Dungeon Building: A Bugbear - Chapter 3+4

Friendly reminder - the following chapters were written back in 2019/2020, and the story is incomplete. If you want to see more of it, make sure to let me know!

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Chapter 3

It was slow going, carrying the goat, but you eventually made your way across the plateau towards the edge of the cliff. You were hoping that you would be able to walk a little ways from the edge and recognize the spot you could drop the goat without topping yourself for anyone down the cliff to spot and possibly attack, or prepare an ambush for. The last thing you needed was goblins coming up from the foothills at you for your sweet, sweet goat corpse.

The sound of the voices started softly, but you stopped stock still none the less. Voices up here meant one of two things - kobolds on the hunt, or adventurers. You dropped the goat behind a collapsed pine tree and slowly picked your way forward, once again desperately hoping that your minimal stealth skills would do the job.

"Naw man, I'm telling you, this is the place."

It definitely wasn't kobolds. Only players spoke like that.

"Ok, but this just seems stupid, Drake. If it's real, why doesn't everyone do it?"

"Because it's new. Like, they introduced it last patch. It's barely even made it onto the wiki's yet. Hell, achievements aren't even that old, people are still trying to figure out how to get some of them."

You stopped behind a conveniently closely placed boulder and pine tree, peering between the two out at the cliff and the two Adventurers standing right at the edge, looking out and over.

"You're sure this is going to work?"

"Trust me, Jimmy. This is going to level us up like crazy. There's only so many places in the world you can get the 'Skydiving without a Parachute' achievement and all the experience that goes with it, and all of the others are in zones we are way too low level to get to."

You narrowed your eyes. Achievements gave experience? You hadn't heard of achievements before. Still, it sounded like the one adventurer was trying to convince the other that they were going to jump off the cliff. That was just a terrible, terrible idea.

As you frowned and stared at the two, their information popped up next to them in your vision.

Drake S0rr0ws4nds, Level 22 Barbarian
Hero, Human, Active, Explicit

James Birthrite, Level 16 Rogue
Hero, Human, Active, Explicit

They were both way too high level for you to take on at the same time. Or individually. Listening to the idiotic conversation was the best thing you could remember doing for a long time though.

"So we just... jump?" Jimmy asked.

Drake nodded with a grin, "Yeah, man. Aim for the trees and it's no sweat. You hit the top branches and they slow your fall enough that when you hit the ground you take 80% reduced fall damage. We both live, and it's a guaranteed like 10 levels for both of us."

"Alright. Let's do it. Same time?"

"Jimmy, please. Of course at the same time. We gotta get that double achievement ping in guild chat."

Jimmy laughed. "Alright. I'm ready when you are."

"Alright," Drake said, patting him on the back. "I'm ready too. Remember, aim for the trees. On my mark."

"One," Drake said.

"Two," Jimmy said.

"Three!" Drake said, and stepped towards the cliff.

Jimmy jumped.

"You idiot," Drake laughed, shouting over the cliff at his falling friend. "I got you again! Don't worry, I'll collect your gear for you!"

Your memories of growing up in your tribe, teased and bullied constantly for your scar, had given you more than enough warning about what was going to happen. As soon as they had started counting down, you had rushed forward from your hiding place. Sometimes, very rarely, you had seen opportunity strike and had missed it every time. Until now.

This was the biggest opportunity you could ever remember.

You'd given up on stealth, but it still took Drake a few moments to hear you behind him because he was laughing so hard, looking over the cliff at his definitely deceased fellow adventurer. When he did finally hear you, he turned wide eyed and then almost immediately calmed down when he saw it was you.

"Oh, hey there buggy-boy? What are you doin' up here on the mountain, lookin' for a quick kick in the head?"

You stopped about fifteen paces from the Adventurer as Drake pulled an axe out of his inventory, hefting it. He was grinning and took a step towards you. You raised your arms wide, and his grin slipped into confusion.

You slammed your hands together, and as you did it Drake's expression changed to one of panic. "Oh, fuck NO!"

Thunderclap. It was in your spell list for as long as you can remember. You'd used it plenty of times in the past. You had always dreamed of doing this.

The thunder boomed out from your hands and Drake caught the sonic wave in the chest, flying backwards. Out from the cliff, into thin air.

"Aim for the trees," you shouted after him.

"FUCK," Drake shouted again as he fell.

Then you were overwhelmed as 'SPRANG!' noises blasted your ears over and over. You dropped to your stomach in a panic, looking around for whatever infernal demon was causing that racket. The last thing you needed was to be thrown off the cliff yourself in cruel, poetic justice.

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Chapter 4

Over and over turned out to be three times.

As the quiet silence of the mountain settled again, you blinked as popups flashed, trying to overlay over top of each other until finally they seemed to settle into a priority.

You... you leveled up. Three times!

Never in your entire existence, since the world of the Shards of Arkus was born, had you leveled up. You knew it was possible. You had seen the occasional monster that had achieved it. Every time you had gotten close in the past, you were inevitably killed in some horrible, sadly mundane way by an adventurer.

Your world was changed forever. The top popup was your Character Sheet.

Level 8 Bugbear Exile
Monster, Bugbear, Explicit
Experience to level up – 800

Attributes
| Strength 20 > 24 | Dexterity 25 > 31 | Endurance 20 > 23 |
| Charisma 32 > 42 | Manipulation 32 > 42 | Appearance 32 > 36 |
| Perception 30 > 34 | Intelligence 27 > 32 | Wits 28 > 32 |

Skills
Brawling 15 > 19
Athleticism 15 > 18
Presence 25 > 31
Lore 25 > 26
Occult 30 > 37
Stealth 13 > 20
Dodge 13 > 18
Crafting (Stoneworking) 5
Crafting (Carpentry) 5

Feats
Arcane Blood, Enhanced – Can access magic as a Tier II Sorcerer. Spellcasting statistic is Occult.
* Choose a Sorcerer Specialization
Bugbear Dominance –
Monstrous Appearance –
Sorcerer Tier I – May cast three spells per day from the following options:
* Fixate
* Purify Food and Drink
* Thunderclap
* Choose two more Tier I spells
Sorcerer Tier II - May cast two spells per day from the following options:
* Choose two more Tier II spells
Wisdom of the Ages –

You have 15 attribute points and 30 skill points available

Holy shit. There was... it was a lot. Goats be damned, this was the biggest day of your life. Your lives? Your existence.

You took a breath, trying to figure out where to start. Your attributes had shot up, and you had more points to spend. You also got to choose new spells. That was big. Where to start? The obvious places were either with your attribute points or with the Sorcerer Specialty. As you focused on the words 'Choose a Sorcerer Specialization' another popup took priority over the Character Sheet.

Choose a Sorcerer Specialization
* Abjuration
* Conjuration
* Divination
* Enchantment
* Evocation
* Illusion
* Necromancy
*Transmutation
* War

There were no options for detailed explanations, and when you focused on one of the specialties a 'Are you sure?' popup tried to confirm your choice. Some of the words you recognized, but others like 'evocation' made no damn sense at all to you. You quickly decided to ignore the ones you didn't understand rather than fret over them. Necromancy sounded like it was asking for adventurers to come looking for you, and Illusion sounded dull. War didn't sound very useful considering you didn't have an army to make war with.

Your list was certainly narrow. Enchantment caught your eye though. If you could learn how to enchant magic items, you could protect yourself and replenish anything adventurers could steal off of you. Maybe you could even trade magic items to other monsters to make alliances!

Are you sure?

"Yes," you said quietly. You were still lying flat on the ground. The last thing you needed was some manticore or drakeling to spot you while you were managing your popups.

The Specialization popup dropped, and your Character Sheet changed, giving you an explanation of what you had unlocked.

* Sorcerer Specialization: Enchantment - You are a master at manipulating minds, able to entrance and beguile other creatures with ease. Whenever you cast an Enchantment spell, you may double the number of targets that spell can affect as well as the duration of the spell.

That was not what you had been hoping for. This sounded like... this was exactly what you didn't want. It was a buff to fucking Fixate!

"Fucking... fucking fuckfuckfuck," you groaned. You had said yes to the 'Are you sure?.' You had made the choice and now you couldn't change it.

You took a moment to hate yourself and beat your fist on the mountain stone beneath you, then finally settled down. There were still popup menus waiting for your attention. The next obvious choice, now that you had committed to becoming an Enchanter, which apparently isn't enchanting magic items!, was to pick spells.

The Tier I list that came up was relatively short and included a dozen or so different spells to choose from, the ones already on your list greyed out. After a couple minutes of browsing, you settled on a spell called 'Ray of Frost' that seemed like it would be useful when fighting a single opponent, and then had to sigh as you picked the spell Friends. It was highlighted, denoting it as an Enchantment spell. It sounded better than Fixate at least.

* Friends - Any two sentient creatures which are not actively hostile towards you are vulnerable to your suggestions. Certain suggestions or hostile behaviors may break the spell on the targets. You may concentrate on this spell for up to 2 minutes. When the spell ends, the creatures know they were influenced by magic and become hostile towards you.

* Ray of Frost - Project a frigid beam at a creature, dealing half occult damage on a successful hit. It's speed is reduced by half for 10 seconds.

The Tier I list disappeared, and you brought up the Tier II list. Three levels at once was somehow feeling more overwhelming as you kept needing to make choices. The Tier II list was actually longer, and it took a while for you to get a grasp on all of the possibilities. In the end you chose based on trying to split between things to fight with and things that could benefit your specialty.

* Charm Person - You attempt to Charm two creatures that can see and hear you. If the creatures fail to resist, they view you as a very friendly acquaintance and act accordingly. Hostile activity towards a Charmed creature can break the spell. The spell lasts for 2 hours.

* Mage Armor - You raise the defenses of one target creature that is not wearing armor for 8 hours.

* Sleep - You induce magical sleep in all creatures within Occult feet. You affect creatures based on their Endurance starting closest to you, up to a maximum of Occult x 10 Endurance. Creatures that fall asleep can be woken up with appropriate jostling. They remain asleep for 2 minutes.

There were other spells on the list, like 'Burning Hands' and 'Witch Bolt' that sounded a lot more useful in combat, but if you were going to just accept and commit to being an Enchanter then you wanted to be getting in as few fair fights as possible. Really, that had been true of your life up until now anyways. Huh, maybe Enchanter was a smart choice after all.

That last portion of leveling up, now that you had made all of your choices, was back on the Character Sheet with your Attribute and Skill points. You quickly split the Attribute points between Endurance, Charisma and Manipulation, hoping to play on your new specialty more, and then had to pause on the Skill Points. Occult was the obvious choice since many of your spells were still based on it, but the list was varied and some skills you didn't even have points in yet. You ended up deciding on a fairly heavy split, but put a little more specialization into Occult and Presence. Thirty points at once went a long way, but splitting them like that also felt like you were wasting their potential.

Before you could rethink your choice, you decided to go with your gut and locked in the upgrades.

Few, finally done. You closed out the Character Sheet to find yet another popup behind it, this one entitled.

Fame: 25
Recent Activity:
Defeated a hero +25 (expanded)
- You defeated a level 22 hero! +22
- One-shot a hero higher level than you! +5
- You didn't have a name! -1
- You didn't have a lair! -1

Fame Options:
Evolve Form: 500 fame; Prerequisite: Level 10
Arcane Liegelord 0/10 (Class Ability): 10 fame
Goblinoid Liegelord 0/10 (Race Ability): 10 fame
????
????

The option list went on, scrolling down, but it was all question marks. You really had no clue what 'Evolve Form' meant, but it was well out of reach. More importantly, with 25 fame, you actually had options to spend on. However, when you tried to select 'Arcane Liegelord' it didn't highlight or let you select it. Neither did 'Goblinoid Liegelord.' Eventually you spotted the small red text at the bottom of the menu. 'Option Unavailable. Prerequisite: Monster Lair.'

Closing out the Fame menu for now, you sighed when you finally had a clear view of the cliff edge. It was closing in on midday, and the sun was high in the sky. And you were level 8! You resisted the urge to crow out a celebratory shout. What were you going to do with this new power?

After a quick think, you decided on a fairly easy set of steps. First, the goat. No matter what level you were, you still needed to eat. Next, you had to make the trip down to the bottom of the cliff. If you were fast, you could make it there before those two Adventurers were able to walk all the way out to Imporne and for the first time in a long time you could loot an Adventurer. Then, back to your cave to try and figure out how to make it a 'monster lair' instead of just home.