The heavy, metallic scrape of the Iron Sentinels shifting their massive weight echoed through the antechamber. Their glowing blue eye-slits remained fixed on Kaelen, awaiting the command of their new, three-foot-long serpentine master.
Kaelen didn't immediately order them to charge. Sending two Level 35 constructs to the upper floors would certainly annihilate the human intruders, but it would be a waste of resources and potentially collapse the fragile upper tunnels. Besides, Kaelen was a tactician. Brute force was the tool of a barbarian; control was the weapon of a king.
He rested his snout against the warm, golden-green facet of the Dungeon Core.
"Show me my domain," Kaelen hissed.
The System responded instantly, flooding his mind with a three-dimensional, holographic map of the Sunken Vaults. He could feel every cracked flagstone, every damp wall, and every pocket of ambient mana.
[Dungeon Status Window]
Name: The Sunken Vaults of Aurelia
Grade: Cataclysm (Currently Depleted/Dormant)
Dungeon Points (DP): 500 (Generated passively from Core)
Available Traps: [Pitfall], [Poison Dart], [Shifting Wall], [Mana Siphon Ward]
Available Summons (Tier 0-1): [Cave Rat - 10 DP], [Shadow Bat - 15 DP], [Lesser Slime - 20 DP]
Kaelen shifted his focus to Sector 1, the upper caverns. Through the magical network of the dungeon, he projected his senses into the bioluminescent moss clinging to the ceiling of the entrance hall.
Below him, four humans advanced with practiced caution.
Leading the pack was a Rogue, clad in dark, oiled leather, his eyes scanning the floor for pressure plates. Behind him marched a Warrior in heavy steel plate, a broadsword resting on his shoulder. Taking up the rear were the fragile magic casters: a Cleric holding a glowing sun-pendant, and a Mage in deep blue robes, staff at the ready.
[Intruder Levels: Average Lv. 12]
Level 12, Kaelen calculated. A coordinated team. The Warrior serves as the anvil, the Mage as the hammer, the Cleric as the safety net, and the Rogue as the eyes. A standard, effective formation.
In his past life, Kaelen had studied the after-action reports of Aethelgard's monster-hunting guilds. He knew exactly how human adventurers thought. They expected mindless monsters. They expected traps placed at random or at obvious chokepoints.
They did not expect a dungeon with the mind of a prince.
"If you want to break an army," Kaelen mused, his copper-threaded tail tapping thoughtfully against the obsidian pedestal, "you sever their supply lines. If you want to break an adventuring party... you take away their eyes."
He brought up the Dungeon Menu and began spending his DP.
[Purchased: Shifting Wall Trap (200 DP)] [Purchased: 5x Shadow Bats (75 DP)] [Remaining DP: 225]
Through the dungeon's map, Kaelen selected a narrow, curving corridor the party was about to enter. He didn't place the trigger plate in the center of the floor where the Rogue was looking. Instead, he placed it on a slightly raised stone tile near the wall—the exact place a cautious Rogue would step to avoid the center of the hallway.
Then, he deployed the bats in the cavern just ahead of the corridor.
Down in Sector 1, the human party halted. The Rogue held up a fist.
"Hold," the Rogue whispered, his voice carrying up to Kaelen's moss-bound senses. "The air is stale here. Could be an ambush point."
"Just keep moving, Elian," the Warrior grunted, shifting his heavy armor. "This place has been abandoned for centuries. The core is probably ripe for the taking."
Suddenly, a cacophony of high-pitched shrieks echoed from the darkness ahead. Kaelen's five Shadow Bats swooped down from the stalactites, diving directly at the Cleric and the Mage.
"Bats! Defend the casters!" the Warrior bellowed, swinging his broadsword in a wide, clumsy arc. The Mage began chanting, a spark of fire illuminating his palms.
The Rogue, reacting with honed instincts, backpedaled away from the chaos to gain a vantage point for his throwing knives. He hugged the right wall, stepping carefully onto the slightly raised stone tile to avoid the main path.
Click.
The sound was impossibly soft, but to Kaelen, it was a symphony.
[Trap Triggered: Shifting Wall]
The dungeon ground its stone teeth. With a violent, deafening rumble, a massive slab of solid black marble dropped from the ceiling, slamming into the floor directly between the Rogue and the rest of his party.
Dust billowed into the air. The shouts of the Warrior and the Cleric were instantly muffled behind three feet of enchanted stone.
The Rogue coughed, waving the dust from his face. He spun around, his daggers drawn, realizing with dawning horror that he was completely cut off from his healer and his tank. He was alone in the dark.
And Kaelen wasn't finished.
"Let's see how well you see in the dark without your Mage's fire," Kaelen hissed.
He spent another 100 DP.
[Purchased: Mana Siphon Ward (100 DP)]
A faint red glow emanated from the floor beneath the Rogue. Immediately, the bioluminescent blue moss in that section of the corridor withered and died, plunging the trapped Rogue into absolute, suffocating pitch-blackness.
From his throne room deep below, Kaelen uncoiled from the Dungeon Core. He had separated the prey. Now, it was time for the Master of the Sunken Vaults to hunt.