> Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl. 1
>
> Title: None
>
> HP: 10/10
> MP: 2/45
>
> Size: 4.001 M
>
> Points: 16
>
> Skills:
>
> [Appraisal] Lvl. 1 [Tunneling] Lvl. 1 [Room Building] Lvl. 1 [Mana Absorption]
Wow, Mama Badger had really been working her cute little rump off! I was nearly double the size I was before she came back! Plus it looked like getting a new room had upped how much mana I could store! I couldn’t lie, it felt really good to have grown as much as I did! It felt easier to breathe somehow, not that I really did any breathing that I could tell. Maybe it was just that there was more room to stretch out my tendrils and I had more airflow coming through?
If I gave it some thought, I probably absorbed mana more easily through the air than I did through the dirt, which would probably explain my weird instinct to get as much of my crystal core off the ground as I could. A lot of what I was doing seemed to come down to some weird sort of instinct that I couldn’t justify or explain.
Expand to find light and air. Keep my core as far back from the entrance as possible. Eat everything in my path. Get as much air on my core as possible. Lure in animals. Get bigger. Protect myself at all costs. Those seemed to be the basics of Dungeon Core Instincts.
I wasn’t really sure what I would do once I got bigger, but for the time being I just knew I needed to do that. Which made it so frustrating that I was empty again.
I really didn’t like being alone. Where did Mama Badger keep going? Why did she have to keep leaving me like that? It wasn’t fair! I couldn’t leave so why did she get to?!
Hello! Mama Badger! I kinda need you in order to do my job! Can you come back now, please?!
What could possibly be so interesting about going outside, anyway? Sure there was lots of air, and lots of different kinds of things to look at and to eat, but I could probably make my dungeon so much better than the outside if I set my mind to it and had enough mana to make those dreams a reality.
All I really needed was a way to go outside and get more food. Then I could start expanding and purchase more skills until I could make a vast underground labyrinth haven that Mama Badger would never want to leave. Problem was, I couldn’t exactly go outside, and I was too weak to hunt on my own. How was a Dungeon Core supposed to survive on their own, huh?
Purchase Starting Monster Mob?
Eh?
What was that again, oh great and mighty subconscious mind? Did you go and hold out information on me again until I was ready to scream in frustration? Not that I had a mouth to do that with, but that wasn’t the point at all. The point was that, once again, the me that wasn’t me seemed to be holding out on the me that was me. If I could beat myself up, I would, but now that I had told myself what I needed to know, it was time to put [Appraisal] to work and see what all of this was about.
Starting Monster Mob. Dungeon’s use Monster Mobs to fight for them. A Starting Monster Mob is a low level monster.
Once again it seemed as if [Appraisal] was just about as useful as if I had just put energy into actually thinking things through all on my own. What was the point of this stupid skill again? So far it had only been useful to let me know basic stats and to key me in on what the hell a badger was. Oh well, I might as well see how much it would cost me to get a starter monster. Alright then, tell me what I need to know, Inner Voice!
Level 1 Dungeon Cores can purchase their first monster for free. All subsequent purchases cost points.
Sweet! I got my first monster for free! I wouldn’t have to use up any of my mana or points to get a monster! That was absolutely fantastic! The problem was, what did I get to choose from?
Analyzing environment… Starting Monster Mobs based on Dungeon Core’s current location are as follows: Kobold. Slime. Myconid Sprout.
Something like displeasure ran through me at the short listing, as well as the fact that at first sight I honestly didn’t know what they were. I had the sneaking suspicion that I probably should know what they were, but for some reason…? I was pulling absolute blanks, much like I had done with the badger earlier in the day. Oh well, it was time to put [Appraisal] to use and hope that it actually told me some useful information for once.
Kobold. A bipedal monster similar to a lizard. They are very mischievous.
Slime. A gelatinous, orb-like, creature. May or may not actually be alive.
Myconid Sprout. The baby form of the Myconid. A bipedal mushroom monster. They are not fast.
That was a pretty interesting assortment of monsters… Lizards, goo balls, and baby mushrooms… Whatever would I choose?
I really, really, really wanted a Myconid Sprout. Sure they apparently weren’t very fast, but all the same! What with Mama Badger hanging around I didn’t want to have a monster that might frighten her away. Not that I actually cared or anything, but she was free food and she had put in a lot of effort toward helping me expand without me having to waste precious resources, so I sort of owed it to her to make sure she could get along with my monsters. What better than a baby mushroom?
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Purchase Myconid Sprout?
Yes please!
Purchasing Myconid Sprout... Error! Error! Dungeon not large enough.
… What?
What do you mean my dungeon isn’t large enough to purchase a baby mushroom?! Just how big is a Myconid Sprout supposed to be, huh?!
The average size of a Myconid Sprout is 5 ft, or 152.4 cm, tall. Current dungeon is only 2 ft, or 60.96 cm, in height, and therefore is not tall enough to accommodate Myconid Sprout.
I’m doing the best I can here! It’s not my fault I’m not tall! Most of my construction has been done by a badger, and she’s only about one fifth as tall as a Sprout!
Huffing to myself I returned to the list again, really upset about not being able to purchase the baby mushroom. It would probably be really cute, not that cuteness mattered to me. If it wasn’t fast I bet it was really chubby, with little stubby feet. I bet it would waddle when it walked.
It was probably the most adorable and precious thing in the world, and my options were to either wait until I could expand in height to purchase one, or to get another starting monster. I really, really, really didn’t want to have to wait, since getting a monster now meant I could go ahead and start expanding. I also didn’t want to purchase another monster, since my only options were a lizard and a ball of slime.
Slimes didn’t sound cute at all, and I just couldn’t imagine having something wet and sticky sliding around inside of me. The thought alone had me shuddering in disgust.
Kobolds didn’t sound all that bad, but apparently they were mischievous? That sounded like they would just go and cause trouble for Mama Badger.
Hey, Inner Voice! Do you have any wisdom or insight to deliver to the rest of me? I’d really like a second opinion here!
While ordinarily dungeon generated monsters cannot leave the dungeon that created them, the exception is the very first monster of each level.
Oh wow, how very helpful. Except that it absolutely wasn’t! That told me nothing at all! So much for a second opinion. Everything the other me told me was basically useless, except for the fact that I now knew that future summoned monsters weren’t going to be able to leave the nest, so to speak.
I guess that would mean that I’d just have to make my first purchase really count. I could either wait for the baby mushroom, or I could pick the kobold.
Screw it. I really couldn’t stand to laze around any longer and just wait for things to happen. I needed to start making them happen for me, and I needed it to start happening now! Okay then! I’ve made up my mind, I’m going to go with the kobold as my starting mob!
Purchase Kobold?
Yeah yeah, let’s just get this over with. Hopefully I would have a chance later on down the line to go for the Myconid Sprout again…
Purchasing Kobold… Starting Mob Monster, Kobold, purchased. Generate the first monster now?
There was a scratching sound at the front entrance to the tunnel, the orangish light that was spilling in from the rising sun going dark. All my tendrils completely stilled at the sight. Here I was about to make my free monster, and now Mama Badger was back. What a bad deal this was! If I had just waited a little bit longer I probably could have gone and gotten my Myconid Sprout! Dammit!
Unlike before, however, Mama Badger wasn’t alone. I was finally seeing the, possibly, lucky badger who had gone and given her that pregnant status.
Papa Badger was a lot larger than she was, and I had already thought she was a pretty chunky little badger. He seemed to be a lot of heavy muscle, taller in the shoulders than she was, and wider as well. It finally made sense why she had dug out the room in the back as large as she had, and it also made sense why she had made the tunnel so wide. She needed to have plenty of room for not just herself and her future babies, but for this large fellow as well.
She paused slightly in the tunnel, her mouth full of grasses, as she seemed to look around and take notice of my redecorating. Her nose twitched as she snorted from breathing in so deeply, but given that no other creatures but me had been in the dungeon she didn’t seem to smell anything that would frighten her into leaving. Apparently satisfied, Mama Badger gave off one of her signature huffs, and then proceeded to lead her husband to the back room.
I watched through the walls as they began bringing in several mouthfuls of grass and leaves with which to cover the floor of the room she had dug out. Every time she left to get more I hastily devoured a couple samples of the different varieties I could see, just to see if maybe eating new things was what caused my points to go up before. I was very careful, however, to not eat enough that she would notice I was ruining her hard work of building up a bed to lay in.
It wasn’t until the pair of badgers had both headed off again that I finally felt something thrum through my core in the same way it had earlier in the day when I’d accidentally bitten that worm in half. Feeling satisfied with what would hopefully be good news, I quickly used [Appraisal] on myself.
> Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl. 1
>
> Title: None
>
> HP: 10/10
> MP: 15/45
>
> Size: 4.001 M
>
> Points: 21
Nice! Not only had my points gone up, which seemed to tie into my theory that I got more points the more new things I tried to eat, but I had also raised my mana as well! I was feeling energized, a bit less hungry, and ready to start building the best dungeon ever!
I couldn’t be entirely sure that it was just new things that gave me points or not, but I also had no real way of checking at the moment. It wasn’t like I had anything to eat, not without ruining all of the happy couple’s hard work and possibly running them off, so I would have to be patient and wait. I, of course, hated being patient and waiting, but it wasn’t like I really had that much choice at the moment.
Without lots of new things to eat, I couldn’t test my theory out, and without enough mana I couldn’t go expanding my tunnels out.
Since Mama and Papa Badger were going to be taking up residence in the room connected to my front door, I really needed to go and expand out the tunnel I was currently in so that I had a place to summon my kobold. I highly doubted that I would be able to just spawn the monster in the narrow tunnel where my core currently was, and judging by the way the badgers kept dragging in bedding, it seemed like they were getting ready to hunker down for the night. Well, actually I guess it would be day now since the sun was rising.
I had a plan on how to do what I needed to, but first? I needed to wait for the badgers to actually lay down and go to sleep. Once they did that? I would finally be able to tap into my lovely pair of mana batteries to start my exansion.
Soon, my hopefully lovely kobold. Soon you will be born and we can begin working towards making me into a dungeon to end all dungeons.