Fantasy Begins: Book 1 of the Dungeon Hive Trilogy

By Roy Lim

For as long as anyone can remember, the city-states and nomadic clans of Ioplon had been warring and raiding against each other. Using their swords and magic, the humans of the world had made their names, took slaves, and gained glory fighting against each other. That is about to change.

A magical accident had occurred and the world's first dungeon was created. As the spirits that makes up the dungeon core argued against each other, they would create new creatures to ensure their survival.

Like it or not, the humans are no longer alone.

Ready or not, the sword and sorcery world of Ioplon is about to be turned into a world of high fantasy.

Let's hope it survive the experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roy Lim
• Release date: Nov 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370808762

Roy Lim

Born in 1976 in Singapore, Roy Lim wasn't always an avid reader of fiction. That all changed when he picked up "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel at age 13. Since that book, he has been devouring almost every fantasy and sci-fi novels out there and imagining his own worlds and stories. He first started The Dungeon Hive as an online web serial on Royal Road Legends under the pen name of 'Ghostman' and was encouraged by the following he got. He then decided to turn the story into a book and thus began his career as a wannabe author. Currently he would list his favorite authors as Isaac Asimov, Richard Roberts, and John Scalzi.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

All spirits in the world have an affinity. Some are attracted to the elements: air, fire, earth, and water. Some are attracted to the environment: the plains, the mountains, the sea, the forest, etc. Others are attracted to the emotions of the mortals: their joy, laughter, fears. It is these spirits that the group of humans will be targeting.

The five humans had arrayed themselves in a circle around a stone slab. The circular stone slab had various magical symbols and glyph inscriptions carefully chiseled into it, and in the center of the slab was a small crystal, no bigger than a child’s palm. The group was nervous and, perhaps sensing that, the lead human started to speak.

The time has arrived. Everyone knows what he’s supposed to do. Everyone does his job and all of us will be mages before the season is out.

This is wrong, the youngest one says. We’re not supposed to be doing this. We should not be doing this.

Oh, come on, Jana! It’s a little too late to have second thoughts now, isn’t it?

The oldest human put up his hand to stop the argument. He had expected this and, honestly, would have been more worried if no one had expressed at least a token objection. After all, what they were attempting to do was very dangerous.

Jana, you are right. The remaining four humans looked at the eldest in shock, but he did not let them have a chance to speak and continued. What we are attempting is something only high mages are supposed to do. The five of us here…well, we’re not even mages. We are just apprentices…

That was too much for the man who had belittled Jana. Carvin, what are you saying? You were the one who suggested we do this!

That’s right, Savian, I was, Carvin said. But do you really think I wanted to do this? You think I had a choice? You think I really want to risk my life to do a spell at least four levels above my rank? I don’t, but what choice do I have? Carvin’s voice showed his rage and he gave his four companions time to digest his words.

All five of us are talented, he continued, but we are all commoners. The Mage Council would never allow us to be mages. They only promote the royals, the nobles, the soldiery, and rich merchants. Talent means nothing in their world and that’s just the truth. Being our betters’ apprentices is the best ‘people like us’ can hope for. But you know what? I refuse to live the rest of my life as an apprentice to a talentless fool who got his position just because his father is rich!

A silence fell over the group after their leader’s outburst. He was right and they knew it. The Duchy of Yachium was a small kingdom ruled by the royals and the nobles. No matter how talented peasants like them were, they would never hope to rise to the rank of mages.

Not unless they did something that would take the decision out of the hands of the Mage Council.

That was why the five of them were now in a cave in the middle of nowhere. They made the cave themselves, coaxing the earth to move with their magic. The result was a 10-meter-by-10-meter square room linked to the outside by a short 1two-meter-long tunnel. In this place they had created, the five were going to attempt to create something that should be beyond the abilities of simple apprentices—beyond even the skills of normal mages. If they could do it, the Mage Council would have no choice but to promote them. It was dangerous, illegal, and truth be told, a little mad. Magic-users, however, were nothing if not ambitious.

No other words were necessary. Their doubts had been cleared. The five companions began casting. There were many magical traditions in the world, but almost all of them had one thing in common: they used the spirits of the world for their spells. These non-sentient magical beings fueled the magic of the land.

Shamans used spirits for their animal totems; warriors used spirits to strengthen their bodies; hunters used spirits to aid the flight of their arrows. Now, the five companions were calling on every spirit they could.

The location of the ritual had been carefully chosen. They had chosen the Keg Mountains because the area was isolated and there was a forest and a river nearby. The companions had dug a tunnel into Big Keg, the highest of the three Keg Mountains, and created a small square room at the end of it for their work. The nearby spirits heard their call and were arriving. Soon the small room was filled with spirits of all kinds and the group began the second part of the ritual.

As the other four worked to keep the spirits within the room, Carvin, their leader, changed his spell. He targeted the crystal and magically opened it up. Long ago, mages had discovered that crystals were good storage components for spirits and began using them to house and store spirits.

Now.

At Carvin’s command, the rest of the group forced the spirits into the crystal. The glyphs in the stone slab began to glow with power and the small crystal began to float in the air. The ritual was working!

Perhaps it was because they were overeager; maybe it was because they missed something in the casting; or it may have been because they were not as ready as they believed they were; but Carvin instinctively knew something was wrong.

Wait, it’s too fast. Slow the…

Carvin never got to finish his warning.

CHAPTER 1

Asking who created the dungeon cores is like asking who created Life.

It’s a question that probably will never be answered.

—Mysteries of Ioplon

Pain. It felt the pain. Pain. It was delicious.

The being felt the pain and was drawn to it. There, at the entrance of its home, was the source of the pain. It was a creature with four limbs covered in dark brown fur. Some wooden sticks were sticking out of the creature and the being felt comforted in the creature’s presence. The being couldn’t see but could sense that the creature was big, and that it was in pain.

The being did not understand what was going on, but it began to feel. It could sense the pain of the creature and as it fed on the pain, it began to think. Then the pain was gone. The pain disappeared and a wave of energy flooded the being. Energy flowed through it and the being began to sense more clearly. It began to feel. It began to think. It…the being finally became aware of its existence.

The being was someone. It was something. The being immediately spread itself outwards and…was stunned by the nothingness it felt. The being felt nothing. There was nothing to feel, but at the same time, the being felt something or more accurately someone.

What happened? Where am I/we? that someone asked. The being then realized it was the one who had asked that question.

Who is that? someone else asked. The being realized it was still the one who had asked that question.

What? Who said that? another someone asked, but it was still the being. The being was still asking questions. Fear flooded the being. This was making no sense!

I/we said that first! it screamed. Who are…we?

No, I/we…was the one who asked! Who are you? That voice belonged to someone else, fiery and hot, but the being knew the voice also belonged to it.

Who are you? Who am I/we?

What? What do you…you’re right. Who am I/we?

We? Who are we?

The being had no answers to the questions and, at the same time, too many answers. A hundred voices came to its mind, all of them scared, angry, and confused.

You are all in me. Get away!

Go! Get lost!

What is happening?

A hundred voices screamed at each other at once, each shouting questions seeking to drown out the others. Then one voice rang out, asking a question that silenced everyone.

Are we…floating?

The being fell silent and focused on the voice that spoke. The being heard the voice’s question and felt it was important. That voice was right! The being did feel like it was floating. Instinctively, the being focused its energy back to itself and began to…see. It had no eyes, but its senses increased as it concentrated its focus and the being began to be aware of its surroundings.

There was a small room at the end of a short tunnel and the being saw the inside of this room. There was a crystal floating on top of a stone slab. The being immediately knew it was looking at itself. It was a small crystal no bigger than a child’s palm and around the crystal were five floating white lights that went around the crystal in a clockwise direction. However, it was the countless lights inside the crystal that had the being’s attention. The moment the being noticed the lights, it knew.

That’s us, a voice said.

We are the crystal, another voice agreed.

No, yet another voice said. We are the lights. We are the lights inside the crystal.

The crystal is holding us together.

The voices came again, but this time there was an order to them. The being knew the voices belonged to it and that knowledge gave it a sense of calm. With the calm came more knowledge and the being began to remember.

We are spirits, a voice said.

No! another disagreed. We used to be spirits. We are no longer that.

True, but what are we now? the first voice asked. None of the voices had an answer. None of them knew what they were and a hundred answers were thrown out there, hoping that something would make sense.

We are the crystal.

We are the lights.

I/we remember I/we were spirits.

We were, but we are no more. We are now…more. The being liked that and felt that it was right. It was more than just a spirit.

More? one of the voices asked.

Yes, most of the voices agreed. We are more. We are together…maybe forever.

What are we then? the voice asked again.

The being had no idea and thought about it. They were spirits in a crystal, a crystal that was housing them, forcing them together to act as one being. The being thought about the question before deciding to go with the most appropriate answer it had: We think we are…a hive!

That, of course, led to endless questions about what a hive is. The hive tried to remember and knew that a hive was a small enclosed structure that housed sweet honey. Some type of annoying bees usually inhabited it, but...hold on, how did the hive know all that?

The hive had no idea. Hundreds of questions flooded the hive and, once again, the hive became a madhouse of voices—madness that was averted when the hive sensed that there was something new. The hive sensed that there was someone new. There was another creature in the tunnel. The hive spread its consciousness outwards, but this time it was careful to focus on its surroundings. The hive realized the room it was in was linked to the outside by the tunnel and just outside the entrance of the tunnel was a creature standing on two long limbs.

Those are legs, one spirit said. That is danger.

What is it doing here? most of the hive asked.

Hunting.

The hive focused its energy on the two-legged creature and saw that the creature was wearing the dried skin of another creature. On the creature were a few weapons that could cause great pain: a wooden weapon that throws small sticks over long distances and a metal weapon that cut and caused blood to flow. Again, the hive did not know how it knew these things. It just did.

Just like it now knew the dead creature in the tunnel was called a bear and that the two-legged creature was hunting the bear. The two-legged creature carefully walked into the tunnel and after a short distance, he saw the dead bear. The two-legged creature smiled and walked to the dead body. Then he stopped. He looked surprised and tilted his head, looking at the bear.

The hive wondered why. From what the hive could see, there was nothing wrong. The bear was dead and was now sinking into the ground, but the two-legged creature stood there looking on in shock as the body of the bear slowly disappeared into the ground. The hive did not understand the two-legged creature’s reaction. Don’t all dead creatures eventually sink into the ground? The two-legged creature mumbled something from its mouth, and then he looked up. He was looking deeper into the tunnel.

He…senses us? one of the spirits asked.

Yes…he’s coming in, another spirit answered.

The two-legged creature walked into the room where the hive was and his eyes lit up when he saw the crystal that was the hive. He looked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and once again began mumbling. The hive wondered what the creature was saying. Slowly the two-legged creature walked toward the crystal that was the hive and the creature reached out. He touched the hive and a light burst out of the hive. It threw the two-legged creature back against the wall of the room.

What was that? the spirits asked uniformly. The hive engaged in endless argument again while the two-legged creature stood up. This time, he drew his metal weapon. The spirits within the hive screamed in terror.

He’s drawing his weapon!

Stop him!

Kill him!

How? one of the spirits asked. What can we do?

The bear! a nature spirit said. Pour some energy into the bear!

What good will that do? a spirit asked sensibly. It’s dead.

It’s underground! another spirit screamed.

It’s…

Just do it! the nature spirit screamed back.

With no good options available, the hive did as the nature spirit demanded. It poured the little energy it had into the bear that was in the ground and, to the hive’s surprise, a bear started to appear. Countless small lights rose from the ground where the bear had died and they condensed to form an image of a bear. The bear walked toward the room. The sound of its footsteps alerted the two-legged creature and he turned back to face the tunnel.

Slowly, the bear came into sight and the eyes of the two-legged creature widened. It was the bear, but this bear was different. It was no longer dead, or even undead. The sticks sticking out of it before were gone and, most importantly, it was glowing green. The green glow gave the bear an aura that caused the two-legged creature to step back in shock and fear. The bear roared! All thoughts of attacking the hive were gone. The two-legged creature went into a stance to defend against the bear.

It never had a chance.

The bear rushed forward and threw itself at the human. The human drew his metal weapon level and stabbed at the bear. However, the bear had size and momentum on its side. It crashed into the two-legged creature and knocked him to the ground. The two-legged creature lost his metal weapon as he fell. He pushed away from the bear and tried to stand. The glowing green bear knocked the creature back down once again, this time with a swipe, and fell on top of the human. The creature screamed in terror—a scream that was cut short as the bear bit into the two-legged creature’s head.

Although no one could hear it, inside the hive, the cheers were deafening!

CHAPTER 2

One of the most common creatures you would find in a dungeon is the wolf.

—Dungeoneering for Beginners

The cheers were short-lived. As the body of the two-legged creature went into the ground like the bear, another wave of energy flooded through the hive and, once again, the hive began to know things it hadn’t before. The knowledge also came with a big problem; the hive had no idea what most of it meant! Thus started the first discussion/argument conference of the hive!

Human? That must be what the two-legged creature was called.

What’s this class thing the human has? A hunter? What is a hunter?

The human was hunting the bear so…maybe this class thing is what the human is good at.

That’s as good of a guess as any. Armor?

The bear wasn’t wearing any, so all these should belong to the human too.

But what does all this mean? Leather armor—chest, pants, leggings, boots, shoes—what are all these for? The bear doesn’t have any of this!

Don’t forget his ‘job.’ What’s a ‘leatherworker?’

What’s a job?

This is getting us nowhere!

True. Let’s focus on what we know then.

We know nothing!

…what about these skills then? Both the bear and human have them.

They have different ones, though.

Okay. The bear has enhanced strength, intimidation, tough hide, survival, charging, and swipe. The human has archery, sword, tracking, farsightedness, taming, leatherworking, skinning, woodcraft, animal knowledge, and crafting knowledge.

The human has more skills.

But that still doesn’t help us because we don’t know what any of these skills do!

Actually, we do.

We do?

Yes. Bear, you charged the human just now, right? After that, you swiped him. You must have been using the bear’s skills.

Who is bear?

Where is that nature spirit that was the bear just now? You’re in here?

Of course, I/we are, but I/we are not a bear.

You were the bear against the human. That makes you a bear.

That’s nonsense. We are a hive. I/we are a nature spirit. I/we are not a bear.

Yes, you are!

No I/we’re not!

Yes, you are!

No, I/we’re not!

Yes…why are we even arguing about this? Okay…You-Who-Are-Not-Bear, did you use charge and swipe just now?

…yes.

That must be what skills are. They are special actions or abilities the creatures are allowed to do.

…I/we think that sounds about right. Till we get more information, let’s go with that. What else do we have?

Weapons? Bow, arrows, short sword, and skinning knife—must be from the human also.

Something called currency; what’s this gold–silver–copper standard?

Let’s put that under ‘unknown’ right now. What else?

The human also has something called ‘languages.’ He has two: Common and something called Kangilian.

This is just confusing. How do we know any of this in the first place?

Both the bear and the human died in the tunnel…maybe that’s how we know. We got their knowledge.

Again, this is getting us nowhere. What good is knowledge when we don’t understand what we know?

Yeah, we need someone to explain all of this. If only we had some helpful information-giving creature that could help us.

That’s stupid. Why should any creature help us?

Who knows? It’s just an idea.

It’s a stupid idea!

Well, then, can we get yours? You have a better idea? If not, stop talking and the rest of us…uh, can we talk?

That’s…actually a good…question. We are a crystal without a mouth, so…

Focus on the problem at hand, please! Our survival may depend on it.

The hive was confused by all the new information it had received, yet it had no use for most of it. At least now the hive understood that the new knowledge had come from the creatures that died near it. When some creature died within the hive’s influence, the hive gained some knowledge from the creature. With that understanding, the next question the hive had related to the distance of its influence.

Unfortunately, the first thing the hive discovered was how limited its influence was. The hive’s small room was at the end of the short tunnel, but as the hive pushed its senses outwards, it found that it was only able to sense the immediate area just outside the entrance of the tunnel. When the hive tried to extend its senses beyond that, its sensory system just shut down.

The hive’s range was pretty poor, but at least the hive now had an idea of its surroundings. The tunnel the hive was in led out of a mountain, and the nature and water spirits within the hive said that they sensed the presence of a forest and a river nearby, but the hive was unable to see them. The knowledge was nice to have, but it didn’t help with the problem of how to avoid future danger.

The hive knew it had been lucky—it could have been killed. The hive began to discuss how to avoid a similar scenario. After another discussion/argument conference, the first solution that came to the hive was to simply seal up the tunnel.

Earth spirits within the hive moved the earth and sealed up the entrance. However, when they did that, several spirits within the hive began to slowly go dormant. The hive quickly understood the problem. If it closed its access to the outside world, the hive would lose several kinds of spirits within it, such as the nature spirit that powered the bear. Some of the spirits within the hive need a route to the outside in order to function.

After some experimentation, the hive discovered that it could move the stone slab it was floating on. With closure of the tunnel out of the question, the other option was to simply move farther away from the entrance of the cave. When earth spirits within the hive offered to dig further into the mountain, everyone agreed. The earth spirits within the hive began digging a tunnel from the back of the hive’s room, and it was during this time the hive discovered yet another problem.

The more it dug, the less the hive was able to focus. In a way, this made sense to the hive. The more energy you expend, the less you have. The problem was that the hive had no idea what it should do to replace the energy it was using to