The first floors of a dungeon most of the time are related to the surrounding environment when it first appeared. Naturally when the Whistleton Dungeon appeared in the city’s largest park it reflected how unclean and disgusting the city was by making its first 20 floors all sewer themed. Which did not help the city’s cleanliness problems as dirty poor adventurers would go explore the dungeon for riches and get grosser and smellier.
The only good thing about the situation was that the city of Whisleton didn’t need a sewer system or even take care of one. But what the nobility of Whistleton did not know was that all the trash and waste they are feeding to the dungeon has been affecting the monster population inside the dungeon in horrible ways. The tale soon to be told is one about the monstrosities of humanity's own greedy laziness and the monster born from it.
Skitter Nail scratched at his ear trying to get the annoying voice out of its head while trying not to be left behind by the rest of the pack. Skitter Nail did not like being with other rats because they make him go crazy, but he also knows a rat like him can’t survive without being in a pack with how everything here in the upper waste tunnels is stronger than a simple rat monster. Speaking of other monsters as Skitter Nail’s pack rounded a corner, a sludge dripper crawled its way out of the waste river.
The trash covered dog sized lizard slowly dragged itself along the floor while doing what it’s named after making its way towards the rat pack. Skitter Nail and the rest of the pack instinctively started running directly at the lizard that was five times their size with no care for their well being or survivability of this fight. Seeing the small rodents running at it with no desire to run away, the sludge dripper dropped to the floor getting ready to pounce whichever rat gets to it first.
At the front of the pack was Scar Tail, the alpha of the pack since she was a level 2 rat instead of level 1 like the rest, but that did not help her when the sludge dripper leaped at her and tarred her head off in a brutal death roll. Then two more rats jumped to their death by biting at the feet of the scaly beast doing some damage before the dripper noticed that something was actually hurting it and quickly ended them by shredding them to ribbons with its razor claws. This enraged more of the rats as three jumped onto the dripper’s face and started trying to claw at the heavily scaled face with barely any success to the suicidal rodents revenge.
This luckily distracted the lizard long enough for the rest of the pack to jump onto the creature's wide trash covered back which they needed to hold onto tightly due to how slippery the slimy waste was. This worked out really well as the sludge dripper couldn’t reach them on its back, but the large lizard wasn’t all that stupid as it began doing another death roll which either throwed some rats off its back or they got crushed by its body. The only one who wasn’t injured was Skitter Nail since he hadn’t even got to the fight yet and so he used this to his advantage as it seemed that the fat lizard was distracted and so he slowly sneaked to the dripper but he was not aiming for its head or back.
The sludge dripper watched as the weak rats got up from the floor after being thrown and it was wondering which one it should eat first, but before it could continue that thought a horrible pain came from its underside. Skitter Nail tarred into the lizard's soft belly with the ferocity only a rat like him could, the rubbery flesh of the sludge dripper was funneled into his stomach with no worry of choking. Even after Skitter Nail felt that he had leveled up confirming that it was dead he did not stop eating since he had never in his life eaten so much meat other than when he ate his spawning sac.
Only when there were bones, hard scales, and sludge left is when Skitter Nail stopped his feast that had to be multiple times his size and finally noticed that he actually leveled up from the fight. The excited Skitter Nail opened his status screen to see the changes to his stats and see what class he got.
[Status]
[Stats & Class]
Name: Skitter Nail
Race: Rat
Race Level: 1 > 2
Class: None > Mage
Class Level: 0
Hp: 10/10
Sp: 10/15
Mp: 2/2
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 3
Vitality: 1
Fortitude: 2
Will: 1
Intelligence: 2 + 2
Wisdom: 1 + 2
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Perception: 2 + 1
Unassigned Stats: 0 + 1
[Skills & Titles]
[Mana Bolt Lv 0] NEW
[Mana Control Lv 0] NEW
[Gene Tree]
[No Mutations Found]
Unassigned DNA: 0 + 1
With Skitter Nail opening his status all of the stat changes got confirmed and added to his actual body and he could instantly feel the change as he felt like his thoughts were more clear and he thinks he can actually recall things that happened more than a couple hours ago. Even though his mind had increased greatly due to the level he still did understand what his class actually was, luckily he has a spare unassigned stat point that he could and will add to his intelligence.
Intelligence: 4 + 1
Unassigned Stats: 1 -1
With his intelligence being increased again and by 25%, Skitter Nail actually knew how big a 25% increase actually is to his intelligence. But even with the increase to intelligence he still didn’t fully know what a mage was, only knowing that it was something to do with magic? Skitter Nail only needed one more boost to his intelligence to figure it out, the thing is he actually knew how he could get that boost.
Unassigned DNA: 1 - 1
[Gained Mutation]
[Cruel Cunning] (+1 Intelligence)
Intelligence: 5 + 1
With that final jump of intelligence Skitter Nail finally knew that his class was made to fling magic at enemies and that would kill them if done enough. Skitter Nail now really wanted to test out its new class given skills, but the only thing living around here were ra– -. Skitter Nail dashed out of the ribcage he was sitting inside and quickly found one of his old packmates, he didn’t even remember their name before he was already trying to see how to activate mana bolt.
From somewhere in Skitter Nail’s body a tingly heat coursed through veins that did and didn’t exist, the energy gathered in his mouth and like a living bug hopping inside his mouth the instant he even slightly opened it the energy launched out in the shape of a small nail sized ball. The mana bolt hit the rat not really piercing the skin but launching it into the brick wall behind it with enough force to break the rat's little bones which was evident with how loud the thing was crying. Skitter Nail hurriedly ran over to the rat to see its conditions, to put it simply the rat was dying as bones stuck out of its legs and its lungs must have been stabbed because it was coughing up blood.
Even though Skitter Nail didn’t like other rats at all he still did not like seeing one slowly dying and so he chose to end its suffering that he caused by shooting a point blank mana bolt to the head. The bolt did piece the skin this time and it also crushed the rat’s skull against the floor, but Skitter Nail didn’t get another level this time and now thinking about it he remembered killing a bunch of things before and not getting a level from that. Maybe it is not that he needed to kill one thing to get a level but needed to kill more and stronger things to get levels?
If that was true than Skitter Nail needed more things to kill, luckily for him there are a bunch of injured rats that can’t run from him. He ran over to the rats and started to kill them and he noticed a few things like 1; it takes two mana bolts to kill an already injured rat and 2; after four more mana bolts his head started aching and he couldn’t shoot anymore mana bolts. When Skitter Nail looked at his status he saw that his mp bar was empty and he felt like it would take some time for it to refill.
But that didn’t stop him since he still had his little clawed hands that can still kill the weakened rats around him. Even after killing the rest of the rats Skitter Nail still did not get a level, but it did feel like he was slightly closer to a level up then he was before killing them. Killing the rest of the rats from his pack took about five minutes and in that time his mp did raise by two points and he felt like it would raise by another point soon.
Skitter Nail started to walk away from the rat massacre, but he started to notice how frightening these brick layered tunnels are when you are by yourself. Rusted pipes leaking dirty water and sludge, piles of trash that shifted from swarms of bugs, the eyes of other rats watching him after he killed his pack not daring to go near him, and the darkness and shadows that seemed to dance to a distant heartbeat. Even the energy that he can now slightly sense in the air seems choked or chained to the darkness hiding from the odd tube on the ceiling that glowed with a nervous flicker.
But all this fear did not stop Skitter Nail as he walked down the dark path that he called home because even though fear is a common feeling down here and disaster could be around the corner. There is nothing you can get from falling into despair other than death and he is not going to die without a fight because now he has magic. So monsters prepare to be scared because a new monster has been born and he can do cool magic things and he isn’t afraid if you are bigger then him since most things already are bigger then him.
A couple of days before elsewhere a meeting has begun inside of Whistleton’s Adventurers Guild HQ about how the behaviors of the dungeon monsters have changed. “Monsters hunting monsters is unheard of inside of dungeons, the dungeon should be regulating the monsters behaviors and make the only attack the delvers.” A large armored man was yelling at a much smaller podge man who was wearing elegant clothes.
“Why is this a bad thing? Doesn’t that make it easier for the delvers to find riches if the monsters are fighting each other.” The small man was rubbing his elegant mustache thinking about the profits he could make with this new information. “If anything it sounds like a good thing!”
“You fool!” the Armored man slammed his hands onto the large stone table making it crack. “If the monsters are hunting each other then if a monster kills enough it could pass the floor's level limit which could kill many of the beginner delvers.” By now he had calmed down but the next thing he said made the smaller man go pale. “For all we know that might not be the only thing the dungeon can’t control anymore and for all we know this might be the signs that there could be a dungeon breakout, but we don’t have any records of what happened before the last dungeon breakout happened since there is nothing left of the city it happened in.” The large man got out of his seat walking towards the door. “That is why I asked for a visit from the Guild Master.”
I want you my good readers to help make little Skitter Nail a Friend to help him out on his journey! they will also be min maxing so you get to not only choose what kind of monster they are but also what stat they will be focusing on.
