New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 63 Development of the dungeon

"Master??"

Hearing the smooth immature voices, Five quickly got himself together and coughed embarrassingly. The 3 harpies were looking at him in a strange way; this was normal since he had been absently staring at them for an unknown amount of time.

"Cough Cough! Hello" said Five as he observed the harpies' reaction.

"Do you know why you are here?" asked Five as the harpies were staying silent.

"Yes! We are here to protect the dungeon!" said the red-haired harpy. The silver-haired one silently nodded while the one looking like Harriet smiled and added, "And you are the dungeon master we need to serve?"

Five nodded, "Yes, you can call me Five! May I know your names? It will be easier to talk this way!"

"A name?" murmured the red-haired harpy. "I don't remember my name! I know I had one, but I forgot..."

"It is the same for me, I am trying to remember but I simply can't! Why don't you just give us new names? I think it is the custom for dungeons..." said the one looking like Harriet while the silver-haired harpy was still just silently nodding.

"Give names? I am terrible at naming!"

"It should at least be better than calling us by 'You' every time or even call us Harpy 1, Harpy 2,..."

Facing the request of the 3 harpies looking at him with expectation, Five did not have the heart to refuse them. "Alright! But don't blame me for getting horrible names!" said Five.

He then turned towards the silent silver-haired harpy, "You... I will call you Angela!" said Five as he continued in his mind, "because you look just like an angel!"

The silver-haired harpy blinked her beautiful eyes before letting out a faint smile. For the first time, she timidly opened her mouth, "then, my name is Angela!"

Seeing her satisfied expression, Five then turned to the red-haired harpy, "mmm, your name shall be Alice!", 'because you remind me of someone...'. Without waiting for her reaction, he then looked at the remaining harpy.

"And you..." Five suddenly stopped himself. He was instinctively going to say "Harriet" but fortunately, he stopped himself in time. "Ariel! We will call you Ariel from now on!"

"mmm these are good names... Why were you saying you were bad at naming?" asked Ariel with a confused look.

"Well... Anyway, since you are here, let me show you around the dungeon!"

...

The arrival of the 3 harpies to the dungeon was followed by a long peaceful period of two weeks. During the first week, the barbarians were content with mining the first floor. All Five had to do was to spend some DP to replenish the ores. During that period, he was making huge profits and did not mind making the barbarians happy by increasing the ores they would find; as long as they were motivated, then he would also benefit from it.

Instead, Five's troubles came from the side of the harpies; dealing with the undead who had absolutely no wants was easy, but it was a totally different case for living beings. While Angela was very quiet in his presence and only opened up when she was alone with her sisters, Alice was the exact opposite. The second she saw that the dungeon was full of undead monsters, she started complaining.

Apart from that, she also pestered Five to change the decoration of her room. Naturally, she said it in a playful and joking way but it was still annoying. Five was no pushover. He ignored her comments but that was until she went into what Five described as her cute puppy mode.

Seeing that Five would not change anything, she completely changed her attitude and appeared as a pitiful and sad harpy, feeling constantly ostracised by the undead. When she was in that mode, Five felt that it was even harder to reason with her. In the end, Ariel mediated the case and Five promised to give the Harpies 100 DP every day each to spend as they wished.

Having won the battle, Alice immediately went back to normal and slowly, all the harpies started customizing their rooms. 300 DP per day was not much to Five, especially since the barbarians were a being a great source of DP at the moment.

After the period of familiarising themselves with their new environment, the harpies started to feel restless. They were bored since there was nothing to do. Five spent a lot of time with them, reminding himself of his first week when he joined the game. He told stories about himself and of Earth, while the harpies would try to recall their own life and would share some anecdotes. However, despite that, the harpies still needed to vent their energy.

And so, Five allowed the harpies to leave the dungeon under the cover of the night. He gave them a lot of freedom and after the harpies went out for the first time, Alice strangely became more docile. She still displayed her fiery temper but it was clearly toned done by a notch. Ariel did not change much but Angela seemed to make more efforts in communicating in Five's presence; she would sometimes utter a few words before returning to her usual silent self.

The harpies were each different and had their own temper but Five enjoyed the time spent with them. After all, it was much better than spending time staring at the interface as he could not communicate with undead monsters. Dreidus also sometimes joined the conversations but he usually kept to himself.

After a week, all the harpies already leveled up to level 21, a bit more and they would already reach level 22. It seemed that summoning them early was indeed the right choice.

With the harpies, Lumen felt restless and started to seek more attention from Five. As a result, Five ended up buying more fireflies and released them in the graveyard. The fireflies actually fitted in quite well and turned out to be a great addition. After a few days, Lumen quickly familiarised itself with the harpies and would now spend some time playing with Ariel.

Apart from spending time with the harpies, Five also worked on developing the dungeon. He started by improving the second floor by adding 2 new monsters.

The first monster was a level 13 Shade. Just like spectral hounds, they also had 2 forms. They physically looked like a black puddle of water but as a living thing would get close to it, it would transform into a huge shadow and attack the invader.

A few Shades were added to the labyrinth. That monster would only be effective during the first encounter; as soon as the players would understand that the black puddles were monsters, they would be more careful when approaching them. The black puddles were very visible with the pale brown background but considering that it was his first floor with monsters, Five decided to leave it like that.

The other monster he added was a level 15 mimic. They physically looked like treasure chests full of loot, waiting to be picked. But as a player would get close to it, the mimic would reveal its teeth and attack!

To add to the illusion, Five also added a few genuine treasure chests to the labyrinth containing a few Grade 1 equipment. They were mostly placed near dead ends and in the secret room! After a whole week of accumulation, Five decided to add a secret room at one of the dead ends of the labyrinth. As long as the player would simply touch the wall at the end, the secret room would be revealed!

With these additions, he felt that the labyrinth was mostly complete. He could still add other physical traps but it was better to keep it easy to not discourage the players when they would come.

Apart from improving the labyrinth, a new floor was also added and was swapped with the one dedicated to the accommodation. The new floor, the 4th one, was made into a large grassy plain. Although it was a plain, Five made the cave, 10m high to allow the harpies to play there; it was not the floor where he would use the harpies but for now, it would do. The same starry sky as the one of the graveyard was also used to hide the ceiling and create a mysterious vibe.

The grassy plain was roamed by level 22 Death Knights. They were essentially skeletons wearing a full heavy armor, riding a skeletal horse. Without the skeletal horse, they might even be mistaken to be normal knights. This was the reason why the harpies agreed to practice there, at least, they did not have the disgusting look of the other undead monsters.

The grassy plain was also where the two Living Corpses were staying at. So far, apart from absorbing some dark energy daily, they did not do much and acted more as emergency reserves.

Apart from the monsters, a few plants and herbs were also scattered over the plains, ready to be collected. Just like ores, they were incentives for people to come on that floor.

Behind the scenes, the secret tunnels and passages were also widened and improved to allow more people to go through at the same time.

Lastly, a few miscellaneous items were also bought like Health Potions, Antidotes and Mana Potions in case of emergency! Five would always carry these with him at all time in his inventory.

After that week, Five already had a reserve of 300000 DP but he was not going to use them right away. He could naturally make more floors and improve the dungeon but it felt unnecessary at the moment. If he bought more monsters, their daily consumption of DP would also increase. He was still getting a good amount of DP from the barbarians, but if they came to change their behavior, his income might be affected.

And so, Five decided to simply start saving his DP for later use while planning his next floors.

As the dungeon was growing, the barbarians were also adapting to their new lifestyle and at the end of the first week, they mustered enough courage to once again head to the second floor.

Chapter end