After I got back to the rats original room I began experimenting with the methods that I suspected would let me back into my new source body, luckily the first attempt worked as it was as simple as imagining removing myself from the rats body. As soon as I rose from my position now back in my boss body, the dungeon addressed me. “Satisfied with your exploration of the floor? I noticed you tested the boundaries that stop my creatures from leaving.”
“Honestly? I wouldn’t say it satisfied me, but I do have an idea of what we’re working with now. Your first floor is really simple and a couple of your traps seem a bit off, at least from the perspective of the rats. In my opinion it won’t be remotely difficult for even a well informed child to beat this first floor, although that's based on my very low amount of information concerning the outside world.”
This place makes me think of what would be considered a tutorial dungeon in early rpg’s. If the world I now live in is even a little bit familiar with dungeons then it would be a joke to fail inside of our first floor.
“I have some concerns about how easy this place would be to clear out… I know I'm far more advanced than the boss you would have likely gone with but exactly how far does that extend? Even if the discrepancy between myself and one of the rats is huge, that doesn’t really tell me how high the bar is.”
“As a sentient floor boss, you are far superior to a level one dungeon rodent, however I understand that doesn’t give you context so how about I give you hard numbers? As of your body's creation, your stats are as such: You are level one, however as this is concerning boss levels it just means you are the floor one boss. You have an even twenty in strength and agility, a thirty-five in intelligence, a fifteen in perception, and a large number of compatibility stats for things like magic, weaponry and even body types. With those latter stats I could have outright made you a lava golem, a wraith, or even a rot-cube and you still would have adjusted fairly easily, though you might not have been fully content with those options.”
Numbers are great to have but I need to find out how I hold up to the adventurers that will try and clear the dungeon, if I think about this in terms of a well balanced videogame, then I would assume a party of five level fives would be able to beat me without a death on their end. I would also expect a team of four of the same levels to manage a win barely on their feet and maybe with one casualty. This would place me somewhere around level twenty-three in adventurer terms. But I imagine It's either twenty or twenty five since an exact twenty-three seems like a strange starting point for anything.
As I conclude this line of thought, I lean against the dungeon wall and start to think about other questions to ask the dungeon. Not long after this however, I am interrupted by the dungeon. “I should warn you now, there are runners approaching the dungeon, which looks to be a small party, as far as I can tell there are five of them but only three are combatant classes.”
Finally! I was afraid that I would have to sit here for who knows how long before someone would discover this place. After being told to get ready for the first dungeon run I stand up and swing the great-sword a couple of times before standing at the ready. When the party arrives I have a surprise for them.
++ The Inspection Party - Feran ++
An adventurer by the name of Feran leads a party of four others towards a hill that was reported to house a dungeon entrance. As an expert in dungeons and warrior by trade, she was called on to be at the head of an information collection run to gauge the threat estimation as well as intelligence rating of the dungeon that recently appeared there. The four she brought with her being a mix of investigation crew and adventurers geared to protect those investigators, she feels like a newborn dungeon won’t serve as enough of a danger to them for any losses to happen during the run.
“Hey Feran? You said this dungeon was hard to spot right? How does the guild already know about its entrance then?” The one speaking to her was Domun, he was the one brought in to survey the existing first floor and write out an expected floor path for the future guild to reference. “Well yes the entrance is fairly hidden, but the guild doesn’t use normal discovery methods for finding them. Normally a mage is used to scry for the location using familiars or large scale spy magic.”
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She’s just happy no one else was asked to go in before her party, a brand new dungeon holds some name recognition for those that first clear it out. While her job here is to survey and document the new one, that doesn’t stop her party from defeating the boss and earning that hefty pay-out and record for being the first party to beat the dungeon.
The clearing that houses this place is only a few minutes walk away from where they stand but before they enter the zone of influence around the dungeon’s entrance, they put together a strategy for various enemy types commonly found in first floors. Things like weak zombies, wolves, or insects are some of the most common ones so most of the time spent is developing a fast clear method for those groups. After they get everything squared away, they approach the clearing and enter the dungeons control zone.
As the party groups up at the entry-way, they begin to joke among themselves about their hometown before Feran interrupts them. “Okay guys, I get that this is a new dungeon and all but we should still take things seriously, if only to remain professional.” This gets a quick chuckle from a couple in the group before they nod to the leader and focus on their jobs. With only a quick check of their equipment they enter the dungeon and skip the first room entirely due to its lack of any features.
Upon entering the dungeon's first enemy room the group starts to look a little confused. “I thought rats were too inefficient for cores to pick as their enemy options? Why is the first room only two of them?”
Confused, one of Feran’s party members by the name of Vern speaks up, all he accomplishes is reaffirming her own confusion. “You’re right, I have no idea why any dungeon would pick this unless they spent all of their energy on something way more expensive.” Her own statement causes her to realize something and immediately put her guard up. “I suspect that's exactly what the dungeon did. All of you, stay on guard, we don’t want a high value trap to blindside us.” Her party nods at her command and they proceed to engage the rats in combat.
The rats in the first room put up as much of a fight as they can but in the end the adventurers are still only fighting pests. The first room gets cleared quickly and they move on, until one of the adventurers stops everyone. “Just ahead there's a tripwire, I can disarm it but it's likely just a rock-fall or pit-fall trap so I wouldn't worry about it.” Feran nods to them and steps over the wire and into the room. While she could see the trap, it was only something she recognized after it was pointed out. The hunter she brought with her, whose name was Arillia, would be necessary if this dungeon had a high level trap in here somewhere as she suspected.
A few more rooms get cleared until they come upon the room that holds the boss door, Feran almost walks inside before the mage stops her. “Wait, don’t enter yet. I see something weird about one of the rats in here. It has a magic signature for some reason.” Vern speaks up in response. “That shouldn’t be possible unless it's considered a champion creature. Rats don't have mages at this low of a level.”
“All I know is what I can feel from it. If you say it's a champion monster, then we should kill it before the others.” As Feran listens to the two discuss the monster, something draws her attention. The rat in question is gone. “Everyone Look alive! I think Vern’s theory is accurate, the rat Alaine pointed out is missing.” With this announcement the team heads into the room and begins fighting the enemies inside.
The only hiccup for the party comes when a rat jumps out and hits Domun with a really nasty bite. Although this rat is blown away by a small volley of arrows from Vern, it still leaves a solid wound on the non-combatant.
With the sneak attacker dead it doesn’t take more than a few seconds to eliminate the others, allowing the party to treat the surveyor's wound. Now that the party finds themselves in front of the boss room, they look at one another in order to confirm the team is prepared. Feran, still worried about the lack of anything higher priced than the few low level traps her team avoided, decides to bring that up to her party. “So, what are our odds that the boss is what the dungeon spent its energy on?” The party only responds with nervous looks, making her sigh inwardly and ready her sword. “That's all we needed… We get one chance to be the first people to run a brand new dungeon and it decides to make its boss the big play…” With her complaint out of the way, she opens the boss door and walks inside.