In the morning surrounded by the dragons and with Walter trundling behind me I cross the threshold of the Amazon field dungeon and see this message.

Welcome to the Amazon Field Dungeon. The core section is rated at Level 200. Experience and rewards will only be calculated after 12 hours of non-combat once you have left the Field Dungeon. Please enjoy your stay!

Finally, a message that seemed to convey all of the information I needed. Short, sweet, and to the point. I wish more of the Great Game messages were like that. My party and I walked further into the rainforest and tried to watch all directions at once. One thing I had underestimated was how hard it was to keep an eye in every direction including up, because the canopy could support some seriously deadly monsters. Luckily I felt I could trust my group implicitly so we divided up responsibilities.

I scanned forward, Bruce had the right side, Elvira had the left side, Azure watched the canopy and Walter watched the rear. Esmerelda would rotate in when somebody needed a break. This seemed like a good division of labor and should be easily able to sustain for a long time. We proceeded into the forest listening to the sounds and trying to identify any threats.

After ½ an hour I called a quick break. As we circled up for the break I realized an important fact that I had forgotten to take into consideration. We were lost. As I looked at our back trail I saw that the trail we had blazed through the jungle was visibly growing back. It looks like we will have to find a better way to navigate. I can always teleport us out of the dungeon when we want, but ordinary adventurers and guards may not have that option. Maybe if we put up stone markers? Would they be overgrown? Would the dungeon even allow them to remain once I left the area or dungeon? There are too many questions and not enough answers. Well I can test some of them right now. I tell everyone that our break is going to be longer than I first thought. I explain my thinking.

“Ok team listen up this is what we are going to do. Dragons you are in charge of knocking down and clearing an area about 20 meters across. Walter, you and I are going to use Earth Magic to raise a hollow tube of stone above the canopy. Let’s make the walls about one meter thick and just have a simple stone ladder built into the hollow middle. This will allow lost people to climb up and check on any towers we will set up.”

“Yes Master I can help you with that.”

“Excellent, Walter do you think we can color it?”

“What do you mean master?”

“Is there a way we can use the Earth magic to color the towers differently so people will know that they are in the blue section, red section, or green section for example?”

“Well master we can extract certain minerals from the soil and stone and make sure that they are on the surface which should provide the colors you want. I do not know what is available in this area we will have to bring up the stone to find out.”

“Ok Walter let’s get to it. Dragons start clearing the area please.”

The next two hours are spent setting up the tower like I imagined. Walter and I decided on making this section of towers blue. We used the mineral azurite to tint the surface. This should stand out among the green of the jungle. When we finish I ask Walter a question.

“Walter do you know why we have seen very little in the way of monsters? After this much time and travel we are usually swamped by something.”

“Yes master, this is a field dungeon. Since monsters can move freely from layer to layer they do not attack travelers except when commanded by higher level monsters or when they feel they have a good chance of winning. In regular dungeons, everything is programmed to attack no matter what.”

“Wow you sure know a lot about dungeons.”

“Remember master I am a spirit of an area that was made into a dungeon. I was given this information when I was reformed by the Great Game. I know a lot of general information about dungeons, but nothing specific.”

“That’s fantastic, if you notice me making a mistake that would be bad for us in a dungeon due to your knowledge please speak up and let me know.”

“Yes master, your safety is my primary concern.”

“Alright, everyone we have a new strategy and purpose for a while. We are going to continue wandering around and setting up towers in the lower leveled are first. I want about 5 towers in each level. I think we can easily do two a day and one every third day with a ½ day rest, before moving into a higher zone.”

The next few days are spent doing just that. We set up 5 blue towers of azurite in the entry zone. When we moved into the next zone, we finally started getting attacked on a semi-regular basis. We set up 5 yellow towers with the mineral wulfenite on the outside of them in the next zone. The third zone we went with five orange towers with a surface covered in crocoite. In this zone we started seeing level 100-125 monsters and were attacked almost constantly. It took us 1 day per tower in this zone. Either the group would protect me and I would raise the tower or we would protect Walter while he raised it. I made an executive decision after the last tower was raised to leave the area and teleport back to the staging area we had created. After we had a full day’s rest, received our rewards and resupplied we would continue onto the next zone. I was not sure if there would be just one more zone in the middle to high 100 levels followed by the boss or if it would split it up. As always I would just have to find out.