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A Dearth of Choice

  • ️Wed Aug 17 2022

Tell you what, just for that I'll make this experience pain free for you, okay? Appreciate me later, transference now!

An unnamed protagonist is taken from Earth and reincarnated in another world as a dungeon core, with his memories muddled. Nonetheless, he sets out to grow peacefully and coexist with humans. Too bad about how he keeps stacking up bonuses to death magic and necromancy...

A Dearth of Choice is a LitRPG story by Grim Tide, originally written for the 2022 Royal Road Writathon, and continued up until June 2022, at which point it went on hiatus.

Note: For wiki convenience, this page will refer to the protagonist as "he" or "it", although his status as either is questionable.

A Dearth of Choice contains examples of:

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A—F 

  • Achievement System: The Dungeon is capable of earning achievements by various feats, for which the system may reward them with new perks or features. The earliest example of this is when the Dungeon (accidentally) kills a random person when they trip into its newly formed entrance into a sharp drop, impressing the system by killing an intruder without any traps or monsters prepared and rewarding the Dungeon with the [Slayer of Man] perk, much to the Dungeon's annoyance.
  • Adventure-Friendly World: The RPG Mechanics 'Verse lets people level up to superhuman heights by adventuring. The world provides plenty of opportunities: there are Monsters Everywhere on the surface and magical dungeons growing beneath the earth, the latter driving a Dungeon-Based Economy.
  • Adventure Guild: There's at least one available in Iruvel, which Tam's party were members of. They apparently sent the Silver-Tier adventurers as a "scouting party", though Tam suspects something more was going on.
  • All-Accessible Magic: Mana is an intrinsic part of the environment that anyone can learn to wield. Even John the Farm Boy knows some basic Utility Magic to help with chores.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: Katrina is very grateful to the dungeon for killing her sadistic and abusive fiancé, even though it was an accident, and tries to offer her own life as a gift.
  • Arcadia: The village of Home was quite peaceful and uneventful before the Dungeon showed up, and people liked it that way — although Dutch was aware that it wasn't sustainable in the long term without training up a new generation of defenders.

    The setting sun highlighted an idyllic village located in a picturesque valley. The large forest nearby provided all the lumber and wood they could ever require, as well as meat from the wild game that roamed the woods. A large river carved its way around the outermost wooden buildings, powering a water-wheel and supporting several types of fish and other aquatic based life, as the rich mana from the environment boosted the vitality of the wildlife.
    It wasn't an easy life, far from it, but the villagers couldn't find it in themselves to complain.

  • Artificial Outdoors Display: The Dungeon can easily outfit rooms to have an illusory sky, though the effect isn't very convincing in smaller areas. Exploited in one room that forces adventurers to face blinding sunlight while they fight.
  • As You Know: The Dungeon gets to listen in as Dutch conveniently reminds his newbie protégé John of the basics of Dungeon Crawling and the Class and Level System on their first visit.

    Honestly, while all this information was particularly fascinating, the biggest thing I learned is that I, in fact, CAN live in harmony with others! Praise be! I’m not completely doomed!

  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: The protagonist is the only dungeon that thinks like a human and has known since birth that humans are more than prey. Other dungeons are as alien as you'd expect from solitary entities made of magic and rock. It's normally a mark of great age and experience if a dungeon understands human language.
  • Born of Magic: Apart from special exceptions, dungeon creatures are created from pure mana, disintegrate into mana when defeated, and respawn later.
  • Boss Room: Each dungeon floor ends in a room with a unique, powerful boss monster that blocks the way downwards. The room itself bolsters the monster's capabilities and becomes customized to the boss fight.
  • Building Location Restrictions: The Dungeon needs to extend its Mana into a new area in order to manipulate the terrain there. It soon delegates that task to skeletal mining crews because they do it more cheaply than the Dungeon itself can, letting it focus its own efforts elsewhere.
  • Challenge Run: The Dungeon adds a few optional rules that adventurers may accept for extra challenge and reward, like adding regenerating enemies to some rooms.
  • Companion Cube: The Dungeon, being quite lonely at first, latches onto the only thing that interacts with it — the system interface that tells it about skills and levelling up. When it realizes that "the Box" doesn't have humans' best interests in mind, it switches to blaming it for everything.
  • Dramatic Irony: The chapter from the perspective of the Silver team leader shows just how often he overlooks signs of the Dungeon's true strength that the reader has already seen. He misses hidden monsters, dismisses strong design features as a lucky fluke, underestimates the bosses' capabilities even after noticing that Biyaban is unusually canny, and so on. When his team successfully reach the core and believe they can now handle the worst that the dungeon can throw at them, it's clear that they don't know what they're really asking for.
  • Dressed to Cook: The dungeon is pleased to see that his skeletal cooking crew spawns with "adorable" chef hats.

    All they needed was fake mustaches and it would be perfect… Hmm, that gives me an idea for the future.

  • Due to the Dead: After the Dungeon first has to kill a hostile adventuring party, it deposits their bodies in coffins near the entrance as a gesture of good faith, but adds a warning that anyone else who tries to destroy it will be recycled as undead minions.
  • Dungeon-Based Economy: Dungeons produce both rare magical materials not obtainable anywhere else and mundane materials that have no right to exist in that particular environment (i.e. a dungeon at the North Pole could produce food and wood despite being surrounded by icy wasteland). As such, they are a colossal economic boon for the surrounding towns. The unnamed dungeon specifically invests a lot of his time and upgrades into producing magically enhanced food and other trade goods, to incentivize a peaceful relationship with the local village.
  • A Dungeon Is You: Dungeons are Genius Loci, anchored to a crystal core, that use mana to expand, reshape and furnish their interiors, and create respawning monsters, as they gain experience from Dungeon Crawlers. They're a fixture of the setting, but most operate on animalistic instinct or a truly alien mindset; the protagonist's human intelligence and knowledge make it unique.
  • Easy Level Trick: The introductory Orchard has a pack of skeletons, a Lifedrinker, and a Blooming Tree with tempting magical fruit. As a lesson in observation and common sense, the Tree is docile until it's directly attacked, so smart delvers can deal with the other enemies and harvest the fruit in peace.
  • Enmity with an Object: The Dungeon towards the system interface, a.k.a. "Box". At first the Dungeon treats Box as a Companion Cube out of loneliness, since it's unable to interact with anything else at that point, but its opinion of Box soon turns sour as it becomes clear that Box is only interested in granting abilities that can harm humans (which conflicts with the Dungeon's goal of coexisting with them). This only gets worse as time goes on, especially when Box pulls stunts like offering a Leonine Contract to Katarina. The Dungeon does acknowledge that its hatred of Box is rather illogical, since (aside from the aforementioned contract) there's no indication that Box is sentient in any way, not that this stops the Dungeon from insulting Box and blaming it for the various Death-aligned abilities the Dungeon is offered.
  • Equipment Upgrade: The Dungeon can improve its minions' gear by gaining access to new resources like veins of ore and creating crafters to process them. Minions like skeletons benefit the most from this because they rely mostly on their weapons to be a threat.
  • Face Plant: Much to the Dungeon's embarrassment, as soon as its skeletons move to confront its first-ever adventurers, one trips in the grass and lands on its face. Fortunately, they can treat it as a learning experience.
  • Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: With the Dungeon's Life affinity, Budding Trees can produce a variety of fruit with benefits and drawbacks for the eater. The Dungeon opts for mana-rich fruit that turns out to be a valuable commodity.
  • Feed It with Fire: A semi-sapient wolf pack manages to break Timmy the Baby Bone Hydra apart, but they don't take the time to destroy the individual bones, so once they're defeated, he's soon back up and running — and he proceeds to add their bones to himself, giving him substantial stat boosts.
  • Flying Weapon: The dungeon gets two options for animated swords, a Blessed Sword or a Cursed Sword, due to his twin life/death affinities. He uses a Cursed Sword in the usual fashion as a room guardian, but turns a Blessed Sword into an experimental boss combining both elements.
  • Forced Sleep: After growing a Budding Tree, the dungeon gets to choose which fruit to grow. [Fruit of Healing] is an option, but the detailed description reveals that while yes, it does grant some amount of healing, it also induces lethargy and sleepiness.
  • Friendly Skeleton: The Dungeon adds a noncombat zone by the entrance, including skeleton chefs that prepare exquisite feasts and juggle knives for fun. Even the undead in the combat zones recognize regular visitors and make it obvious that they're there for a friendly sparring match.
  • Friend or Foe?: Bound servants of a dungeon are magically linked to its Core, so they don't trigger traps or provoke monsters.

G—L 

  • Geo Effects:
    • The dungeon makes use of various environmental effects to boost the danger level of his monsters, such as filling rooms with fog to reduce visibility and make ghostly ambushes easier, turning the floor to mud to limit mobility, or constructing claustrophobically narrow tunnels. The third floor is entirely swampy, to thwart foes who rely on raw physical power.
    • He also sets up an "arctic" climate in one room, not for combat, but to refrigerate meat.
  • God of the Dead: Chapter 8 mentions Nor, goddess of timely endings, among other things, and elves:

    Nor, the goddess of rebirth, timely endings, and new life, the common patron of many other elves as well

  • Groin Attack: The Dungeon is very annoyed at their "synergistic relationship with the humans" attempt being subverted by their first Perk, granted by what they hope is a non-sentient system instead of one made to screw them over:

    And if it is, I'm gonna find them, give them a pair of kickable genitalia if they don’t possess any, then proceed to abuse them just like they did to me. Turnabout is fair play, after all, and that feels about even.

  • Heal It with Water:
    • Zig-zagged with Katrina's power "Ebb and Flow", fitting the Dungeon's theme of Life/Death duality. It damages enemies through desiccation but heals allies with a cocoon of water.
    • The orc shaman's healing magic appears as water condensing out of the air and flowing into the injury.
  • Heart Drive: A dungeon's only truly vulnerable feature is its crystal core; it can freely grow, reshape, furnish, and populate the rest of its structure with its Mana. So long as the protagonist's survival isn't threatened, it's happy to form a symbiotic relationship with Dungeon Crawling adventurers, since both sides get XP from the visit and the Dungeon suffers no genuine harm.
  • Hollywood Torches: Justified in that the Dungeon's many torches (which he can place for free) are Made of Magic for visitors' convenience, so they don't need to worry about mundane concerns like whether the materials are supposed to be flammable. The flickering is mostly for ambience, rather than resembling actual flame. Nuclear Candle does not apply, however; the Dungeon wants things dim and spooky.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Anya asks about what's going on with Katrina, and Biyaban tells her that "Not all monsters wear a hideous skin and a twisted appearance. Not all monsters live in Dungeons or in the wilderness." (He doesn't mean Katrina, however, but rather the "family" who abused her and sent her running into the dungeon's arms.)
  • I Need A Drink: Between the new adventurers in town, their likely clash with the dungeon, the disappearance of Katrina, and the ominous message from Biyaban, Kurell the seer gets a headache.

    He hadn’t drunk in a long time, but this seemed like the appropriate scenario in which to start up again.

  • Inescapable Ambush: Boss Rooms automatically lock when delvers enter and unlock when the boss is defeated, though the boss appears to have some ability to override this.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: An essential dungeon feature to entice adventurers, chests automatically fill with random loot at regular intervals, with the quality of the chest influencing the rarity of the items. The Dungeon creates a few to start delivering on those "rewards" it promised delvers.
  • I Shall Taunt You: Tam uses a Taunt skill to draw Biyaban's attention to himself instead of his more vulnerable teammates. It doesn't help; Biyaban kills both him and them, sparing only the one who didn't want the fight.

    Biyaban: My instincts already scream to me, crying out for me to slaughter you where you stand, human. You think I need more reason to kill you? So be it.

  • Karmic Death: Katrina's fiance used to push her down stairs because he found her pain entertaining. He later suffers a fall of his own, but that one is much more fatal.
  • Know When to Fold 'Em: The protagonist openly acknowledged that there was no point in either fight or flight when encountering the being about to turn him into a dungeon core. The being was amused and rewarded him with a painless transition.

    "Why would I try and fight you? You're clearly an entity with powers that humanity has yet to realize exists or even knows of, and I highly doubt me, a mere baseline human, stands a chance of harming a metaphorical hair on your non-existent head."

  • Last Chance to Quit: Even after accepting Rule 1 (i.e., lethal force is allowed on both sides), the first-floor boss Biyaban still warns Tam's party to turn back. Tam is too stubborn, though, fixated on the idea that dungeons must be controlled.

    Biyaban: I have fought you all many times. You are all far too weak to truly face me. I do not wish to include in my legend the slaughter of the undeserving, so turn back now please.
    [Beat]
    Well? Go on, little children. Come back when you are at least Gold-Tier, and we will have a true match. Then, you will be a worthy addition to my legend. I will carve your noble sacrifice into these walls, that all might remember your valiant fight. But this will not be that, and I have no desire for it. Go.

  • Leonine Contract: When Katrina is at her lowest and her abusers are about to take her torture to the next step, the System suddenly offers her a choice: she can continue to suffer as she has and worse, or she can sign a contract and sign her life away to the Dungeon itself. It's made abundantly clear that to her that said contract is utterly lopsided in favor of the Dungeon (with the contract literally being called Deal with the Devil), but at that point Katrina is so broken that she's fine with whatever fate the Dungeon consigns her to, and accepts the contract. The Dungeon is furious with the System for pulling this, even suspecting it knew that Katrina would never say no to the dangerous bargain, but decides to make the best of it and resolves to never abuse their power over Katrina, instead focusing on helping her heal and grow.
  • Level Grinding: Dutch reflects at length on the fact that dungeons are essential for civilization to survive in the long run, because they allow adventurers to level up and become strong enough to fend off mana-enhanced wild animals. Once he's confident that the dungeon is safe enough, he starts bringing local boys through it to get them trained up.
  • Level Scaling: As long as adventurers agree not to threaten the dungeon core, the Dungeon tries to match its threat level to theirs.
    • John discovers that when he enters a room full of skeletons, only a handful of them will come to face him, gradually increasing each time as things become too easy for him and the Dungeon recognises that he's ready for more.
    • Tam's party notices the coffins and tombs they pass, but nothing ever comes out. Biyaban fights them alone, even though from the beginning the boss room was made with reinforcements waiting to surge in. The Battlefield uses no tactics and no ghosts or cursed swords. Omen doesn't pass through walls like other wraiths (and the Dungeon notes elsewhere that Omen is entirely capable of that). Unfortunately Tam doesn't realise that all of that is because the dungeon is holding back, and instead assumes he's seen the worst it can do.
    • Against Dutch, the dungeon fights all-out, knowing that the gold-ranked adventurer can take it. Biyaban has his minions (for what little good they do) and fights at full speed, and Omen is actually able to stop Dutch until he develops a workable counter-strategy.
  • Level-Up Fill-Up: Both the Dungeon and adventurers get their health and Mana Points restored to maximum when they gain a level. This is particularly useful for adventurers because they can benefit from the fill-up in the middle of a dungeon delve.
  • Life Drain: One of the dungeon's few Life-aligned monsters is a Lifedrinker; not especially threatening by itself, but the more life energy it drains from its victims, the stronger it becomes.
  • LitRPG: Of the RPG Mechanics 'Verse variety. Everyone living in the setting (from normal farmers to the Dungeons themselves) can gain Experience and level up in various classes, learning new skills as they grow or accomplish feats.
  • LOL, 69: In Chapter 7, when trying to make his second floor boss:

    The number shifted, blurring briefly before resettling on 69. Heh, you’re funny Box. But that is still not right.

  • Long-Lived: High-level adventurers often gain a substantially extended lifespan, especially those with a high Vitality stat.

M—R 

  • Magically Binding Contract: Dungeons can offer Rules that bind both themselves and the adventurers who come inside. The protagonist encourages cooperation by offering a selection of Rules that reward and protect those who agree not to harm the core, but promise a gruesome demise to those who enter with hostile intent. Even hostile adventurers know better than to break them.

    If there was one thing that simply wasn't done, it was mess with the Rules.
    Nothing ever good came about because of that.

  • Mana: Mana is naturally generated by the environment; individuals have a personal reserve that regenerates over time and can be replenished faster by eating the right foods. Anyone can learn to use it to cast spells; even plants and animals have a chance to gain more powerful forms and abilities from it. The Dungeon also uses Mana to create minions, furnish itself, and expand its influence.
  • Mana-Emptying Spell: Chapter 7: Upgrading a creature costs Mana and when doing a custom upgrade instead of following a preset path, the costs get by the System that controls the Dungeon's options and the upgrade gets expensive, appearing to have been made to fit the user, costing everything he has:

    The menu blurred again, and the mana cost rapidly shifted, numbers blurring through its interface as it tried to determine exactly what I asked of it, before finally settling on a final number.
    [Upgrade Cost: 185 Mana]
    It was the sum total of mana I currently had, but that was fair.

  • Master of Illusion: Geists are minor undead spirits whose only combat ability is the power to create sensory illusions. They can't do much on their own, but they're cheap and surprisingly effective backup for other units as they distract and mislead adventurers.
  • Max-Level Bonus: As the Dungeon levels up, it inadvertently maxes out its ability that reduces the cost of unit upgrades. The RPG Mechanics 'Verse rewards it with a bonus perk "Best of the Best", granting all units one free starting upgrade and a subsequent 50% discount.

    You have pursued not only the path of overwhelming numbers but indisputable quality. For reaching the upgrade cost reduction limit, it has been removed from the Experience selections and you've been granted this perk.

  • Min-Maxing: While the protagonist is looking at monster options for his dungeon early on, he muses that Dungeons sorta need to specialize in order to survive long term, as unwise investments in monsters or traps they may not have good mana Alignments with can make their defenses weak and their cores vulnerable to adventurers. This is part of why the protagonist is getting stronger at a much faster rate compared to other Dungeons — Dungeons are usually animalistic in terms of intelligence when they first form, with their approach to monster and dungeon arrangements being more "throw it at the wall and see what works", while the protagonist can plan ahead and play to his existing advantages (an already high Death-Alignment) while better optimizing his stats though his level-up bonuses (e.g. focusing on lowering the mana costs for his undead monsters).
  • Monsters Everywhere: The abundance of mana-enhanced monsters in the surface world makes it essential for every community to have some decently powerful adventurers around. The village of Home has only survived as long as it has thanks to Dutch and didn't have much of a future before the Dungeon provided a safe Level Grinding opportunity.
  • Multiple Narrative Modes: Most of the story focuses on the First-Person Smartass protagonist as it adjusts to its new life and learns about the world, but some sections switch to limited third-person perspectives of various locals who cross paths with the Dungeon.
  • Muscles Are Meaningless: The skeletal smiths are apparently quite strong from all their time spent forging. How that makes sense for creatures with no muscles at all, the dungeon isn't sure, but they're able to lift and carry all the forging stations around the room with little difficulty.
  • Necromancer: Most of the dungeon's available monsters are undead. Skeletons, zombies, ghosts, ghouls, the works. Most are Born of Magic, but the option to reanimate existing corpses is there. He does have a smaller selection of life-oriented monsters, but they're primarily used in the training room, not for serious defenses.
  • The Needless: The dungeon is quite pleased to have skeletons digging out expansions instead of having to spend mana on the job, and "the utter lack of a need for sleep, sustenance, or breaks meant they carved out tunnels in record time."
  • Night of the Living Mooks: Most of the Dungeon is themed around undead that run the gamut from bottom-shelf skeletons and zombies to a powerful mutated wraith. The Dungeon's perk "For I Am Legion" doubles the quantity of undead created with every purchase, allowing it to churn out large hordes with ease.
  • Nominal Importance: Creatures given names by the Dungeon develop unique abilities and personality traits based on the name's meaning, above and beyond the standard upgrade system.
  • Non-Combat EXP: People can level up by applying their skills, whatever they are — high-intensity activities like Dungeon Crawling and combat appear to grant much more XP, but even a simple farmer can advance somewhat. The Dungeon plans to give visitors non-combat options like helping its cooks and crafters.
  • Non-Human Undead: The Dungeon's first attempt at Necromancy is directed at a jumble of small animal bones. Aided by a mysterious unexpected Blessing, they become a baby Bone Hydra that can Pull Itself Together and assimilate new bones to grow — starting with a pack of Dire Wolves. The Dungeon names it Timmy.
  • Noob Cave: "The Orchard" was supposed to be easy mode for adventurers, with just a handful of skeletons and a single lifedrinker, surrounding a fruit-bearing tree. But after seeing that novices will struggle even against that, the dungeon goes further and constructs a room where they can choose to battle just one skeleton at a time, at their own pace.
  • No OSHA Compliance: Lampshaded when the dungeon takes advantage of skeletons' resilient nature by cutting corners on construction (which, as a side benefit, will hinder invaders). The Dungeon rethinks this in Chapter 12, when a child falls down the front stairs and hurts his arm.

    They made a cramped staircase that an actual human probably would have absolutely hated, but luckily for me I had skelly boys instead, who cared not for trivial things such as 'workplace safety' or 'hazard pay'.

  • Not the Intended Use: The System requires all dungeon upgrades to be able to cause death and destruction, but the Dungeon doggedly insists on coexisting peacefully with humans. Played for Laughs when the Dungeon wants a tailor, so it imagines cursed clothes, clothes to hide undead infiltrators...

    [New Monster Type Added!]
    Oh fuck you Box.
    [Skeletal Tailoring Crew]

  • Not Worth Killing: The dungeon and Katrina want to spare Tam's party because they don't want to unnecessarily kill. Biyaban, meanwhile, offers a Last Chance to Quit simply because he wants a glorious fight to build up his legend, rather than a Curb-Stomp Battle against the weak.
  • Older Is Better: Upgrading ghosts results in stronger [Ancient Ghosts]. (Of course, they're actually freshly created.)
  • Ominous Fog: The Dungeon adds omnipresent fog as a design choice to fit the undead theme with general spookiness, to inflict a mild Supernatural Fear Inducer, and to provide cover for ambushes.
  • "Open!" Says Me: The dungeon's Noob Cave has ten skeletons in individual cages with locks that can be easily forced. The level of challenge selected by the delver determines how many skeletons will make the effort to break out.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: The one orc in the story is a minion created by the Dungeon — large, green, strong, and festooned in bones, but generally there to fulfill her role as a shaman and healer. The Dungeon lampshades that she's pretty much the fantasy orc stereotype.
  • Pacifist Run: At first, the best the dungeon can offer is the prospect of fighting only lesser monsters who will not seek to land mortal blows, in exchange for a binding promise not to harm the core. As he expands, however, he constructs extensive non-combat areas, which adventurers are free to visit, and they can even obtain rewards by helping the skeletal cooks and tailors and blacksmiths.
  • Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: When the dungeon first encounters Katrina, she's so downtrodden and depressed that she offers to let herself be killed by his monsters just so that her life will achieve something.
  • The Powers That Be: "Box", a.k.a. the System that governs the RPG Mechanics 'Verse, most prominently the level-up system. The Dungeon has a few choice words about how it keeps being given abilities better suited to a malevolent sorcerous overlord, but for better or for worse, the System doesn't interact with it outside of those mechanics.
  • Predation Is Natural: Dungeons don't like the idea of being killed or enslaved any more than you do, and their immobile body makes them unusually vulnerable to invaders. When the protagonist dungeon realizes that simply walling in its core is not an option (the rules demand that a dungeon must always have an open route to its core), it quickly begins assembling an army- albeit a very disciplined one- and puppeting the bodies of creatures it's slain. The strength it gains from doing so protects it from characters who want to abuse it however helpful it is.
  • Predator Turned Protector: When the dungeon is protecting Katrina from a pack of semi-intelligent wolves, it's a surreal experience for her to have zombies and skeletons and wraith-like beings simply step aside to allow her passage, and then, when there's nowhere to run, a cluster of rotting corpses closes ranks around her as a guard, before ripping the wolves apart.
  • Randomly Generated Loot: The Dungeon's magical treasure chests periodically generate random items as rewards for adventurers. Higher-quality chests produce better loot, but other than that, the Dungeon doesn't appear to have any say in what they create.
  • Reduced Resource Cost:
    • The Dungeon invests a lot of XP into an ability that reduces the Mana cost of unit upgrades. It eventually maxes out the ability and unlocks the perk "Best Of The Best", giving all units a free starting upgrade and a 50% discount on subsequent ones.
    • Defeating the pack of Dire Wolves grants the perk "For I Am Legion", doubling the number of undead that spawn with each purchase. The dungeon practically Squees at the ramifications — not only does it increase its purchasing power, it functionally doubles its unit cap.
    • The Dungeon's synergy of Life and Death leads to special perks that allow its denizens to learn and grow independently of purchased upgrades.
  • Reinforce Field: Hand-Waved as a sort of Required Secondary Power of Dungeons. The mana that suffuses them also shores up the ceilings, keeping everything in place as the Dungeon grows underground.
  • Respawning Enemies: By default, dungeon monsters reform in their chambers a short time after their defeat, no worse for wear, making the place a potentially unlimited resource for delvers.
  • RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The mechanics of earning Experience Points, gaining levels, and using Skills are basic facts of life in the setting. On top of that, the Dungeon interacts with the System through actual popup menus.
  • Runic Magic: In magical crafting, runes of a mana-conducive material like silver can be inlaid into the item to achieve a greater enchantment than the item could normally contain. However, the Dungeon's crafters have to discover the runes and their effects through experimentation.

S—Z 

  • Shoot the Mage First: When The Gloves Come Off against Tam's party, Biyaban puts his hand (with razor-sharp claws secreting paralytic venom) through the mage's stomach before anyone realizes he's moved.
  • Silver Has Mystic Powers: Silver is the best material to store and conduct mana for magical Item Crafting. Silver weapons also deal extra damage to some monsters.
  • Situational Damage Attack: Katrina's power, "Flames of the Cycle," deals damage proportional to the target's malicious actions and intent. A sadistic premeditated murderer would be immolated but a Friendly Skeleton is completely unharmed.
  • Slasher Smile: Even when Biyaban's smile is genuinely affectionate, it's still a nightmarish display of razor sharp fangs with rotting meat between them in a mouth that's missing chunks of flesh.

    I still loved the guy, but the undead just aren’t exactly PR friendly for a wide variety of reasons.

  • Spare a Messenger: The first time that the lethal force rule is exercised, the dungeon allows one of the adventurers — the one who had the most doubts and second thoughts — to live, so that people will know the dungeon tried to give multiple chances to back down.
  • Stalactite Spite: Invoked and Justified by the protagonist — falling stalactites are among the few Booby Traps it installs. They trigger and respawn by magic. Katrina later makes them more dangerous, by adjusting them to variable sizes so they're more natural-looking (and thus less noticeable).
  • Stat-O-Vision: The Dungeon's "Observe" ability reveals the target's name, level, class, and major abilities, though some information may be hidden.
  • Stock Costume Traits: The Dungeon's skeletal labourers spawn with the stereotypical costume of their job, much to some visitors' bemusement. Miners have a hard hat with a lamp (despite not needing light or head protection), blacksmiths have a leather apron, and cooks have a chef toque.
  • Swamps Are Evil: The third floor is a massive underground swamp — a "green and watery hellscape" of mud, looming trees, and diseased undead.
  • Tampering with Food and Drink: When the dungeon starts growing food crops, some of them turn out as normal high-quality plants, but others are corrupted by their high mana levels, becoming rotten, toxic, diseased, or cursed with even nastier effects like turning people directly into undead. The dungeon assigns one of his minions to identifying and removing the dangerous plants, hoping to provide the healthy ones to the nearby village.
  • Thought-Controlled Power: Dungeons have no limbs; they influence the world around them solely with mental magic. Furthermore, that magic takes a form influenced by stereotypes in the dungeon's mind. The protagonist's knowledge of Arabic myth is shared with Biyaban, one of his minions, and the miners he creates wear anachronistic hard hats because that's how he believes miners should look.
  • Throwing the Fight: Those who accept a magical binding to stop them from harming the dungeon core will find that the fights are tailored to their level of strength, crowds of zombies and skeletons will hold back and allow novices to fight only what they can handle, bosses will keep their full abilities hidden. Those who refuse the binding will discover what the dungeon can really do. Tam and his team are able to reach the core while bound, but when they return with the intent to restrain it, they're slaughtered by the first floor boss.
  • Time to Unlock More True Potential: It's mentioned that when people reach their level Cap, they need to go dungeon delving for precious reagents and items to evolve their class and reach a new Tier. The highest-tier character shown is Dutch, a Gold who could become Platinum if he wanted to make the investment.
  • Trapped in Another World: The protagonist was summoned from Earth to the world of the story and was reborn as a Dungeon core. Because they remember very little about who they were, they don't seek to return to Earth, mostly accepting his role as a Dungeon, albeit on their own terms (i.e. not a murder house).
  • Undead Laborers: From miners to tailors to chefs, the dungeon uses skeletons for all sorts of jobs, and appreciates their work ethic and unconcern for safety.
  • Video Game Cruelty Punishment: The RPG Mechanics 'Verse lets the Dungeon inflict one with Rules — adventurers who won't agree not to harm its dungeon core are subjected to a no-holds-barred murder machine with reduced rewards (presumably in Experience Points and loot). The Dungeon lampshades how great it is to be able to punish people who want to harm it.
  • When Trees Attack: The dungeon's cursed and tainted crops can simply be uprooted, but corrupted trees are not quite so simple. He has to send in a team of skeletons with axes to chop them down — and the trees put up a fight.
  • Worthy Opponent: Dutch neither loves nor hates dungeons, he just recognises both their dangers and their value. Take them seriously, without offending them, and a delve can produce mana for the dungeon, loot for the delver, and experience for both. Make it antagonistic and things will go badly.

    Dutch: Trusting one is a different story, but respect… That is easy to give. So I suggest you do.

  • Yin-Yang Bomb:
    • The Dungeon's rare synergy of Life and Death affinities makes its undead much more powerful and intelligent, including the ability to learn and grow independently.
    • The Dungeon creates a Permafusion of a Lesser Wraith and a Blessed Sword by upgrading them into a single unit. At first they actively harm each other, but with a costly upgrade, they become a single powerful entity that's immune to Holy, Light, Dark, and Necrotic energies.
  • Zerg Rush: The second floor includes a room with no special tricks, just a very large army of basic undead. It takes Tam's party several tries to clear it, because there are enough sheer numbers to overwhelm them, and several times they have to rely on rule 2, with the attackers stopping when someone falls.

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