Four weeks, that's how long it took for me to dig out all of my corridors and rooms.
Four weeks worth of stuff that my yetis brought back. That's a lot of stuff.
Congratulations!
New animal species have been added to your repertoire:
- Arctic hare - Mountain goat
- Arctic fox - Yak
- Snowy owl - Ermine
- Snowy owl egg - Reindeer
- Frost eagle - Husky
- Frost eagle egg - White speckled mouse
Because you gave your yetis a task that has lasted for nearly a month now, your yetis have acquired some skills and proficiencies whilst doing this task:
- Both gained projectile mastery 1
- Both of them got stronger from bringing back the things they found and killing them in your dungeon.
This resulted in an increase in strength and intelligence.
- The male Yeti gained the ability: Intimidating Shout
- The female Yeti gained the ability: Sneak
Items brought back by your yetis:
- Pine bark - Winter grass
- Pinecone - Frost berries
- Pine sapling - Frost berry bush
- Pinewood - Deer moss
- Pine leaves - Sleigh
- Canvas tent - Dried dog food
- Beef jerky - Pickaxe
-Prospectors pack - Medallion of the prospectors league
- Oil lantern - Keg of inferior grade oil
- Whip - Leather straps
- Belt buckles - Gold panning kit
Oh-oh. This can't be good. Did my yetis really kill a prospector?
Maybe I need to look at this from the bright side. At least the item list has no items called package, present or wrapped up stuff. Otherwise, along with the sleigh and the reindeer, that would have led to some bad PR for my dungeon.
I can just about imagine it.
'Aaron Lightblade: The dungeon that killed Santa and ruined Christmas.'
What would that make me? The Grinch?
Anyway, this is an interesting development, to say the least. Even though I'm a bit concerned about possible retaliation from the 'Prospectors League', I can rationalize most of my concerns away.
After all, whoever it was that came up here on this mountain must have known what dangers lurk here in these mountains.
Another interesting development is the intellect gain on my yetis. I can only guess here but I'm assuming that along with an increase in intellect an increase in initiative followed. They might have figured that since they couldn't find any more animals that I didn't have yet or that they could safely kill or bring with, they might as well bring items to me that might be of use to me.
I'm a little bit sad though that a doggo had to die in my dungeon. But at least, I can now make an army out of them if I want to. Heh, just imagining it makes me 'smile'.
Adventurers wandering in here, hoping to find loot, power and recognition, only to be thwarted because they are dog lovers or have at least a dog lover in their party that refuses to kill a doggo. Heh, What if I made all of them puppers. Death by cute and big eyes, cuddles and licks.
All foolishness aside, its now time for the main event.
Levelling up!
I gather the 100.000 mana that is required and start condensing it in my core. When I feel as if it won't condense any further, no matter what I try, I mentally shout "Level up!"
The mana that I condensed bursts out of my core and surrounds it. Soon after, it starts crystalizing on the surface of my gem, making it grow slightly.
Congratulations with your level up!
You are now a second level dungeon.
You have unlocked the following things:
- You can now dedicate rooms as challenge rooms.
- More traps
- 10 new, random animal species of which one is ideally suited to your environment.
- basic dungeon mechanics and items
Traps unlocked:
- Magical spike launching mechanism (spikes can be made out of nearly anything you want such as ice, earth, metal, etc... The cost goes up with the rarity and complexity of the spike material. Easier to detect through magical means, impossible to detect if the person or party that encounters the trap doesn't have someone with mage sight.)
- Mechanical spike launching mechanism (spikes can be made out of nearly anything you want such as ice, earth, metal, etc... The cost goes up with the rarity and complexity of the spike material. Much harder to detect through magical means. Needs a trigger that with a good enough perception can be spotted, thus giving the trap away.)
- Basic projectile launcher (mechanical/magical)
- liquid sprayer (magical/mechanical) (Any liquid you have access to)
Animals unlocked:
- Seals - camel
- Moles - Red Robbins
- Trouts - Cockroaches
- Bats - Bobbit Worm
- snow petrel - Dire wolves (Uniquely suited)
Dungeon items and mechanics unlocked:
- Boss room designation
- Automatic repopulation
- Designate creatures for special respawn
- Safe zone and safe passage designation
- Ability to create doors, locks and various unlock mechanics (puzzle, key, challenge, etc.)
- Flowing water (closed water circuit)
Awesome!
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
A lot of these will allow me to beef up my current floor. Some of them even fit right in with my ice and snow themed floor.
Speaking of my floor, it's time to finish what I envisioned.
First of all, every single round room needs an infused ice platform with two infused ice stairs. The big round room needs the same platforms and stairs to connect the big room with the corridors and the smaller rooms so they get made as well.
Next is the big room. At the moment, it is just a big empty room with some stairs and some platforms. It's dull, it's grey and it is boring as hell. To change this, I dig out a river that stretches from one side till the other. Right in the middle of the room and thus in the middle of the river, I dig out a pond with a radius of about twelve metres and a depth of 8 metres. On one side of the room, I create a waterfall that starts halfway up the wall with at its base a small pond with a width of around 3 metres and a depth of 1,5 metres. To fuel all my river, pond and waterfall, I fill them all with heaps of snow. Making the snow vibrate on a molecular level turns the snow into clear and pure water. Since snow and ice has a slightly bigger volume compared to water on a mass by mass basis, I need to create some additional snow to actually fill it all. Thanks to my level up, I have now the ability to make the water flow by having it magically moved from one side of the river to the top of my waterfall, making it look like the water wells up there from a natural spring.
To give the room some more interesting features, I create a layer of snow that blankets all of the floor and that is at least fifty centimetres deep. In some places, I make bigger piles of snow and make them look like snow drifts that were formed by the wind. It is in these drifts that I hide my spike traps that will launch spikes made of ice and which are triggered and released by magic.
Another idea for a trap came to me when I was reviewing all the things that I gained from levelling up. The massive troll in me reared up its ugly head and demanded that I make a trap that is humiliating instead of deadly.
Being the nice person that I am, I agreed with my inner troll's demand to keep the peace of my inner psyche.
As a basis for this trap, I dig a hole with snow at the bottom. In one of the walls of the hole, I place a rockfall trap but instead of rocks or rubble, I fill it with massive amounts of snow. To make things worse for my unsuspecting victim, I place my newly gained liquid sprayer so that it is connected to the rockfall trap and fill it with pee.
You heard it right, pee.
Thus, my yellow snow humiliation pitfall is created. Maybe I need to put a sign in the trap as well that states to not eat the yellow snow?
New trap created:
Yellow snow pitfall of supreme humiliation
Would you like to save this design and add it to your list of available traps?
Yes, please!
To make sure that any intruders aren't capable of just rushing towards my soon to be made boss and my core, I create a massive door made out of layered pine wood. I lock it with five locks but instead of the default locks that came with the unlock from the level up, I change them into the more modern locks I was used to in my previous life, thus making it hopefully more difficult for the more unsavoury types of people to lockpick them.
I create all five of the keys from mana infused ice but to make sure the keys are sturdy enough, I infuse the ice with even more mana this time.
Congratulations! You have created a new material.
Legends spoke about a form of ice that with the merest touch could cause burns as if one touched fire.
Because of this, it was named:
Cold-fire ice
By some stroke of luck or just because out of the need for some better ice, you have managed to recreate this legendary material and are now able to recreate it at will.
Legendary...Ice?
That's just ridiculous.
I put one of the cold-fire keys at the bottom of the pond so that they have to swim down in the freezing cold water to retrieve it. Even though this is technically not a trap, whoever dives for it might still die from it if due to exposure if he or she or it is not properly prepared for it.
The other four keys I spread out over the four cylindrical rooms to the side of my snowflake. In these rooms, I Make use of my new-gained challenge ability.
The second key can be gained by killing five enemies while they are in the air in under one minute. To facilitate this, I place a single arctic hare in the centre of the room. The moment they kill that one, two arctic foxes will appear. After they are killed a mountain goat will appear and finally, as the last one, a yak will appear that they need to get in the air somehow and kill while it is there.
To make sure they understand the challenge, I write out the instructions on the far wall from where they enter and for those that can't read or speak another language, I crudely etch the instructions next to the writings in basic and crude stickman figures.
The third key I put in a lockbox made of stone which I then put in the middle of a massive block of cold-fire ice, one that is two metres wide, two metres long and two metres high.
In order for people to get it, they need to destroy the ice by whatever means they can think of, be it fire or brute force.
The fourth key is a challenge where they need to bathe four snow leopards in under an hour. For this challenge, I create four diorite bathtubs that stand on slightly raised so they can light a fire under them to heat up the baths if they so desire. Seeing as that the snow leopards are just bigger cats, the adventurers or intruders that wander in here will have their hands more than full. For the purpose of this challenge, I create four snow leopards and again engrave the explanation, text and stickmen, on the wall.
The fifth key I hide behind another challenge but this time, it's a puzzle. The thing with puzzles is, I can either make them ridiculously hard by using my knowledge of science, or I can try to make them so, at least for this first floor, that people from this world can figure them out as well.
For that reason, I copy my etching of the area surrounding my dungeon and turn it into a sliding puzzle that consists of a five by five grid with one empty square. In order for the adventurers or intruders to gain the key, they will need to slide all 24 squares to their proper position and complete the landscape. When they manage that, The key will appear on top of this puzzle.
To make sure that adventurers don't get too bored, I create a pack of direwolves in my big room containing seven direwolves.
Upon creation of this pack, the strangest thing happens though. The direwolves all face each other and start growling. Some of them even lunge at some of the others' throats. After a couple of minutes, this display of animal ferocity dies down and one of them grows slightly bigger. All the others seem to defer to the bigger one.
Congratulations!
One of your direwolves evolved, by making the others submit through sheer ferocity and intimidation, into a dire wolf alpha. Every pack of wolf-like creature is led by an alpha and these are often the biggest, meanest and toughest of the pack.
In order for this specimen to be the same, it gained more muscle mass, denser bones, enhanced speed, slightly enhanced intellect and an even stronger sense of pack awareness and pack tactics.