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  Tammy-Underneath Dungeon of Greed

  Tammy tried running from the dark thing that had alighted upon the ziggurat like an eldritch god of old, but something tugged at her mind, pulling her back from the winding tunnels she was rushing towards.

  “Wait, my child, it is I. Your beloved patron” Whispered kindly into her mind from, assumably, the many-eyed horror behind her.

  Tammy turned slowly, eyes wide and slightly averted so she didn’t have to behold all of it at once. “Pondfather?” she whispered. In questioning reverence

  A sigh like the scream of a million damned and tortured souls escaped the eldritch being as its many-limbed form slumped slightly to one side on the ziggurat. Almost in despair. “No, my rather…simple child, I’m the new one. The unknown! Or well, perhaps you should call me by another name, something easier for you and your ilk…”

  Tammy smiled widely. “Yes, my deep-water lord, what do you desire to be known as?”

  The eldritch being frowned as much as it could, meaning its eyes drooped a bit. “Not loving all the water theme comments, but I’ll work with what I’ve got after being stuck down here so long…” Hmm, who was a famed conqueror of this age? Hell, what age is it? The only glimpses I've had of above were when I managed to loosen my bonds enough to interpose a piece of myself into one of Greed's monsters.”

  “Which shouldn’t even be possible, but the system’s grasp on this place is strangely tentative at best for some reason.” It mumbled to itself as an afterthought.

  “Uhh, my lord, it is the third age, and a famous conqueror might be Patrick the Mighty; he sailed the rivers of the vale a hundred years ago under the embrace of the pond father, scouring clean the land.” Tammy excitedly informed him and finally took a few steps closer to the being.

  “Hmm, Patrick… It will do for this new age… still not loving the endless pond associations… Anyway...as my new faithful, there are a lot of things I'm going to need you folks to do!” Then, almost too quietly for Tammy to hear, he added, “If…you can manage it without Jeb ruining everything…”

  Tammy sheepishly rubbed the back of her head; her starfish companions were plopping their way forward towards their dark creator. “Yeahh… That boy means well…He just—yeah, the gods didn’t see fit to give him too much of their grace…”

  Patrick chuffed in amusement. “That is a very delicate way of saying even by mortal standards the man has the intellect of a fruit fly.”

  Egbert—Next to The Cathedral of Contempt

  Egbert zoomed down around the base of the cathedral’s stonework; there currently wasn’t an easy way up, and honestly, he wasn’t feeling the need to add one…at least a free one.

  So he put a few ladders that cost a silver to extend and only went halfway up and then a handful of dispensers full of pitons and rope you could buy when you realized that yes, you will be climbing at least twenty strides of sheer rock face to get to the death cultists' lair. And yes, you will be paying for the privilege.

  He took at least a modicum of pity on whoever would be making the trek and stuffed a half dozen little stashes of coins into the “natural” nooks and crannies of the rock face.

  Can’t give them nothing after all; gotta keep their hopes up that yes, this is totally worth it to risk my life for. If there’s treasure just sitting out here, then what glorious things are there inside! Well, probably mostly death and some overtly dramatic candle flickering, but that’s for them to discover!

  Egbert looked off into the vast unused space in the part of the cavern past the cathedral. Now that he had taken the dividing wall down, it was almost intimidating in how much open space there was. The bit he could see through the gloom was a mostly barren cavern floor with a thin coating of sand-like crushed stone layered across it.

  Here goes nothing! First adventurers, real explorable dungeon floor, here we come. I can see it now. Get blackout drunk at the tavern of greed! Grab a weapon or four and venture into the untamed wilds. Will you find your fortune? Will you gain levels? Who knows, but you can pay for the privilege to find out!

  Egbert did a quick check of the rest of the dungeon before he devoted his focus wholly to his task.

  Things were humming along surprisingly well. A party was scurrying around in the mimic village; they had already bought the BOO be gone pass out of sheer terror, and someone was crying while sorting through a key pile. They started crying harder as the key they were holding hissed violently at them and then dove back into the pile when they dropped it in surprise.

  A brave few villagers were scurrying around in the Loot Bug playground, moving with concerning hasted speed as they dipped, ducked, dodged, and flailed their way after the illusive, angry little sources of wealth. One of them even managed to snag a bug in an impressive dive that became a lot less impressive as they rolled right off the edge into Bully’s domain. A gleefully violent “Huu…huu…” curiously echoed out, followed by screams.

  And in the loot pit room some crazy bastard in a full fireproof suit with a hammer was trying the room on hard mode. He had a hammer in one hand and a shield in the other and hadn’t even managed to make it into the pit yet. He was cursing up a storm as claws sailed into the air and then violently jerked in his direction, powered by goblin engineering and spite.

  "Ahhh, all is as it should be," Egbert thought with no small amount of pride before throwing his viewpoint against his current boundary and showering it with golden coins. He spiraled out and out, flashing over the smooth cavern floors, which gave way to surprising little hills of dirt and a gently pulsing fungal bloom.

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  Ants the size of a man’s fist scurried in and out of the fungus, carrying food back to their nests within the mound. The fungus itself was a bizarre thing; large rainbow-colored clumps grew like coral in utterly random lines and clumps. Shelves of mushrooms and other deep cave growth sprouted from it.

  And what had to be the most evil anteaters Egbert had ever seen in his life stalked around through the chest-high fungus. They were the size of a damned cave bear with ghostly white sightless eyes and tongues that groped around a dozen strides away from themselves.

  Egbert watched as one unfortunate ant fell from a patch of fungus, and the hulking anteater lashed out with deceptive speed, whirling its head around and snapping its tongue with a whipcrack that obliterated more of the ant than it actually managed to reel back in.

  Well, that just seems inefficient…

  Egbert kept pushing forward; his coins were starting to dwindle, and he wanted to at least save some for some more improvements. He paused after another stride when a system message popped into his vision.

  [Dungeon Core Advancement Available]

  [Milestone Reached: Gold Spent 100/100]

  Haha, that one came awful fast. It turns out introducing small towns to the glory of zip-dust and gambling is the path to success!

  Egbert paused and opened his dungeon advancement options. Just like last time, he got to pick one for free, and the rest would get added to his store at a ridiculous sum. Although fifty platinum was just five hundred gold pieces, which was starting to seem a whole lot less unachievable after the last few days.

  Gods, once I really get rolling and land enough whales, I might be scraping in over a hundred gold coins a day! Now, now, Egbert, don’t get ahead of yourself; there’s only so much a small local economy can support… Hmm, really going to have to consider bolstering the local town at some point. A small city might suit my needs better eventually. Back to the conversations I had with Max... Dungeons can own property, right?

  Egbert shook himself out of one of his endless and concerningly frequent musings and back to the freaking milestone options flashing before him.

  [All options are subject to immediate balancing adjustments by the system.]

  [All unselected options will be added to the store at an appropriate price point.]

  [Choose 1]

  *[Bet] [Store Price 100 Platinum]

  So I am a big fan of when drunk people lay down life and limb to do something incredibly stupid for sheer entertainment value. This lets people make magically fucking enforced bets in the dungeon. “Bet I can tag contempt and survive,” then “Brah, no way, I’d bet ten gold on it!” Boom, the contract is made. Now the drunken blowhards have to figure out if they really do want to try and tag contempt, or else they get their coins yoinked and passed to the other better. The important part of this is that you get a flat ten percent fee of every bet enacted within the dungeon.

  Oh dammit… I’m upset at how much I want that one because honestly it would be hilarious, and I’m certain with the right whispered word here and there I could cause some gloriously amusing chaos. Jeb in the whirlpool, anyone? But it probably wouldn’t actually help me that much…other than making my now interminable, seemingly infinite life slightly more fun.

  Okay, that’s solidly going in the maybe pile. I want gold, but I might want to not go insane slightly more… Probably not…But let's not count it out yet.

  [Room Rules] [Store Price 100 Platinum]

  Allows you to lay conditional rules over an area of the dungeon, such as no jumping, or "Holy shit, Ben, stop using that overpowered wand." When the rules are broken, gold is deducted from the participating individuals' purses and added to your loving embrace. If there is no gold to be taken, it causes agonizing necrotic damage. Rules must be blatantly posted. Sorry the system made me add this bit even it immediately realized you would just blanket the whole dungeon in vague rules that robbed everyone blind.

  See, now this is the kind of thing that I dreamed about having back when I was more classically alive. Immediate punitive effects that took place when people broke the wonderful laws that bind the societal construct of civilization together. Would have screwed with those dishonest dickheads in the bridge expense department something fierce.

  But on a now note, this would be great for letting me close loopholes in rooms. Like when people who can fly eventually try the loot pit. OR whatever the hell seamstresses were doing counts as. And if they want to pay me to win by cheating…well, I suppose I could allow it.

  [Get Back Here] [Store Price 100 Platinum]

  Whenever adventurers enter our halls, they know that if things go tits up or get too expensive, they can just flee. Well, with this now they can’t. dimensionally binds a delver to a room or area they enter until either the challenge is beaten or they run out of gold. Then blessedly releases them back into the wild so they can procreate and/or accrue more coinage to bring back.

  What the hell is with that description…? Yes, we want them to come back alive and with money… I don’t think I’ve killed enough of the locals to even need to start worrying about making sure they don’t go extinct…as an option it’s fine… But I would have to be sparing in using it, or I think people would just start bringing less gold into the dungeon because they were afraid they would walk into the wrong challenge room and lose it all.

  That is the goal, but...like, I don’t want them to know that. It works much better if it's all their choice to keep throwing those coins into my slots. Then they can be mad at themselves instead of me!

  [Money Lure]

  Attract any nearby creatures whose bodies or materials hold a vast monetary value. Want some gold-barked, emerald-leaved tree-ents to wander in and set up shop. Or heck, how about some actual golden egg-laying geese? These are all very real possibilities. Note…dragons very much count, so, uhh, purchase with caution?

  No good gods, no...the last thing I need right now is to add a damned dragon to the boiling pot of conflict that I've been somehow brewing!

  It's not a terribly hard choice, as much as I eventually do want Bet, and honestly, I probably will get money lure too once contempt finally gets strong enough that he can deal with any wayward dragons. The one that holds the most value for now is easily room rules.

  Egbert selected it and felt a wonderful sense of control flicker across his domain. The threads of petty rules and the monetary consequences therein fell across the dungeon. He felt the surge of power just like when an HOA president is first elected in the village. Ha, wonderful… First damned rule NO MAGIC MISSILE WANDS. The dungeon pulsed as the rule settled across it. Egbert could tell it didn’t cover the whole dungeon, but he at least got the battlefield and the upper floor with it.

  [Rule Installed]

  NO MAGIC MISSILE WANDS.

  Use of a magic missile wand incurs a 1 silver piece penalty per missile.

  Hah, suck it, Ben. Alright, where are we at now? Did the system finally finish trying to sort out my magnanimous stat sheet?

  [Greed]

  [Threat: High Chance Of Addiction, Low Chance Of Death]

  [Wealth: Successful Local Business]

  [Influence: Local Commerce Focal Point]

  [Store Progress] [Halted] [Erased Recodification in Progress]

  *Under full revision due to complaints and seemingly arbitrary revisions to categories and items contained within. [[System note]] Greed has been advancing at a rate that is far in excess of projected metrics. Odds of spiraling consequences to global stability: Very High. This had gotten worse since we started revisions. Revisioning harder.

  [Gold Spent 100] [Milestones 2]

  [Next Milestone: 100/500 Gold]

  [Notable Features]

  [Multiple Divine Aspirants]

  [Abnormally Hostile Loot Items]

  [Active War With Ulfric’s Academy]

  [30 Percent Chance Of Sterilization Via Blunt Force Trauma]

  [Kills 38]

  Horde: [Copper 1] [Silver 2] [Gold 11] [Platinum 1]