The Dungeon Without a System

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Unnamed "Lost" Dungeon, Unnamed Island, Kalenic Sea

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I was watching this battle a little anxiously. I literally threw almost a hundred monsters at this party, then with just a few potions they're recharged and ready for the boss fight. Is this the average skill level of adventurers in this world? Or, did they send a tougher group to test me? Again, my severe lack of information is really hurting, here. They do look far more cautious than before, but that could be anything.

With his war cry, Knight rushed in to strike Sebastian. The boss monster blocked the overhead strike with his shield, then bashed the man away. He stumbled back, but didn't fall. With great speed the sword-pincer fell down upon the swordsman, who blocked but was driven to one knee by the force of the strike.

Believing him distracted, several bolts flew from the crossbow carefully aimed at the monster's eyes. With a quick motion the bolts skittered off the shield suddenly in the way. The monster raised his pincer from where it had been pressing down on the swordsman, at the same time bringing his other, shield-like pincer forwards.

Unprepared for the sudden lack of resistance, Knight lurched forwards and found himself on his hands and knees when the shield collided with his side. Though he was surprised, he turned his brief flight into a roll when he landed. Standing up next to Neo he grunted, glaring at the crab who had raised his sword-pincer and clanked it, taunting the man.

"Shell's too tough for normal weapons." He said with a rasp, "Your turn, Layla." She nodded and made a quick hand signal at the other two.

This time, both Knight and Neo advanced, with Neo igniting her Mana-blades. Rogue and Pyro covered their charge, with Rogue shooting out arrows at Sebastian's face, making him keep his shield over his eyes. Pyro however, did something she hadn't yet. With a surge of mana that she formed into a sphere, them somehow ignited, a roiling ball of flame burst into existence over her outstretched palm. A simple overhand throw, gave it direction, if not speed. Yes, the fireball started slowly but it gained momentum almost exponentially.

The fire landed smack in the middle of my monster's shield where it burst and the flames spread across the pincer, sticking like napalm. The boss monster panicked, waving the shield around in an attempt to extinguish the flames. Though, my crabs didn't have nerves that extended through their shells, it was probably surprise more than pain.

When he noticed the two charging humans, I gave him a nudge. Whispering in his mind, I gave the idea to bring mana to the surface of his shield. Imagine a thick layer of shell, an impenetrable extra shell, covering your own. I sent, pushing an image of just that. Obeying with blind loyalty, the crab immediately followed my instructions.

It was here, something completely unexpected happened.

I'd had a thought after seeing Neo's manablades slice through the crabsassins without pause. If mana in the form of a blade can bypass mundane shell, then the only thing which should be able to block it would be more mana. I'd imagined something like a shining barrier appearing over Sebastian's shield. While something did happen, it certainly wasn't what I'd imagined happening.

The mana Sebastian was forming was brought to the surface, where it interacted with the lingering flames from Pyro's spell. In essence, the flames latched onto the mana and started eating it. It wasn't uncontrolled, it didn't start devouring all of my monster's mana, just the stuff he fed it. On the fly, I fed him a new idea.

Flame Cloak.

The flames, now using Sebastian's mana, bowed to his will. The orange flames turned Teal, and spread to cover the shield completely. This all happened in the course of seconds, and Neo had no time to abort her strike. Her manablades skittered off the flaming shield, causing nothing more than surface-level scarring. Neo and Knight both retreated a few yards, watching the shield with wide eyes.

I practically bathed in the sensation of Sebastian's mana converting to fire on his shield. Another thought, another order, and Sebastian pushed mana down his other pincer. A twist and soon the length of his pincer-blade was also burning merrily.

Ha. Haha. Hahah!

Behold! I can now make FIRE!

It was, perhaps, a little draining. I couldn't fill Sebastian's mana reserves with the humans in the room, and if he kept both his sword and shield on fire it'd only last a few minutes before he was out, then he'd be much easier to take down.

Alright. I don't actually want to kill these guys, even if it would help me understand my situation a little more. Let's see if we can scare them off. If one dies, then great. More knowledge for me. But... I don't want to get a reputation for being that dungeon that wants to absolutely murder everyone that tries to enter. If they get too close to my core, well that's a different story.

Main Goal: Scare them off. Subgoals: Kill one of them, show leniency if they try to leave.

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Felin was feeling a little out of his depth. The battle hadn't exactly gone well for him. The crab out-massed him by a significant amount and having two weapons it could rely on definitely gave it the advantage. The first part of their counterattack would be using Layla's manablades to remove one of their enemies pincers, preferably the shield. Then, Teak could get a clear shot at it's eyes and end the fight before one of them got seriously injured.

It was when the remnants Herna's fireball spell turned that ethereal teal color that things went wrong. The flames caused Layla's manablades to skim off. He couldn't even see any damage beyond that ghostly fire. Before they could even come up with a new plan the crab's other pincer burst into flames, running down the sharp edge.

"This is bad, but it's not over" Layla said, taking a deep breath. "That's a spell, yes, it's the monster taking it's own mana and burning it off at the surface. It's extremely taxing to keep up. We just have to wait it out-" Before she could continue, the monster started moving forwards, defying the convention locomotion method of it's species. Each thunk made by it's armored legs sounding like a church bell, tolling their doom.

"Scatter!" Layla shouted. "Divide and Conquer!" They surrounded the crab, each far enough away that the monster would need to turn and commit to fighting them. in turn, they were close enough to provide support and look for weak spots while one of them distracted it.

It's attention was on Layla, who was doing her best to dodge the flaming pincers. Felin scrutinized the monster, looking for any kind of weakness. It's segmented legs had shell grown up to cover the joint, while leaving enough empty space for the leg to move. it certainly did what he was assumed was it's job; making it hard to just cut off it's legs. The same went for where the legs met the body, the grey shell radiating out in a disk just after the start of the leg to cover the soft flesh within.

It's underside was a conventional weakness of bottom-dwelling crustaceans, but from the look of the shell which almost matched the stuff on the top it was already covered. Really, the only obvious weakness he could find was the eyes. Felin grunted and moved in, sword about to swing at a joint. He really hated doing this, it made him feel so weak afterwards.

With an act of will, the small amount of mana Felin kept in his core burned down his arms and into the blade in his hands. The blue gemstone lit up, followed by lines of power glowing down the blade. Finally, the edge of the blade took on the same blue glow as Layla's mana-blades.

Without resistance, his swing cut straight through one of the monster's eight legs. In the corner of his eye, he caught a blue of motion. He threw himself backwards, rolling into a crouch. Where he had stood moments before, a burning teal pincer was half-buried in the sand. The crab had murder in it's eyes. It stepped forwards to take another swing, but jerked back. Layla had taken another leg. Down two now, the monster retreated, moving to keep all four party members in it's vision.

They didn't let it.

In less than two minutes they'd turned the fight around. The monster had it's back to a wall and had already lost two legs. When the flames on it's pincers petered out and it sagged, Felin could have cheered.

But again, the crab surprised them.

Presumably sensing it's imminent demise, the crab swung it's pincers aggressively, though wary of Layla's blades. Teak narrowly dodged the blade, Felin countered a shield-bash. It's attacks became wilder, more desperate, until finally it threw itself at Herna. Tactically the most sound decision it could make, as her fire hadn't had much effect on it.

The crab literally threw itself bodily at Herna, using it's momentum and mass as a weapon as well as it's enormous pincers. Felin couldn't have gotten there in time, Herna was on the other side of the monster to him. Layla was next to him, with Teak the closest. As he watched, Teak aimed and fired a hail of bolts at the monster's for-once unguarded eyes.

One got through.

With a crash and a scream of terror, Herna was crushed under the mass of the now-dead monster.

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AN: This novel Is free on RoyalRoad and Sufficient Velocity under the name StrangerDanger51. If you are reading this anywhere else, especially if you have to pay for it, know you can find this story there named "The Dungeon Without A System."

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Hail Sebastian the Crab Knight, first of his name! He died a warrior, taking at least one of his enemies with him. Unlike what happened with Kurt and Kale, Sebastian was already dead when Herna was crushed beneath his armored shell. So, without a monster to take half of the mana a dead human gives off, it all rose up into the stream and made it's way down to me. With the death of the Boss, the enchantment took hold and lifted the length of stone preventing the door from being opened. Well, at least that works.

Knight and Rogue pulled Sebastian off of their dead teammate, then took anything of value from her body and burned the remains. They each gave what I assumed was a eulogy as the body burned to ashes. When all that was left was blackened bones, they harvested my boss monster's corpse. His mana core had been massive, the size of a human's closed fist. Neo put it in her pack, then used her blades to cut off the monster's pincers. The shield itself was as wide as Knight was tall, so it wasn't like it would be easy to carry it out.

A quick word had Knight push forward, through the stone doors leading to the staircase. A shout brought Neo and Teak into the room, staring at the mana-water in the stone bowl.

"This... all these carvings and the enchantments... This wasn't the dungeon. Dungeons don't reward people for getting past their monsters. This was probably made by the people who used to live here. The language in these carvings doesn't look like any I recognize either." Neo talked for a bit, then brought out an empty potion bottle and filled it with the water. She watched as the enchantment kicked into gear and the bowl started filling again.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"Felin, take a look at the next room, then come back up. We're leaving." Neo stated, which caused Knight to grunt and carefully shuffle down the stairs. He lit his torch at the bottom and glanced into the dank and 'crumbling' walls of the Flooded Labyrinth. After a few seconds of observation he went back up the stairs.

"More ruins. Looked wet, probably more crabs." He rasped out.

Then they turned, picked up the giant, grey pincers and left.

In a bit of subtle intimidation I made sure they caught glances of orange shell and shifting rocks, but kept them back from attacking. It made them a little paranoid and for the whole trip out they didn't once relax. Though when they passed the final short passage and emerged to see the setting sun, all three settled on the beach for about half an hour. After that they got back into their rowboat and rowed their way back to the ship anchored off the bay.

Meanwhile, in my boss room, the remnants of my crab army surrounded Sebastian. Much like the humans did with their party member, I set him alight with manafire and we held a wake. Once he had burnt to ashes we spread both his and Pyro's ashes around the arena and mixed it into the sand.

Okay. Time to select a new boss. Hmmm. You! Yes, you. The one who killed Kale and Kurt. I think you have the right stuff, kid.

In no time at all, my new boss monster is grey and rocky. I didn't make him as big as Sebastian was, about 2/3rds the size. Otherwise I made sure he had all the same parts and armor. I even made sure to teach him how to use manafire, though I instructed him to attempt to increase his core's size and capacity on his own. I wanted to see how fast it could grow without my intervention. I name you, TamatoaThe Crab Knight.

I selected a new batch of crablings to enhance, raised them into their new roles. I'll also change the name I've given to the smaller version of my boss. The Boss can stay the Crab Knight, but I'll make the smaller versions Squires, the brawlers can stay brawlers,

The next thing I did was enhance Gull. He was still a normal seagull, and that just wouldn't do. Bigger body, bigger wingspan and a razor sharp beak were the highlights. After that, I gave Gull a task to bring me lizards, seeds and eggs from the jungle. As many as he could. We're starting the jungle floor. I'll call it... The Green Hell.

It didn't take long, though I had to make a small, temporary tunnel to let Gull down to the third floor, since the normal path is now flooded.

The first thing he brought me were seeds.

Okay, the first thing we need to do here is give them a place to grow. Assuming they can use mana in the place or normal nutrients and sunlight, all is good. However, if they cant...

I stole a few tons of dirt from the jungle. Just in case.

So, the first hall was about three yards wide and ten yards long, with a high arched roof liberally carved and sculpted. It was leading away from my current core room at the bottom of a second spiral staircase set behind the Queen Bloodfish's arena.

I sprinkled a generous helping of dirt over some thoroughly cracked and broken stone. Along the sides of the hall I planted a couple of seeds, each different so I knew what I was working with.

When given mana infused with growth what sprouted was what I assumed was a normal tree, a vine, a fruiting bush, a kind of grass and two kinds of tropical flowers.

With some specific intent, the tree wilted away. Maybe I could use it in a larger room, but this hallway would do better with the vines.

The vine I placed three of, along each side. I guided their growth to spread and cover the walls, clinging to the cracked bricks I shaped the walls into. The grass I spread across the floor. It was a nice grass, rather than a weed. Long, thin, grew thickly and tall enough to hide someone crouching in it.

The fruiting bush I encouraged to grow as a symbiont to the vine. Rather than a bush, it now grew in a long and spindly fashion, clinging to the thicker and anchored vines. Each plant bloomed into small orange blossoms which themselves gave way to a small, citrus-like fruit. Like a mandarin, but without the separate cloves.

Ideas and themes were rushing through my mind when Gull brought in a small and struggling lizard. It was about the size of a human thumb. If I had a face to grin with, and people could see it, I think they'd call the police.

Oh, yes. Green Hell is the only correct name for the floor.

Then the mana from Pyro finally made it's way into my crystal, having been drifting along the currents through the entire second floor and been sitting in my accretion disk for a good hour. Oh, right. Gimme dat sweet, sweet, knowledge.

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