‘There had been more than a few chimes during the battle,’ Elran thought. ‘What was causing all of that noise?’ Elran searched through his guide, examining the parchment pieces.
*In certain phases of a dungeon’s life, some might say the most successful ones, HER voice will call out many times on your victories and treasures. Through a process, The Voices, like HER and I, can be silenced.*
‘Sage, if I did something like that, how would I know what happened?’
*Open the framework, and maybe remember to not mute us.*
Elran opened the framework to the opening page, seeing the parchment unfurl in his vision. A parchment scrap opened up over the main page in his view, ‘7 New Updates’. ‘He doesn’t need to get mad at me, it’s not like I did it on purpose.
‘Speak the new updates, please,’ Elran thought.
In HER voice, *Cabryn has learned leadership level 1, Cabryn has learned tactics level 1, Cabryn has learned knife skills level 2. Unique Skill Omniscient Avoidance acquired. New creation options added. 5 Humans have died in your dungeon, basic Human Wildling understanding increased. Secret Quest Harvesting the Miners completed, Divine Quest granted.*
‘I have some questions, Sage.’
With what seemed like a sigh, *Starting from the top, Unique Skills are traits that people can rarely be born with or earned in special ways. You can acquire these from the dead, but to give it to a servant or creature can only be done once per acquisition. If you want a squad with unique skills, you will need to stock up on the skills, much like archers with arrows or alchemists with potions. Wildlings are the free peoples that walk the lands, they are not owned or owe any allegiance to a dungeon. Wildling cannot be used as creatures in your dungeon. Divine quests are much like they sound like, the gods or a god is showing you favor by giving you a task. The rewards are always very beneficial.*
‘Lets see what the quest is,’ Elran focused on the section of parchment that mentioned the quest.
In HER voice, *The Divine have decreed that you shall create a high resource ecosystem in the first floor of your dungeon, with no less than seven rooms, including a safe room.*
A high resource ecosystem? What’s that?
While the Sage was quiet, some footsteps came running up to Elran, “Lord Elran, what is that about a high resource ecosystem?” Jaws was standing before the stalagmite, Cabryn trailing behind Jaws on his shorter legs.
I have a divine quest to make my first floor into a high resource ecosystem.
Jaws’s eyes lit up and a wide toothy smile split his face, “I know about those kinds of floors. And Divine Quests! I will do my utmost from inside your dungeon to ensure its success.”
“As will I, Lord Elran,” Cabryn declared his support.
“Lord Elran, I have a few things I would be honored to show you. But we will also need Cabryn’s help in retrieving some new materials from outside. Sending servants out for new materials is a common method of increasing your ability to create. With his leadership at level 1, he’ll also be able to lead a group of 2 other gobbos outside of your dungeon territory.
I’m surprised the Sage hasn’t chimed in on what I need to do.
“That’s probably because this is a divine quest. They have special rules. They’re meant to challenge and push the quest receiver. The reward will probably be amazing. That said, divine quests have been known to take decades for some to finish. But if all you have to do is make a high resource ecosystem on your first floor. I should be able to help you get the most of the way there in no time.” Jaws looked very confident.
Opening the creature menu, Elran selected to make two more gobbos with linen clothes and a knife with belt. Jaws had mentioned them needing to gather things so added a back carried travel pack as well. The miner that died in the first room had been carrying one. While browsing skills, Elran was surprised to see the new Subordinate skill. ‘Sage explain the subordinate skill, please.’
*The subordinate skill will automatically attach creatures to a servant or creature with the leadership skill. Creatures that are subordinate will have access to a lesser form of all the leader’s common skills as well as a marginal boosting of a leader’s skill gains. For example, with the mining skill the subordinate creatures will coordinate with the leader to effectively mine. This will in turn make skill increases much more likely.*
Elran selected the subordinate skill for the gobbo template and added a pickaxe and shovel to it. The final point cost was only ten, so Elran went ahead and made two. Little puffs of smoke popped in the air behind Cabryn, leaving two gobbos standing ready with their packs on. Jaws had been talking to Cabryn this whole time.
“The more of these you can get, the more options Lord Elran will have, making the quest much easier to complete,” Jaws reached out and patted Cabryn on the shoulder.
“Jaws, thank you for the information. I’ll be sure to return with as much as I can by day’s end. By your leave, Lord Elran,” Cabryn saluted, tapping his right fist to his left shoulder.
I’ll be waiting for news of your success, Cabryn. Cabryn bobbed his head, turned and dashed from the room, his two subordinates right behind him.
“Lord Elran, if I may be so bold, in my free time I enjoy collecting and breeding a very rare type of bug. They’re called Smoals,” Jaws reached into his pouch and pulled a sizable Jar filled with little glowing dots.
How did that jar fit in your pouch?
“It’s a magic bag. A gift from my master Ric’art.” Jaws sat on the ground, focusing on the little lights. “It contains everything I have left. It’s impossible for me to let you absorb it.” Jaws mumbled to himself, carefully eyeing the jar and pulling out a little spoon and dropper. He squeezed out a few drops into the spoon and man put the spoon into a narrow opening on the jar. Jaws put the dropper back into his bag and withdrew a long, narrow needle. The little lights gathered around the spoon.
“When they’re feeding they are oblivious to everything around them. I’m sure it’s the reason they’re almost extinct in the wild.” Jaws brought the spoon up to his eye level. “If I may ask this boon of you, I have a very high insect breeder level. If you make Smoals a focus in your ecosystem, I’m sure the dungeon should easily qualify as high resource.” Jaws carefully speared a large light of each color onto the needle, blue, red, and green. Sliding the spoon fully into the jar, he closed it up, and stuck the jar back into his pouch.
“Lord Elran, I present my finest Smoals,” Jaws carefully removed the little bugs from the needle and arranged them on the stalagmite. From there, Elran could see them in better detail. Smoals have roundish, faceted exoskeletons, a set of gossamer, almost invisible wings, and two very tiny sets of legs. Smoals also have big round eyes, ‘they are cute.’ Jaws had taken a step back and was looking down quietly at his little bugs. Elran pulled on them firmly, absorbing the little bugs quickly followed by a small chiming.
Jaws cleared his throat, “their favorite foods are various medicinal plants. Because of this, Smoals are well known to have a lot of medicinal properties themselves, just more concentrated, which makes them highly prized by alchemists and pharmacists.”
Thank you, Jaws. This gift you have given me will be another great help. Your continued support has been a most welcome foundation to this dungeon. Your suggestion to make them the focus of the ecosystem sounds good, how do we do it?
“I have materials for their foods, and some bushes and trees they seem to prefer. I asked Cabryn to collect samples of grass, weeds, trees, and animals from around the area. Jaws pulled out some berries, plants, twigs and seeds from his pouch and arranged them on the stalagmite.
That little blue berry with the pink top, I have a feeling I’ll need more.
“Of course,” Jaws pulled out another two berries from his pouch, placing them with the rest. There was a chime as they were absorbed automatically from being left out. “From my understanding, the plants will be sustained from the ambient energy of the dungeon. Similar to how a trap is maintained. Adding in ambient creatures like the Smoals, they will feed off of what’s present. Once creatures become complex or purposeful enough to be part of a dungeon’s defenses, they too are sustained off the ambient energy. SO if you were to add rabbits they would eat the plants available. If they were strengthened with skills and fought Wildlings, they would exist off the ambient energy.”
I understand. Some of that was contained in the memory crystal. I just need to figure out how to make these a part of my dungeon. Elran opened up the framework and opened the new notification note.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
*New creation options added. Cabryn has learned Forestry level 1. Cabryn has learned Herbalism level 1.*
‘Seems like Cabryn has been busy.’ Elran opened up the creation list and looked at the options. Elran focused on Smoals, which brought up a new parchment with some details about Smoals. Sustained populations of Smoals are called colonies. A medium sized colony needs six sources of food, three Banya bushes for nesting or one Lipip Tree.
‘I’m supposed to do this without the framework, so let’s just try it out.’ Elran moved his view to the entrance room. When he thought about his points available, the thought came to him that he now had 612 points. ‘Those miners must have been worth a good amount of points.’
Picturing a Lipi tree from his creation list, Elran observed the room. A faint image of a Lipi tree appeared in the room where Elran was looking. The image had a rent tint to it, just like when Elran was trying to place the trap in the doorway. Elran tried thinking about the spike trap, and the image changed to a square with holes in it. ‘This one is blue.’ Elran moved the square around the room, watching it turn red when it overlapped corners or got into the exits. Interestingly, Elran was surprised to see it blue when flat on a wall. ‘I have more options this way, I just need to figure them out.’
‘Why wouldn’t a tree fit here?’ Elran looked around the room. Elran focused on the floor, feeling a strong heat rise up inside himself. ‘Trees grow better from dirt than they do from stone.’ Elran could picture the Sage talking down at him while explaining how plants grow.
‘Guess I need to start with changing the floor base into dirt.’ Elran looked at the floor. The memory crystal had memories of walking around in a variety of environments, which some of the memories happened to be a forest. ‘I need this stone floor to be dirt.’ Elran pictured a rich loamy soil replacing the ground. Elran could feel a suction on him, from the direction of the floor. The ground from one end of the room towards the other took on an effervescence, clearing in a wave, revealing the exact floor Elran had projected. Elran noticed his point total had gone down as well.
Energized by the success, Elran switched back to picturing the Lipi Tree. ‘There’s a certain charm to this tree with its dark brown bark and it’s roundedness. The branches and leaves all naturally round out. I wonder if it’s the appearance that attracts the smoals.’ Elran moved the image around the room, settling on placing a tree with a few hands worth of spacing from a corner away from the entrance. Elran could feel the points being used up as the image of the tree solidified.
‘Now for the Banya bushes since their berries are a good food source as well as a medicinal ingredient,’ Elran pulled up the ghost image of the Banya bush and put one on each side of the room, complete with their large and round blue berries. Beneath the Banya bushes and the Lipi tree is a great place to find clumps of Lipis grass, named after the trees. The grass is a favorite food of the Smoals and is a potent curative herb when dried and ground to powder. Elran put clumps around the tree and underneath the bushes. Elran looked around the room, noticing it felt a little plain, even without the extra plants he would add later from what Cabryn brought in. Elran smoothened out the walls, leaving thin cracks and crevices for the texture. Next Elran rounded out the ceiling, leaving a dome above the room.
One of the most beautiful images from the memory crystal was the night sky. Elran reached into the energy of the room, pinched, and created little lights across the ceiling. Switching his view to the ground, Elran looked up. ‘Not quite as nice. Maybe I can experiment more later when I have access to more materials than just the ambient energy. But I think I got the idea right.’
Observing the room from ground level was a little disappointing. ‘I need to add some more bushes and maybe some vines to the sides. Tall grass would help conceal the gobbos.’ An image flashed in Elran’s mind, just a quick spark. But Elran got pulled up an image of Lipis grass, weak by itself, and thought of the Crag grass he had absorbed from the boots of the miners. The image of the Lipis grass shimmered as Elran thought of the Crag grass.
*Merge complete. Name the new grass. New grass retains the pleasant aroma of the Lipis grass and the height, but is hardier and more fertile like Crag grass. New plant loses its medicinal properties.*
Elran was surprised to hear HER again. ‘I guess I’ll call it Smoal grass.’ Elran spread the Smoal grass across the ground, leaving a path through the middle of the room to the other exit.
‘This looks pretty good. Time to add Smoals.’ Elran focused on creating an image of a pair of blue Smoals. The image was red. Elran moved them around the room trying to make the image normalize. Swirling in the image around in the air out of frustration, the color flickered with a flash of red light. Elran slowed moving the Smoals’ image to see where the flicker was. ‘It had been around the tree.’ Moving the image closer to the tree created a red light that connected the two. Elran moved the image of Smaols into the tree where it turned from red to gray. The line connecting to the Smoals disappeared. ‘Well, if red means it can’t be placed, a full ghost outline means it can, then gray means…’ Elran looked around the room for ideas while he thought. The Smoal grass waved lightly in a breeze from the cave entrance. Lipis grass clumped under the tree and bushes.
‘Maybe something is missing.’ Elran added a pair of green Smoals to his grouping. And quickly added a pair of red Smoals when there was no change. The image turned clear and Elran placed the Smoals in the tree. The images filled up and the little glowing Smoals began to fly around the tree.
Elran moved to the next room, smoothly changing the floor, putting in a Lipi tree, Banya bushes, Lipis grass, and Smoal grass. Elran smoothened out the walls, created a dome with the ceiling, and added in the lights. After putting the Smoals into the tree, Elran looked around the room, putting his perspective in the center. ‘This looks pretty good.’
Eran went back to the stalagmite room, Jaws, I want to show you something. Go to the entrance room.
“Right away,” Jaws got up from where he had been lounging on the floor on top of a bed roll. Elran moved to the second room to watch Jaws as he entered. Jaws jogged a few steps in, looking around, his eyes wide. Taking a deep breath in through his nose, “Lipis smells so wonderful, but this isn’t Lipis grass.” Jaws pulled off a piece of the Smoal grass.
That’s Smoal grass. I combined Lipis grass and Crag grass to make that. It loses the medicinal effects though.
“But it seems as tough as the Crag grass,” Jaws twirled the Smoal grass between his fingers.
Look at the tree.
Jaws looked around the room, seeing the Lipi tree and walked towards it. With a smile across his face Jaws watched the Smoals in the branches of the Lipi tree, his voice a quiet and happy “they’re building a nest already.” What looked like a half built, greenish and waxy diamond was hanging from a thick branch at the top of the tree. The little Smoal lights were dancing around the nest.
Elrand brought up his mental map of the dungeon, the one he could see through rather than the framework version that appeared on the parchment. Elran had claimed a large radius of territory around his current stalagmite room. Elran mentally made rooms on each side of the current rooms, bringing the total of rooms to seven..
In Elran’s sight, Jaws’s head darted from side to side as the new rooms opened up on either side of the room. “Lord Elran, It’s been over a day since Cabryn has left. He isn’t available for bestowal, is he?”
Elran did a quick check, He’s not showing available for bestowal in the framework.
“Good, he must be very busy then to not have checked back in. I had told him to come back with what he could in a day.” Jaws had his arms crossed, his brow drawn down. A green Smoal landed on the tip of his nose, causing a huge smile to split the large Goblin’s face.
‘Having a body looks fun, I want one.’
*You’ll need a better understanding of Wildings first.*
‘So I can have one?’
*Isn’t there a saying that anything is possible with hard work?*
‘I wouldn’t know.’ The sage didn’t respond, so Elran returned to his map.
‘A dungeon seems to have many purposes. It defends me from someone killing me to become a special rank. It’s a source of my points. Making a high resource ecosystem seems to be for the purpose of supporting a population, which in turn sends people into the dungeon to farm points. I can get a lot of points when Wildlings die in my dungeon, but there aren’t any around.’
Focusing on the stalagmite room, Elran tried pulling on his physical location. A faint outline of his stalagmite appeared as he moved it around the room. Elran pulled the image across the map into the room he was observing, with Jaws working on the tree in the corner of the room. Confirming the move to the center of the room, Elran felt a pulling sensation from his physical being in the other room. In the room Elran was watching, the stalagmite grew from the ground. Jaws had sprung to alertness, watching the pillar grow in. Swirling lights, the same color as Elran, branched out from a point above the stalagmite. When they went out farther than the size of Elran’s body, they rapidly spun into a circle. With a bright flash, Elran’s body appeared floating over the stalagmite.
“Lord Elran, I think it would be safer to keep your body in the former room,” Jaws said as he approached the stalagmite.
I was testing something out, although, even here, I am sure I’ll be safe with you watching out for me.
“Your faith will be answered by my strength,” Jaws smiled, “I can detect enemies from great distances away in an isolated place like this.” Jaws walked back over to the tree, pulling some Lipis grass out and working with it.
‘So moving things around seems easy enough. Maybe four more rooms would feel right.’ Elran created two more rooms on either side of the old stalagmite room with openings facing each adjacent room. ‘I’ll want to funnel any invaders from here though.’ Elran created a room behind the old stalagmite room and another room behind the new one.
Elran moved his view to the room behind the old stalagmite room. ‘Let’s follow the usual pattern, focus on wanting this room safe.’ Elran let his view wander around the room, imagining the room to be safe. Elran could feel the points spent as a feeling of calm spread through the room. Sighing inwardly, ‘this feels kind of nice.’