Ham had just finished setting up the next room, with an uphill slope and narrowed crawl sections when he was interrupted with another message.
Shiva intervenes Curse of Agni Every tenth creature invading gains a fire affinity, converting to the equivalent fire affinity monster
Ham scowled internally. Would these damn gods just leave him alone for ten minutes to enjoy some progress?
Taking a metaphorical deep breath he returned his focus to his floors. He had a new threat to worry about, and the only way to stop it would be to develop extra rooms or floors.
Thankfully, as a dungeon core he seemed to have some degree of underlying understanding of things in his dungeon. This included knowing that this current scorpion making its way in counted as the first for the fire blessing. There was no clear knowledge of why or how he knew this, but he just did. It sort of appeared as a mental label in their mental status screen.
As a few more creatures entered, he was aware of the counter ticking up, and he focused on his fifth room. He had noticed that his Addax had some skill at jumping, and so he was setting up this room as steeply winding stair upwards, with steps about a metre high. The space above was two metres at the closest points, which meant it would not work on the birds, but for now he just had to hope that he was not faced with a serpent or bird with fire element.
As the 10th creature entered his focus immediately snapped back to the first room.
Lesser Desert Dragon
This Lesser Desert Dragon evolved from a Frilled Lizard
Replaces Venom with Burning Bite
Gains mana pool level 1: 100 points of mana
Gains immunity to burning damage
Can resist cold damage by using mana to create heat internally.
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Watching as the dragon made its way through the room Ham was happy to see that it was not that much larger than the unevolved form. It was able to clear the pit by jumping into the far wall then clawing its way up, but it was clearly losing mana to the initial cold of the room.
In the end he directed his Addax to allow it passed. All the wild creatures were driven to continue to his core, so without active opposition the dragon left his Addax alone.
As the dragon continued into the next room it carefully made its way up the sloped sand. Ham sent a single Addax to ram it. In the end both ended up tumbling down the hill, his Addax catching fire of a sort, with a smoldering burn that was deepening slowly with time.
The dragon was able to recover and continue back up the hill. the spikes of the floor had been exposed, but with its small size it was able to wind between them.
This pattern repeated, with an Addax sacrificed to knock the dragon back down as the cold of the room finally used up the mana of the dragon and then starting to causing cold damage. With the evolution it had a larger health pool as well, which slowed things further, but at least it eventually fell.
Mana absorbed from creature affected by a rival god. 0.1 store of "Blessing of Shiva" stolen. Each full store of this blessing may be used to have a 10% chance to modify a creature to gain a fire affinity. (Multiple may be used together with the corresponding chance, 2 for 20% 3 for 30% etc)
The invasion continued unabated. Fire Scorpions could inject a corrosive substance that caused burning from their stinger and the Flame Nkwazi created a field of heat around themselves, neither of which helped with their surviving the cold snap of the room. The issue was the serpents which had been doubly blessed.
Fire Wyrm
This Fire Wyrm evolved from a monstrous Taipan
Monstrous size
Replaces venom with enhanced flaming bite
Gains mana pool level 1: 100 points of mana
Gains immunity to burning damage
Can resist cold damage by using mana to create heat internally.
The Wyrm was difficult to slow. It was large enough to pass all the spike traps of the first floor, heavy enough to avoid being knocked down the hill on the second, and it was already slithering on the ground so the tunnel sections of the third floor caused more issues for the Addax defenders than it did for the Wyrm
Thankfully the "stairs" of the fourth floor did cause it issues. With the Addax having the high ground they could essentially jump onto the head of the Wyrm and back off again. Their hooves were not designed as weapons as such, but they still did some damage and knocked the Wyrm back down some.
Thankfully, as Wyrm was slowed other invading creatures without godly blessings into monsters were providing a constant stream of mana and experience. Ham built another floor, again spiralling upward, but this time even steeper, with some steps having half widths of spikes built into them.
Eventually the Wyrm was ground down and Ham was able to replace the many Addax that had fallen. The normal creatures caused him to gain mana, but the monsters used up more than they returned.
Finally, he recieved the notification he had been hoping for.
Level up. You are now Level 3. Please choose a new creature Nkwazi Swerfvalk
As soon as the lines started to display Ham immediately selected Swerfalk. He didn't know what it was, he didn't care, it would be better than whatever the gods cursed him to have.... although they might still curse him anyway.