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  The Dungeon Survival Guide.This is by no means a plete checklist, but it is the bare minimum to be sidered if you wish to survive. This checklist represents the distilled wisdom of the most experienced dungeon delvers ihfinders Guild. The order is not inteo vey aive priority – every single point is critical and will save your life and the lives of your panions – and even following this checklist will not guarantee survival.

  Rule 1: Have an escape pn. Something will always g, make sure you get out.

  Rule 2: Expect the ued.rust a dungeon. Just when you think the dungeon is b or easy, when you finally get pt a yuard down, it will produething so devious and vicious that you will die before even knowing what happened.

  Rule 3: Perception skills.Do not uimate the value of perception skills. At the very minimum, you need mana-sight and an advanced form of Identify. Some form of trap dete aime magical analysis is essential for unexplored dungeons where boss abilities are unknown.

  Rule 4: Preparati the right gear, potions, and equipment – all the gold in the bank is not going to help you if you find yourself with too little armor to tank a hit, or in desperate need of a health potion because your healer got disrupted. Study what is known about the dungeon before entering and have a good pn for each boss. Make sure everybody knows the pn.

  Rule 5: Teamwork.You ot defeat a dungeon solo, don’t even try – what are you going to do if you are a Fire Mage and find yourself fag mohat are immuo fire? How will you defeat a monster with an anti-magic aura? The optimal group is five, and includes a tank, a healer, and a diverse suite of perception, magid martial skills – but much more important is that the group knows how to work together. If the dungeon has raid bosses, bring at least two groups.

  – The Unexplored Lands, by Lyeneru Silverleaf, Elven Pathfinders Guild.

  Ta

  “Wait here,” Ta said, not even cheg to see if he followed her orders before she dodged into the alley and cloaked herself with her magic. Daeron was a self-important mouth-breathing moron, but it would be Kieran Mori he had to ao if he didn’t listen.

  She dodged the bright moonlight oher side of the alley and emerged into the broad street by the south gate and paused to study the se. The gates were shut, and the guards… Are they pying cards in there? She scowled at the backlit shapes visible through the window of the guard house. Supetence.

  That made it easier, though. She stooped and picked up a k of broken cobblestone, hefting it thoughtfully before she tossed it across the way. Her aim erfed the sharp crack of the storiking the wooden d out loudly in the night.

  Shouts and activity erupted within the guard house, but Ta was already on the move, darting from shadow to shadow as she sprinted across the street. By the time the door smmed open, she was already there. With a burst of stamina, she activated Ambush and Mutite simultaneously, burying both daggers in the ter of the man’s back.

  Her chime sounded as her bdes found his heart. Fot your armor, did you?

  Before the sed guard barreled out of the doorway, she used Vanish, drawing the shadows up around her once more. She took a slow breath, and, as soon as the sed guard appeared, she shanked her, slipping one dagger into a kidney and the other through the left side of her ribcage right uhe armpit. The longer bde in her left hand found the heart, triggering critical damage and her Ambush fi off.

  Too easy, she thought, ign the echo of her chime. Reag into her ste, she retrieved two cards with the Silent Assassin’s emblem and carefully set one on each corpse, before she ehe guard house and released the tches. The south gate slowly swung open, revealing the darkness of night beyond.

  “….mmmrrraarg….”

  Warrior – Zombie – level 3-6 x5

  Perfect.

  Ta slipped out auro the alleyway, finding Daeron staring wide-eyed at the zombies shambling into town. Grinning wickedly, she snuck up behind him and announced her preseh a dagger-point to his throat.

  “Waah!” he gasped.

  “Pay attention, unless you wish to die,” she whispered, enjoying the trembling in his legs. “Remember the job – let them kill a few people before yroup takes care of the zombies.”

  He nodded, his throat w as he gulped.

  “Don’t fet to make a noise. Kieran wants witnesses.”

  “Yes, yes, I got it!” he stammered. The gloom failed to hide how green his face looked.

  “Make it happen. And don’t fet your armbands.” Ta used Vanish again a him blinking as his head snapped bad forth ically.

  This should remind the townsfolk why they’re paying their Town Watch dues. Mori would be happy.

  Lightly, she licked her lips. The night had just begun.

  Aliandra

  Ali woke early, and peacefully. She had half expected to be woken in the middle of the night by some monster invading the library from the jungle below, but her barrier across the doorway remained intad had kept them all out. Scrolling through the notifications, it seemed like her traps and Kobold defenders had been w around the clock – at least, the undead quest ter on her ring had ticked up by twenty-three. Busy out there.

  She roamed around with her senses, eg with each of her monsters and verifying with their eyes that all was secure. Oh, hmm, that’s a bit of a problem, she thought as she noticed the zombie corpses piled up on top of her runic circles. They wouldn’t work well if monsters had to walk around them. “Drag those off into a pile on the side,” she instructed, waiting only for a firmation nod from her Kobold in the distant cavern, still impressed that Martial Insight seemed to have ne limit so far. She’d o go dispose of them before they began to stink up the pce. Well, they probably already reeked.

  Casting her awareness further out, she fouwo Kobues, still hard at work pig over the town. She chose one and shared his view of the world for a moment, finding him busy dragging a stack of broken wooden sts along a dark alleyway to a hole in the ground. He paused, and then pitched it all in before returning to searore. The alleyway and sewer entrance seemed bright and clear by the Kobold’s fantastiight vision, but somehow Ali could tell that dawn wasn’t far off.

  “e,” she said, colleg several nearby minions from around the library and bundling them onto her barrier before flying off toward the sewer. If she hadn’t been worried about traveling alone, she could have simply teleported through the sewer now that it was densely poputed with her minions, but instead, she flew the entire way, using her industriues as her reference.

  It seemed they had picked a fairly localized part of town to sge from, but when she reached the sewer entrance, she found a huge pile of junk waiting for her at the bottom of the dder.

  Wow. She stared up at the precarious edifice, keeping a little distan case it all came crashing down. It was amazing that her Kobolds had been so productive and that there was that much junk to be found in just a small se of town. She wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of it – at least some of what they had found must have been rotting for weeks. Lovely. She created a precautionary barrier and watched from a safe distance as the grate far above shifted and a few rocks and a broken chair fell from the circle of darkness above, cttering down onto the heap.

  “That’s enough for tonight,” she called out, and two dark shadowy forms swarmed back down the dder to join her. “Good work.”

  Her Kobolds bowed, their bck scales rapidly blending into the shadows until all that remained was the lingering gleam of their sharp fangs and the whites of their eyes, momentarily bright against the darkness before those too faded from view. Without any further orders, they hovered nearby, guarding her as she mentally rolled up her sleeves.

  I hope this was worth it, she thought, staring at the gigantic pile. It would be a shame if it was all just a huge waste of time. At least for the sger dungeon it had been effective, so in theory, it should be beneficial for her too, but her imprints worked by finding several of the same kind of thing before she could make it, and this pile seemed like an enormous colle of random –unfortunately unique – junk.

  Though I’m ly deranged like that dungeon, she noted. She quickly got to work, destrug everything from broken furniture to rotten food.

  Imprint: Paper pleted.

  Imprint: Rotten Fish pleted.

  Imprint: Ceramic Pot pleted.

  Variant: Cy Brick added to Imprint: Stone

  Imprint: Wood pleted.

  Variant: Pine Board added to Imprint: Wood.

  Variant: Ash added to Imprint: Wood.

  Variant: Teak added to Imprint: Wood.

  It took a while to destruct the entire pile, w from top to bottom so it didn’t colpse on her, but to her surprise, there were quite a few additions and options for her Grimoire. Ali discarded the imprints for paper, rotten fish, and the ceramic pot, deg that they didn’t offer enough potential to spend a chapter on. Especially the fish, eww. At least the air’s clearing a bit now that I’ve verted those to mana.

  But the addition to her stone imprint might be useful, and she found ay chapter to inscribe the wood imprint along with the several variants she had just learned. Wherever they had gone, her Kobolds had certainly found a lot of broken furniture.

  Suddenly, her Grimoire fred again, and her pages began riffling quickly bad forth. A chorus of chimes sounded as the book ping-ponged between the imprint for trees and the imprint for wood.

  Variant: Cherry added to Imprint: Wood.

  Variant: Maple added to Imprint: Wood.

  …

  Variant: Oak added to Imprint: Wood.

  Oh, nice! She stared at the light show as her Grimoire added every single kind of tree to her wood imprint. That’s handy. Cleared out a few cobwebs.

  She gnced back at the y spot where the pile of trash had been, and her eye was caught by a gleam of something embedded in the moss. Croug down to get a closer look, she found a few s – loose ge that had e down with everything else – wedged into the moss by the weight of the pile of junk. She pried them out one by one and then destructed the lot.

  Imprint: Dal’mold updated to Imprint: .

  Variant: New Darian Copper added to Imprint: .

  Variant: Torian Bronze Royal added to Imprint:

  She had destructed several silver s, but not enough of the same oo update her imprints.

  This was more productive than I expected. Given the at of The Sger in Lyeneru’s book, she had been prepared for a lot of worthless trash – which was what she had gotten. But she had also learned several useful things in the process, and who knew what else the townsfolk were discarding.

  “I want you two to gather more stuff every night,” she said, speaking to the shadows. “Pick a different spot ime.”

  “As you wish, A Mistress,” came the disembodied voice from the shadows.

  “Ok, let’s go back,” she said. She made her way slowly back to the library deep in thought. She had many ideas for her domain, but most of them required additional knowledge she didn’t possess, skill advas, or presce. When she flew through the great doorway into the library, she was no closer to any resolution. I need more information. She circled down and frow the sight of the colpsed table, burnt through by the deadly beams of the Corust Ray.

  It’s a different wood, she thought, running her hand over the remains of the tabletop. She had aable, but she had admired the craftsmanship of this ohe wood had a beautiful color aure, marred now by the deep burn marks.

  She used destru, carefully removing pieces of the tabletop until her Grimoire appeared with her chime.

  Variant: Mahogany added to Imprint: Wood.

  As soon as she had it, she made her Kobolds hold the pieces of the table up in the proper alig, and she summoned mahogany wood from her imprint, shaping and blending it with the remains of the table to reform the tabletop. She bent and ed the wood with her Domain Mastery skill, blending the grain, until the final piece looked to be crafted from a single, enormous piece of wood, polished to a shine – a liberty she was free to take with her skills even though the trees typically didn’t grow that rge.

  Sculpting has reached level 5.

  I o ask Ryn to get a new couch, she thought, but at least this table erfect.

  ***

  Ali sat at her newly repaired mahogany table, p over the dungeon delves of Lyeneru Silverleaf with her notebook open to the side. It was certainly book, directly imparting the knowledge she needed, but she was beginning to tease out s and tidbits of ideas that might help her. Dires of inquiry that might hold some potential.

  Lyeneru had made a casual offhand refereo ‘splitting’ a dungeon. Acc to her, if oroyed the dungeon’s domain at a chokepoint, it could be split into two, and then the smaller, or less dense part that was not ected to the ‘main’ domain would instantly die off. It was a strategy she had employed to great effe several dungeons, preventing the dungeon from respawning monsters behind her on longer delves.

  So, that’s what happened, she thought, looking up from the book, her eyes drawn to the atrium. Without uanding what she had done, she had destructed the giant bone spire in the ter of the library and caused the entire upper part of the Ruins of Dal’mohra duo instantly dissipate. At the time it had caused her no end of worry, but now, finally, she had an expnation for what had happened.

  The library must have been a chokepoint eg the upper caverns and residential level to the industrial level of the city. The Bone Wights had presumably been in the de part of the dungeon, which was why that part had survived – either because of the raid boss or, more likely, the shriifact itself. She hadly been paying attention to that specifically, but her recolle of the look of the domain mana seemed to fit with her clusion. The mostly cleared se above had broken, triggering a partial dungeon-break. It’s a good thing it didn’t happeher way around. It had beehing to mop up the Kobolds ejected from here, but she hated to think of the destru that might have been wrought if the Wights had beeo rampaging around the tryside.

  From her own observations, Ali’s domain mana inated from herself, radiating outward. If her domain were split, likely the part of the domain she was in would be the ohat survived. Wheown Watch had e down to burn her domain, she had split it herself by diseg the ventition shaft, and the part that had survived was the much smaller expanse in the ruins and the library.

  If she didn’t want to suffer a simir loss of her domain iure, she o defend it. But acc to what she had just read, she also o make her domain denser and much better ected.

  I should cim much more space. Losing the forest cavern had cost her more than three-quarters of her domain, with a ensurate loss in her mana capacity in the process. If she expanded her domain well beyond what she needed for her mana, even losing a rge area like the sewer system and the Forest Cavern, she could still maintain her full mana pool, which would be essential for her defenses. It was not like she cked space to expand into – there was a lot of area in the ruins and the jungle she had not cimed. Presumably, there was even more area where the water and slimes had e from when she blew the ke out on top of the Goblin siege. Then there was the passage she and Mato had used to escape the ruins – now caved in, but that had ected to a series of unexplored caves too – something had specuted was the path the Kobolds had used to reach the farmnds.

  She turhe page to reveal a simple checklist called ‘The Dungeon Survival Guide’, in which Lyeneru spelled out several important cepts for surviving in a dungeon. It was remarkably simir to Vivian Ross’s advice from the first time they talked with her, highlighting the value of teamwork, being prepared, knowledge and perception skills, and having an escape pn.

  What’s my survival guide? She sidered all she had read so far, her most difficult experiences and challenges.

  Expand. It was crucial for her to expand her domain to defend against splitting and burning. She must make her domain more robust aain her mana and the power of her domain magic.

  She picked up a pen and began to jot down the beginnings of a pn.

  Think with monsters. Lyeneru had explicitly poihis o. Her monsters were her biggest asset, her strength, and the source of an endless variety of skills and abilities. She needed perma defenders in her domain or she would always be struggling to defend herself.

  Of course, there were limits. She only had so much mana to reserve for monsters.

  Knowledge and the value of Perception. In adventurer groups, perception skills did not always add to raw power – but the information gained could easily spell the differeween winning or dying. She had personally experienced just how important her Are Insight was for uanding the dangers presented by boss monster abilities.

  And Lyeold me to use my slimes for their anti-stealth Tremor Sense.

  Bosses and Traps. Dungeons grew in power proportional to the defehey could wield, and every duhat had challenged Lyeneru had used difficult traps or boss monsters with powerful binations of abilities.

  Is that it? She sidered her list carefully, but as she did, she realized something – perhaps the most important thing – was missing. She had been saved again and again by her friends.

  But it wasn’t just them, she realized, recalling Vivian Ross’s efforts to help her, Donel Novaspark’s Lightning from the battlements, and the support of Lydia and Thuli who made their gear. She struggled for a while to encapsute the idea in a simple phrase – in Lyeneru’s guide it was beled ‘teamwork’, but she wouldn’t call Vivian, Donel, or Mieriel friends or teammates, but they definitely had been…

  Allies.

  The word seemed to fit what she wanted, so she wrote it down. If she had strong friends, they would help her. If she was useful, people would protect her. As a dungeon, she would certainly not have many, but the more allies she could win to her side, the better her ces of survival would be.

  Perhaps I should resider Vivian’s request. The idea of opening her shrine up to the general public agai her palms cmmy. However, it had definitely helped to secure Vivian Ross’s support, and she was beginning to see the value in the Guildmaster’s vision: a strong guild would be a potent stabilizing for the town, and that would definitely help her. Not to mention, the people who had earned csses from her shrine might be more likely to view her favorably. At least Havok thinks I’m cool.

  A mental picture of Havok’s face made her smile.

  Ali picked up the pen again and wrote her title above the list.

  The Dungeon’s Survival Guide.

  1) Expand.

  2) Think with monsters.

  3) Knowledge and Perception.

  4) Bosses and Traps.

  5) Allies.

  She studied it carefully, but there was nothing else that came to mind. She would add to it if she discovered something important ter but, for now, she was quite happy with it. The fact that it mirrored Lyeneru’s guide but was aimed at the survival of the dungeon instead of the adveickled her sense of irony. I wish was here, she thought, finding herself wishing she could pick his brains for new ideas.

  The list, however, did highlight how little she knew about being a dungeon. She still had no idea how to make bosses and, other than the cobbled-together traptions her Kobolds made, she had a sirap. She was already w on growing her knowledge by reading Lyeneru’s book, but although her list item ‘allies’ was nid trite, she had no idea how to quickly find powerful allies.

  But I expand. It was one of the few things she knew how to make immediate progress on. “e,” she called, reag out with her mind to ect with every Moss Creeper, Spore Spreader, and Floral Menace, and drawing them to the top level of the ruins – the residential zone of the a city.

  “Expand my domain.” The area was vast, and it would undoubtedly take them some time to plete, but they could make tinuous progress on it while she was busy. “Err, don’t go outside the ruins,” she added, recalliedly that there were a number of unexplored caves. It wouldn’t do for her minions to disturb anything lurking in there.

  ***

  Ali sat at her table once more, this time p over the Monster pendium. Her biggest fear was stealth and being ambushed by invisible attackers. She simply did not have the skills ah to deal reliably with that threat.

  But Lyeneru had givehe solution in the form of free, but harsh advice. I guess that’s to be expected of the premier Pathfinder.

  Her own rule-three indicated she needed knowledge and perception, and her rule-two enced her to think with monsters. She was taking it perhaps a trifle too literally though, paging through the pendium, searg for monsters with unusual and potentially useful perception skills like her slimes.

  Although I’m not sure where I would find one of those, she thought, staring wide-eyed at a beautifully detailed picture of something called ah Wyrm’. Acc to the pendium, these monsters were earth-affinity flightless, legless dragons, but haviher wings ns did not hamper their movement in any way. They had earth magic to burrow through solid sto the speed of a flying dragon, and they could sehrough rock.

  “Hi Ali, what are you doing?”

  She gnced up from her studies to find Mato walking up to greet her with Ryn h beside him on her pretty magical butterfly wings.

  “I made a dungeon’s survival checklist, and now I’m trying to find useful moo help my defenses,” she answered, though her success so far had been mediocre at best.

  “ I see?” Ryn asked.

  “Do you want breakfast?” Mato asked, simultaneously.

  “Yes, to both!” she grinned. Pushing her notebook toward Ryn, she offered the Dungeon Survival Guide from Lyeneru’s book, and then her own version, The Dungeon’s Survival Guide.

  “That’s funny!” Ryn giggled. “You flipped the meaniirely. What kind of monsters are you looking for?”

  “I’m really worried about stealth and assassins, especially since I’m a dungeon and there’s already a bounty on my head. So, I was looking for monsters with perception skills that could defeat stealth and invisibility to help defend me. But they o be on enough that I actually find some, not like this guy.” She flipped the pendium around so Ryn could see the Earth Wyrm.

  “That’s big,” Ryn said.

  “Also, it would be very handy if I could find some higher-level mohat prioritize wisdom or intelligence as their highest attribute for my Empowered Summoner skill,” Ali added. She had two imprint chapters she could sacrifice if something useful showed up. Even though food was still scar town, she wasn’t certain she he Bck Bean and the Potato imprints anymore. She could always just pnt some rice, wheat, or some more fruit trees if she wao fill some of the food colle jobs on the guild board. She even had some edible mushrooms.

  “Wolves have good noses,” Mato called out from where he was stoking the cookfire.

  “Oh, yes! I have some Timber Wolves,” she said. She also still had the Starving Wolf and Alpha variants if she needed something easier on the mana – but they were lower level and presumably had weaker senses. He was right, though, the wolves were one of her best optiht now – st was hard to mask.

  “This sounds like a fun project,” Ryn said, pulling up a chair and pg a hand on the Monster pendium. “Give me a sed.” A plex formation of golden mana formed in front of her eyes as tiny sparks of violet pyed in her pupils. Her eyes flickered bad forth rapidly as if reading something at high speed.

  One of her Librarian skills? Nice!

  “Ok, here we go,” Ryn said. She took the Monster pendium from Ali and flipped the pages halfway through the book. “Here’s oion to sider. The pendium says that spiders are very on, and most species have iing visual senses, highly sensitive to motion. Some of them also produce webs which they use in jun with various kinds of tremor sense. Here, read this.” Ryn poio the chapter describing the many and varied abilities of monstrous spiders.

  “I used to know how to make spiders,” she mused. “But I had to give it up because I didn’t have enough space at the time.” She left unsaid that a major tributor had been the fact that they creeped her out a bit. Oher hand, they were most assuredly on – spiders could be found anywhere. The challenge would be finding oh the right sensory skills. Is it too much to ask for it to be cute also? she wondered, grimag at some of the pictures in the book. I’m not supposed to be ‘cutting’ eo death!

  “Here’s another option,” Ryn said, flipping to the front of the book. “Bats usually have exceptionally acute hearing and sonic echolocation. An active sonic perception skill might be just the thing for flushing out sneaky creatures and people!”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Ali said, grinning at Ryn’s mountihusiasm. “There were some pretty scary bats on the sed level of this city, maybe there are still some left that I hunt.”

  “For the creatures with high intelligend wisdom, I will try to find some more information and make a list,” Ryn said, brusquely, pulling out a notebook and a pen. “I nning on visiting the library at Vertias again this afternoon. I search their colle for anything iing.”

  “Oh, if yoing to Vertias, you look for any books on are trigger magic?” Ali asked. She o make some progress on traps, and none of her ideas had panned out so far, but the discussion of the library had reminded her that magies existed – and also reminded her of the niche branch of are magic reted ter spells aamagic.

  I should hopefully be able to use them to make some traps with Runic Script.

  “Ok, I’ll look.”

  “Oh, you also searore books detailing dungeon dives?” Ali asked, meeting Ryn’s gaze as she gnced up. “I need descriptions of the traps and monsters, and any tidbits on how the dungeon was structed. rew… whatever.”

  “Got it,” Ryn said, scribbling down more notes. “Anything else?”

  “A fun story?” Then Ali grimaced. “And a rept for the couch.”

  “I got those on the list already.”

  “Hate to disturb your furniture shopping, dies, but here you go,” Mato interrupted with bowls of hot oatmeal seasoned with crushed nuts and strawberries. It smelled divine, and Ali immediately dug in.

  “How was your job at Sigurd’s farm? Did you finish?” she asked, talking around a mouthful of food, and then immediately feeling bad for fetting her manners.

  “Yes, his farm is sed,” Mato said, joining them at the table for breakfast. “He was so happy that he told all the other farmers, and now they all wao do their farms too. I had to stop them trying to outbid each other to buy me with money.”

  “Why did you stop them?”

  “Well, it’s my duty to se it. I would do it for free, but Mieriel told me we must charge at least the minimum fee because it’s the Town cil that is sp the up.”

  “Well, if yoing back out there, do you remember that cave with the Kobolds we cleared? There were some cave bats in there –”

  “Ugh, flying rats,” Mato grumbled.

  “If it’s not too much trouble, would you collee for me? I think I’ll go hunt some of the giant bats from the ruins, too.” At least she knew where the bats were, and if she could add them trimoire, she would hopefully have access to a potent defender with a new powerful perception skill.

  “Smart,” Mato nodded. “I’ll do it, just for you, even though they fly. But I have one dition.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, surprised at his request.

  “Those –” he poioward a pair of Kobolds and a Luminous Slime “– are dinky monsters. I would feel a lot better if you made something stronger a it nearby. You’re by yourself down here and if you get attacked, I want to know you’re set up to ha.”

  Ali smiled, about to tease him about the loss of her fident, happy-go-lucky friend, but she saw the in his expression, and she withheld her words.

  He’s really worried about me.

  Instead, she said, “Ok, I’ll make a couple of Forest Guardians, and a few Wyverns to go hunt bats ahem nearby.”

  “Thank you,” he said, “and good hunting.” He smiled, packed up his cooking gear, and waved goodbye, heading out to tinue his blight eradicatio.

  ----------

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