Meanwhile, Naomi was working on her second floor. The general design will be sewers built from bricks. There will be twenty-five rooms in a grid five on five. Each room will be ten by ten meters with a vaulted ceiling. Two meters wide and six meters long corridors connected each room. Some corridors were blocked by walls creating a maze. On walls and sometimes in corridors were ten centimeters-thick pipes. Better looking were filled with steam under pressure and rusted with sewer water. Naomi planned to populate the floor with rats. But there was a problem. Even when she pushes changes to the limit and creates the most terrifying rat she can, she still can’t force herself to use them. They were too real for her, and because of her past, she was against unnecessary cruelty. She sighed and started walking around her workshop trying to find the strength to do that anyway, or maybe find another solution. Then she saw something on the shelf with her few testing pieces. To see how good she is, she tries to build a simple mechanical toy. Mechanical monkey with cymbals all made from brass. The catch was she needed to create parts by hand, because she didn't have a computer, and the magical creator could show you only general things from this world. If a dungeon master wants something new he needs to design and build it from scratch. It was hard at the beginning but great exercise and the result was satisfactory.

  "And what if…" Naomi said looking at the toy. "Yeah." She smiled and got back to the workbench.

  "First I need a normal rat. Enlarge its body to one meter. Great." She started making forms of its head and paws to cast them in bronze. Then from the bronze metal plate, she starts to form segments that after assembling will be creating the body of the rat. When she finishes she compares its movements with the movements of real rats. After some adjustments, she started working on the interior. She started adding struts and gears to move every part as similar to a living rat as possible. Everything will be moved by a big and strong spring similar to those used in old clocks. She needed some experimenting with size and enchantments before she was certain that spring would keep running for more than one hour, to last until reset if adventurers retreat. There will be no room for cheating. When you enter a room you will need to destroy it to move forward. The next step was the most challenging for Naomi. She needs to use magic stones and enchantments to make it react, and move. Some things were there, enchantments reacting to light, storing mana and spells in magic stones, runes, and magic metal. It took her a whole week to have a working prototype.

  "I did it! I can't believe I did it!" Naomi jumps, seeing the first ready golem rat.

  "Nice work. Great start, but you still need to work hard to make your work acceptable." Said The Smith. His rating was harsh, but he was smiling and Naomi knew that it was working only because of dungeon magic.

  "Yes, you did it, my dear." Said The Lady. "However can you explain why so much work, when you can summon any rat?"

  "I'm sorry my Goddess, but I can’t. I will use your creations, animals, and plants whenever I can, but for fighting, I just can’t." Naomi hangs her head and starts looking at the floor scared of what will come next. Surprisingly it was a hug.

  "It’s alright my dear. I'm glad to hear that."

  "Goddess I'm dirty." Naomi tried protesting.

  "You need something special to soil my dress." Goddess smiled. "You calmed down my dear?"

  "A little."

  "Don’t be scared. You don’t do anything bad."

  "Rather something great. I can't wait to see the faces of all those old pricks calling themselves grandmasters. Bah, you can level your skill all you want, but creating something new counts."

  "Thank you. I know that this is something that barely works and before me, there is a lot of work."

  "Yes. However, you still don’t explain why you can’t summon my creation to fight for you like you do that with your final floor. You must understand that your explanation is very important to us. In the past we overestimated the abilities of mortals like you, and because of that archlich was born. I don't think you are anywhere near that path, but if you need help we will try to find it for you."

  "I think I already have a lot of help. Adventurers Guild Master, commander of paladins, grand priests, and wife of Guild Master recently too. They are trying and helping me a lot.

  "Wonderfully. And explanation?"

  "Well." Naomi takes a deep breath. "They are too perfect."

  "That is probably the first time when mortals accuse gods of being too perfect." Said stunned The Smith.

  "It is. I checked all the archives." God of knowledge said after he appeared. "Care you elaborate?"

  "Details, yes." Naomi was nervous. "So I think it was something like that. When you, gods, decide to create dungeons you need something that will be fighting with adventurers. As gods, you can create anything for that purpose, but because our job is to teach, fighting something like a flying octopus when it doesn't exist in the real world will be useless. Adventurers need to learn to fight real things, like wolves, and giant rats. And why overcomplicate things, better use what is already there. However, when patterns of creatures were copied for us dungeon cores to use, they were copied perfectly. Without soul of course, but rest is perfect copy. And that is my problem. Summoned animals have every possible emotion. And I don’t talk about this bond between them and me. I'm talking about what they do when no one disturbs them. They live like every real animal. My frogs, birds in the oasis. Moss and Ivy in the jungle. They are too real."

  "You are mostly correct in your assumption." The god of knowledge answered. "But you forget that they are very complicated illusions of real things. However, it is true that for mortals emotions are important so your insight is very valuable."

  "I'm very glad to hear your explanation. I also think that you overthink the whole situation. However, I see your deep care for life in general." Goddess said. "I can't bless your creation, but they will carry my approval."

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  "I also like your work. But it’s too early for something special like a blessing. However, I think you should check your path." Laugh The Smith, and gods vanish.

  "My path?" Naomi asked, surprised, and then hastily checked it. She got a new skill. Novice golem crafter. Naomi smiled. "Thank you."

  She double-checked her new floor and golem rats. Then confirmed creating it and she got a ping that she now was level four. Naomi smiled and decided to take a break.

  After a whole week, adventurers mapped all the rooms from the first floor.

  The fifth room had twenty-five circular platforms instead of a floor. They stood in waist-deep water. In the center of the chain was a hanging shelf with a small chest with a prize in it. At first, it looks simple, you just need to jump from one platform to another. It wasn't. When the scout jumped she almost landed in water. Platforms start to swing in every direction. Only her skills and experience allowed her to jump on the next one, crouch, and catch it. After a few swings, the platform stopped.

  "It was close. Who's next?" She laughed. It took her team almost an hour to cross the room.

  Eight rooms were again suspiciously empty. There was only a pedestal in the middle with a chest.

  When the scout entered immediately the whole left wall started moving to the center. On the right side in both corners, the ceiling was slowly dropping down. They need to run because they have at best fifteen minutes before the passage will be blocked.

  The eleventh room was dangerous. There was a narrow bridge over water, leading to the platform and from there to the right to exit or to the left far corner where there was a chest with the prize. The bridge was built from narrow, not even two-foot-wide columns and between them were rotating blades. They look like wings of windmills. You need to jump through them to cross the room. It was dangerous because blades could drag you underwater and you could drown.

  With every run general tips for all rooms were gathered by adventurers guild and shared. They also confirmed the existence of the mysterious thirteenth room, however, no one yet found an entrance to it. The general opinion was that it's better not to look for it. It was a very special kind of trap, and for silver or two it was not worth risking your life. Guild master issued a general warning about it, and set a reward of one gold for those who will find entrance to it.

  At the same time, when Naomi finishes the floor, the team under the leadership of Jillax just finished the last room.

  "Let's grab money and time for us," Jilax said.

  "No amulet," Wed reported.

  "And everyone has one?" The leader asked and all confirmed. "So it is like the Guild said. Let's go."

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs they stopped. There wasn’t an exit to the grassy field of the final floor. There was a corridor built from bricks.

  "Fuck. What o fucking luck." The leader said. "The second floor is ready."

  "Are we going in?" Swarf Hemnir, their shield bearer asked.

  "A good question. How are our supplies and mana?"

  "I’m good, almost full," Hiki answered.

  "Same here and I have still ten vials of healing potions in my pouch." Meadia elven healer said.

  "One room shouldn't be a problem I think. Let's see what’s there. Until we don’t enter we can always retreat." Jilax decided and the rest agreed. They were adventurers, it was their job to check dangerous places.

  The room before them was much bigger than the rooms on floor one. It was built of bricks, and in small recesses were light stones as a source of light, as was in the floor above. On walls also were pipes, some rusted, others looked not bad. And in the middle was a sleeping, curled giant rat. Well, he would be sleeping if he was alive and not made from metal.

  "Trap room?" Hemnir asked.

  "Maybe. I don't see any animals. What about this sculpture?"

  "There is something in it," Hiki said. "Hard to say what. Never seen something like this."

  "It is not alive for sure." The elven healer adds.

  "Great. Shields up. We are going in." Jilax decided.

  They barely crossed the threshold and something like the eyelids of the sculpture moved revealing two red gemstone eyes. Immediately the sculpture jumps on its legs ready to attack.

  "You said it is not alive!" Jilax shouts.

  "There isn’t even the tiniest spark of life in it. I don't understand what is happening."

  "It’s mana and enchantments!" Hiki shouts.

  Rat uses moments of confusion to jump in their leader's direction. Adventurers may be busy to understand what is happening, but that doesn't mean they don’t observe the rat. Jilax covered himself with a shield on time and even got the first hit. The rat however retreated unharmed.

  "Fuck! My axe is useless. Hemir your hammer should be better. I and the rest try to get him occupied."

  "Got it!"

  Skirmish last quarter of an hour. Wed and Hiki try shooting running and jumping metal rat when Jilax covers them with his shield. Hemir uses every opportunity to land a hit with his war hammer. After the first few hits, he saw that one or two armor plates got loose enough to start showing gaps. He immediately switched to the spiky end and after a few misses, he finally scored a hit. The spike went deep and the sculpture had difficulties moving properly. Jilax, seeing a struggling rat move, immediately discards his shield grabs his axe in both hands, and lands a hit on its neck. Something loudly breaks and the rat stops moving entirely.

  "It’s dead?" Hemir asked ready for anything.

  "All magic is gone," Hiki said. "So rather yes."

  "Let's see this thing up close." Jilax dwarven blood boils from excitement. Whatever that was, it was built from metal and powered by magic. Dwarfs for a long time were building simple artifacts using enchantments or moving parts. However nothing so marvelous like this animal built from metal and acting like one. When they pried a few bronze armor plates they saw intricate machinery full of gears and struts.

  "Thank the gods that this thing is a dungeon creation because I don’t want to think what the arch master who built it will do to us for destroying this artifact," Meadia said.

  "True." Hemir agrees.

  "Which part of it are we taking?" Wed asked. They have only one hour until reset of the room and dungeons only allow you to take up to a quarter of a killed creature as a reward.

  "We are taking the head, and right leg if we can. There is that engraving with its name 'Golem rat mk 1’." Jilax decided. After some praying of plates from the neck of the rat they get to some hinges and after a few hits, they separate the head from its body. Removing the leg goes similarly. The rest of the rat immediately dissolved into mana.

  "It’s fucking heavy," Wed complains when he picks up a head of a rat.

  "What you expected. It’s made from metal." Hemir laughs when takes it from the scout. "Although it looks like it is empty inside because it is lighter than what I expected for a solid block of bronze."

  "Let's get a quick look at what is on the left and right side and we are going back," Jilax said. "At least there are no doors."

  On the left side were three rats, on the right just two.

  "Those two look tempting," Hemir said.

  "I need a war hammer too." Jilax shakes his head. "And we need support. At least one or two people to carry parts."