Ham stared as the screen fractured and warped.
Curse Odin Icy Wastelands
Ice, forever Ice
All creatures including defenders must be cold adapted or Frost aligned
Melrakki Isbjorn Hreinn
Ham considered his options. After reviewing he decided on the Isbjorn
Isbjorn
Cold adapted
Solitary
Large
Bite and Claws
Ham started organising his next floor. The only appropriate option was to use the Isbjorn or Polar Bear. He continued the pattern of making things difficult with the terrain, forming long winding passageways of ice, like working your way through a glacier. This included adding Stalactites that dripped icy water onto equally large stalagmites of ice. These counted as one of the traps of this floor. Likewise he established zones where you had to bash through ice columns to advance.
And then in the next room he made a winding path that worked upward in a spiral, with a floor that relied on the ice columns for support. Here you had to crawl beside the column without damaging it. He was awarded extra experience by the system for creating a new trap feature. The room would reset when the floor emptied, but still it would force people to exit back to the desert zone before re-entering the ice to try again.
In the forth room he created a perfectly smooth tunnel, slick with ice, with the entrance and exits slightly off to the side.
And he added a new dungeon rule.
Breath of the North Wind
Within the Icy floor, the true test of ones resolve is to fight the blizzard. The dungeon can specify points where the ice laden wind flows into and out of the chamber, with a set flow rate per area.
Cost reduced: Matches theme of floor.
With this, Ham set up the halves of the roof of the passageway as the entrance and exit. This lead to a storm of icy wind that reached the whole length of the passageway, but was strongest in the middle. Lesser winds were added into the other tunnels.
It was not impassable, the nature of dungeons prevented it from being impossible to pass, but a traveller would need the appropriate gear to cross. And who from a desert tribe would have snow gear?
More importantly, and in a matter of lucky timing, the storm caused great difficulty for the invading Flame Swerfvalk to pass. Initially the Boss of the floor had won against its invading mirror with the initial charge from on high allowing an initial advantage, but by chance the Curse of Anubis had triggered, and with its full life restored the invader had defeated the Boss.
Whilst the wind was nowhere near as fast as the Flame Swerfvalk could travel, it did have a weight to it. The ice in the air interfered with the flames, chewing up the mana of the bird as it had to constantly re-create them. Likewise the ice in the eyes and so forth made it hard to fly safely through the cramped tunnels.
Then as the Flame Swerfvalk was forced towards the ground the Isbjorn swatted it from the sky with a large paw.
The dungeon was safe for now.
Ham continued to putter away with setting up rooms on the second floor until he was interrupted by his first Sentient invaders.
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Ur studied the gateway ahead of him. As a scout for his village he had been sent to check on the distrubance that had been felt in the flows of mana of the world. It seemed they had been Blessed or Cursed with a Dungeon. It seemed they lived in interesting times.
The first thing he noticed was the level of approaching invading animals. As he watched he saw yet another scorpion enter the portal. he pondered what it was about this dungeon that had caused it to be Cursed so heavily. He had seen snakes grow in size and others gain fire. And the flow of creatures suggested something was drawing them in.
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Still, opportunity favoured the bold, and in a curse on the dungeon he may acrue a blessing himself.
Cautiously stepping into the gateway he felt the world fall away and some screens pop up.
Blessing of Anubis As an invader of an opposed dungeon, should you die you will be reborn at the entrance. Once per month.
Blessing of Agni
As an invader of an opposed dungeon, a mantle of flame will protect you from flame or cold, nullifying 1000 flame or cold damage. Mantle reforms once per month.
Blessing of Jormangandr As an invader of an opposed dungeon, gain scales of the serpent. Prevents 1000 physical damage. Scales reforms once per month.
Ur paused in shock. That... that was all three of the main factions working together. This dungeon was aligned to a God that opposed all the main heavenly factions. A Heretic Dungeon.
As he looked around the "room", which was not a cube as expected but a long thin passageway, he pondered. As the roof blazed like the hottest mid-summer midday sun he considered. As the sky turned dark and the room turned to the cold of the darkest winter night, he decided that this was too much for him. Clearly, a Heretic Dungeon for a reason.
Ur turned and fled. Cursed with interesting times indeed.
----
Ham stared in shock as the person left so soon after entering. He had been notified of the blessings the person would receive,
It would seem that if the invaders were cautious then he would have a never ending stream of people entering, fighting until they could fight no more, before resting and practicing for a month to try again.
And surely the person would return with allies.
Ham continued to expand his floors, adding another floor to the desert level with another climb, this one as if between the crags of a canyon. Rough walls close together allowed one to bridge between the walls and work your way up. WIth good balance a person could dig their feet and knees into the walls and have hands free to fight off the Swerfvalk swooping down.
Likewise he developed more ice rooms. He created rooms with massive chunks of ice, held up only by columns, with a narrow winding path between them, with stalactites above and below. He created rooms with a semi-open area that led nowhere, with the path onwards being around to the side and down through a narrow tunnel under the open area through the ice underneath. He created rooms with the path being into a twisting side gap before climbing straight up through a hole in the roof again by bridging between the walls.
Ham did everything he could to develop a path that was technically passable by a person, but one that would require the most effort possible. Unfortunately Ham found that he could not give an Isbjorn a fire alightment, it seemed the ice adaptation was strong enough to preclude a fire alignment.
And then the invaders returned.
----
Ur led the group into the gateway. Collectively they checked the screens. All had received the blessings of the Gods, it seemed this Heretic Dungeon was much reviled.
Gradually they started to make their way into the room. Ur as the ranger was set up for overwatch, his friends forming a bulwark in front of him.
The first trap they found was obvious. Stepping over it carefully, they noted how the trap was enough to stop the scorpions. Cautiously moving further in they then stopped and stepped to the side as a large Fire Wyrm headed passed them. They decided to follow it in, watching how it advanced to learn of any traps.
---------
As the invaders continued inwards Ham viewed their approach. The idea of following the Flame Wyrm seemed to work for them, at least until an Addax knocked it back on top of them on the slopes. They seemed very confused by the room layouts, from what his comprehension translated it seemed other dungeons were not clever enough to do anything other than cube rooms.
They seemed to have appropriate gear that allowed them to handle the extremes of temperature, as warm blooded creatures they were more affected by overheating than the cold, but an appropriate thickness of furs slowed both heating and cooling so that the rooms weather had reversed before it could cause them problems. Unfortunately it seemed the temperature fluctuation rates needed for his Addax would suit the people reasonably well. This unfortunately meant his main method of dealing with invaders was not effective.
At this point he had to hope they took a tumble on the stairs, perhaps assisted by the Swerfvalk.
-------
Ur continued to be surprised by the structure of the dungeon. Whatever was in charge of this dungeon was clearly very different than any other he had heard of. This next room had stairs. Just like in the capital city that he had visited once, it seemed to be set out with humans very much in mind. He was wondering about the purpose of the central core, since a more powerful person could climb the middle far faster than following the coiling stairs. And then Addiz was knocked into the central core by a swooping Swerfvalk. A column of free air for them to gain speed then.
As a team they returned back down to retrieve Addiz. The fall didn't kill him, but it did drain most of the physical defensive blessing.
As they ascended again they had to deal with constant swooping attacks. Ultimately the most damage came from the falls, and these could mostly be avoided by working in a group. It did however slow them substantially. The birds also seemed to know to target their clothes, ripping off the layers needed to protect them from the cold. Their flame blessing stopped any immediate damage, but again this used up parts of the defenses.
And then the next room was the same, but with pillars to be stepped between rather than a solid floor. This made the defensive formations they had developed useless. Each man needed to defend alone, or in a pair at most. And if in a pair they had to be careful not to tangle each other.
Soon enough, one after the other they all fell for the last time. At least for this month.
-----
6 Invaders defeated
Blessing of Anubis allows them to escape. Mana limit values of 45, 37, 70, 40, 36 and 50 ransomed.
Various loot added to summonable items templates
Gain 6 tokens for Blessing of Anubis, Blessing of Agni and Blessing of Jormangandr
Experience gained
Ham blinked in surprise, those mana values seemed far too low, a single Flame Wyrm gave more. Then he noticed and understood. Mana Limit, this was a permanent increase to his mana pool, not a once off set of mana. And it came with its own regeneration. It would take time, but overall this increased his long term growth not his short term development.
Thankfully with the experience gained he was given a chance to gain another creature:
Melrakki Hreinn Tahir - Curse Shiva