Museum Core Chapter 85: New Ground

Thomas was getting better and better at reading his delvers. 

Not only was he starting to recognize rank insignia by remembering what other people were calling the wearers, but he could also, quite easily, peg who was military, whether or not they were experienced, and what their general specialty was, assuming they had one. 

But also who wasn’t military. Because there were mercenaries coming as well, mostly here to do the panacea challenge, get the potion, and sell it. Or just earn magical gear in general, also to sell. 

Soldiers were careful. They knew the little bit of power they might earn by doing something reckless would in no way, shape, or form be worth it if they got themselves killed. 

Mercenaries … well, they were hardly suicidal idiots, but they were still people who went into danger for money alone. Not even power, because they were yet to be able to access a system, just cold, hard, cash.

But even the latter category was still cautious, and very few people had the power or gumption to pick a fight with his boss monsters even now. 

He needed a new area, no two ways about it. Something to split the difference between the cradle and the lethal gauntlet of dinosaurs that was the main path. 

Hm … the choice was genuinely obvious. The entrance hall was rapidly becoming a true safe zone, something he impressed upon all his non-avatar creatures to not enter unless “pulled” by someone attempting to exploit these orders by sniping from there. 

And the only thing he’d been using the balcony for was dropping hippos on people with bad intentions. But that little trick was mostly superfluous nowadays. Not to mention that there were plenty of other places he could pull that exact same trick. So he decided to convert the balcony, and create a two-story “mini dungeon” that ran clockwise around the entrance hall, with a one-way mirror wall that allowed the people inside to see out while also preventing those on the ground floor from spectating.  

There was just one issue: the only place with a two-story balcony was directly above the gate itself; the rest of the hall just had the one. 

This would require some redesigning…so Thomas summoned a capuchin avatar, had it pop its head out and warn everyone that there would be some stuff going down. 

And then, the building grew, the exterior walls of the churchlike main hall widening outwards while the curved glass ceiling bulged upwards, sunlight suddenly bathing the ground of the entrance hall in brilliant illumination. 

Ooh, that was neat. He’d have to add some glass or gems to the ground there, to really make it sparkle … except there were people way too close for him to make those changes at present. 

Then, he hacked off the stairs that led to the left side of the balcony and re-added them above the first one to lead from the end of the first floor to the newly-erected second floor. 

But, after taking a brief moment to take in the looks of astonishment on the faces of the people outside, Thomas went back to doing what he’d been doing at the start of it all. 

This particular version of the dungeon was, in essence, a long series of eight-meter-wide, five-meter-tall, tunnels arranged as a rectangle.

No, too easy for anyone with firearms, considering that this was meant to be an F-Rank area. 

So he simply narrowed each of the long corridors halfway through, to the point where the opening was the size of a regular double door. 

And then, he began to start populating it. 

The first three areas, the entire right side of the hall and the area above the entrance, wound up basically being a repeat of the entrance hall, or rather, what it would have been had Thomas wanted to turn it into an actual dungeon room, threats and all. 

He kept the combination of “places to step on and water,” but the water was much deeper, allowing creatures to actually hide, and in addition to simple raised stone pillars for people to walk on, he’d also added wooden platforms on either a single central pole or four smaller ones, one in each corner, that his creatures could hide under, right beneath the feet of the delvers. 

And finally, he took a page out of the playground playbook by attaching other platforms to the ceiling via four chains, making them the exact opposite of “stable footing,” vulnerable not only to people unbalancing them but also to his creatures bumping into them from below. 

And, of course, he chose to vary the amount of friction the top of the various platforms offered. Some were properly textured, to the point where slipping would require active effort on the part of the person walking on it; others … not so much. As in, perfectly smooth in an environment where they were near guaranteed to get wet. 

Of course, for the sake of fairness, he made sure to make it easy to recognize visually. 

With that done, he started adding his creatures. Ten pajama catsharks, the one-meter-long sharks with the ridiculously tough skin and the Void Chomp power that allowed them to effectively atomize anything they managed to properly bite down on, rank be damned. 

Or, at the very least, they could punch above their weight class to the point of being able to at least damage D-Ranks the same way the Void Wolves, who’d been the original holders of this power, had done.

Of course, the strength of that power was tempered by the fact that the mouth of a pajama catshark wasn’t overly large, which made it more “balanced.” 

As for the second inhabitant, he chose his new sea scorpions. Sadly, “scorpion” was only a name; the one-meter-long mass of chitinous plates and barbs made razor-sharp with their power lacked venomous stingers and the like. But they were still nasty as hell. 

Their paddle-like tails allowed them to shoot through the water at high speeds, and in the place of a scorpion’s pincers, they had multiple arms with inward-facing spikes that they could slam into something between them. 

The next section then became a jungle, with two tigers whom he gave a camouflage power to, two jaguars prowling around just underneath the ceiling whose mass increased when they did jump attacks, and a single saber-tooth tiger. 

And then, the final room before the stairs upwards got an F-Rank hippo, a new variant with a further-empowered hide that, in combination with its general F-Rank stats, would make it an absolute menace. 

That was the first floor done, onto the second. 

This one, he decided to build in reverse, starting at the end, with the boss room, which would hold the only E-Rank in this entire place. 

Another tiger, an older variant that he’d levelled and never wound up implementing. 

Its first power was identical to Cheshire’s, enhanced claws with limited projecting capabilities, but its second one he’d created specifically to implement the beast as a mini-boss when the opportunity arose. 

Variable Gigantism. 

It was the perfect power for the role, allowing its wielder to grow in size with the increase being adjustable from it simply doubling in volume, which was its new “baseline,” up to it doubling in size in every dimension. Twice as long, twice as tall, twice as wide … for a grand total of an eightfold increase in volume. 

This was a power that gave it the imposing physique to serve as a “final” boss, but also gave it some flexibility through rapid size changes; that way, it wasn’t a giant target. 

Of course, this boss was a basic animal, without the ability to maintain memories and experiences the way his champions could, so its ability to train and get good with the power would be minimal to nonexistent, but Thomas hoped that he’d be able to paper over these gaps with stringent instructions to a degree. 

It wasn’t like this thing was meant to be overpowered or anything. This was still the “beginner” area, after all. Just E-Rank and capable of some tricks. 

But he didn’t want it to be too easy, at the end of the day, so some mind games felt appropriate. 

So he added a trio of rhinoceroses, complete with an armor power, to the room before it. Large and fast in a straight line, but their size would be fixed, and they’d lack the nimbleness of the final tiger. 

Then, a couple of giant sloths before that.

And then, finally, he added swarms of draconic raptors to the remaining two rooms on the second floor, to contrast the hippo any delvers would have previously fought. He loved those little fire-breathing gremlins. They were more “ugly-cute” than straight up “cute,” but still cool to look at. 

What separated them was the theme. 

Room number one was a standard grassy savannah that looked damn good but had very little to do with a raptor’s “normal” habitat. When they’d lived, grass had barely started to become a thing, and the dinosaurs were from the Gobi desert to boot. And the tall horsetails Thomas was decorating the ponds with had also been far more common in the Triassic, rather than the Cretaceous, when the velociraptor mongoliensis had been around. 

But these were fire-breathing raptors; he’d needed to provide them some degree of cover, and it had been essential to make sure the whole room wouldn’t go up in flames, that would have just been unfair. 

So, wet savannah, ponds as firebreaks, and as for the horsetails … no excuse. He just liked how they looked. 

Thomas thought about it for a couple of seconds, then added a small plaque to the entrance. 

“The following exhibit does not adequately display the environment of the velociraptor mongoliensis. Furthermore, the creatures within are not traditional velociraptors, but rather a member of the velociraptor draconis species, a dungeon-created variant. It is representative of the original species, and should not be used as the basis for any paleontological research.”

There. Education purpose fulfilled.

He sniggered. 

Was it dumb?

Absolutely. 

Would that stop him?

Nope. 

But he would stop at that point. Things were funny as they were right now, but putting the same plaques everywhere else would be annoying and spoil the joke. This was his biggest, most “audacious” decoration, it deserved the plaque. 

And with that done, he fixed up the second raptor room, turning it into a mirror maze. A heavily reinforced one. Cracking the mirrors would be possible, but difficult enough that the delvers would have to make a choice between expending their mana and stamina to nullify the maze, or risk trying to get through it while fighting off flaming velociraptors. 

Obviously, there were other ways to neutralize the mirrors as a threat, or at least minimize it, spray paint being an obvious example, but all that stuff would have to be carried. 

Not to mention what would happen if one of those cans caught fire …

And so on, and so forth. 

Besides, Thomas liked mirror mazes and figured someone walking into walls would be entertaining. 

So that was his new dungeon “wing,” fully populated. 

Then, he added loot. It was the usual bevy of claws, skins, and furs, as well as temporary summoning tokens. 

But he’d also wound up creating two unique pieces of magical gear, one for each boss.  

Hippopotamus’ Bulk (F-Rank, epic)

The hide of a supernaturally empowered Nile hippopotamus, enchanted to clear the way for the bearer. 

Upon activating this armor’s enchantment, any enemies within a meter of the wearer will be bounced back, with the force inversely proportional to the enemies’ distance from the wearer.  

Energy draw: middling to high upon activation, exact cost based on enemy mass. 

Restriction: does not accept Qi as an energy source

A neat defensive piece of magical gear, nice for tanks or even just the guy standing in front of everyone else, and perfect for the two rooms that immediately followed the hippopotamus. 

Bloodletter (E-Rank, epic)

A dagger forged from the claw of the emperor of the jungle, uplifted by dungeon magic, and turned into a true monster. 

While slicing through the air with this dagger, a phantasmal edge can be projected to cut an enemy at a distance of up to ten meters, slicing flesh but not bone. Wounds caused by this weapon will bleed twice as long as they normally would, and lightly resist healing magic. 

This dagger may be affixed as a bayonet to any firearm. 

Energy draw: low to middling upon activation, exact cost based on range

Restriction: does not accept Qi as an energy source

The second magical item was there to provide an offensive option to pair with the armor, usable as either a classical knife, or a bayonet in case the wearer ran out of bullets in a situation where they could not reload. 

Ergo … just sweep the muzzle of your weapon across the enemy and watch them start gushing blood. Or something. His limited knowledge about firearms wasn’t really helping him come up with good ideas. 

Which just left one final question: how were people supposed to get down from the end, in the back left corner of the entrance hall? 

… slides. A slide, to be specific, running along the outside of the newly enlarged main building to lead out at the entrance. 

Well, it was tempting, and Thomas added one, but also made sure to tack on a staircase along the same path, in case anyone felt they were too “adult” to take the fun path. 

And that was that. Throw up a new poster on the noticeboard to let everyone know the area was open, and a note with the loot tables, and that was that. 

Now, he could watch the first human delve of the British Museum. 

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This will probably be the last chapter before I go on holiday (until the 22nd). I'll keep writing while in Scotland, but the speed will obviously slow down a little. Depending on internet availability, I'll also probably stockpile those chapters and upload them rapidly when I'm back home. 

Oh, and speaking of Sea Scorpions, does anyone remember that old "Sea Monsters" documentary with Nigel Marven?