I poked at my status and other information boxes a few more times just to make sure I didn’t miss some other important information. Nothing appeared so I was confident I had about as much information as I was going to get at this juncture.

I felt tempted diving right in and expanding my dungeon and filling it with monsters, traps, and other interesting things. Ideas danced around in my head as I thought about what I wanted to create. I had both big ideas, such as theming the entire dungeon, and little ideas related to only specific elements.

But it would do me no good to begin building things haphazardly. Developing an overarching plan on what the dungeon would be should be done before I spent a single mote of mana. After all, the introductory message warned that demesne cores could suffer some pretty nasty ends. Proper planning was essential.

It was time to do some theory crafting.

The first thing I needed to answer was the question of what my purpose was- what did it mean to be a demesne core? The initial introductory message gave me a couple of hints. First, I was essential to the cycle of life. Obviously, I lacked any further information on what this means, exactly, but it must be important. My best guess was that this function was related to my use of mana in some way. Second, in some of the dungeon core stories I had read in my previous life, dungeons had symbiotic relationships with the inhabitants of the world whereby both sides helped each other become stronger. I was fairly certain this was not the case for me based on the warning portion of the message. Finally, the message seemed to suggest that I should grow.

Important to the cycle of life, protect myself, and grow.

Nothing I could do about the first one, but the second and third ones? Yeah. I can do that.

First up, defense. The greater the ease that “delvers” had finding my physical core, the greater the likelihood that one of them would do something nefarious to it. So, I had to maximize the defense of my core and avoid that scenario at all costs. Doing so seemed easy: make my dungeon as deadly and difficult as possible. However, if a dungeon was too strong or too dangerous, then the locals would have a strong incentive to destroy it whatever the cost. Nobody likes “rocks fall, everyone dies.”

But going too far the other way might be just as bad. Yes, if my dungeon was relatively easy or delver friendly, then people might be incentivized to protect a useful resource. However, being friendly could also incentivize my destruction. If the value of being subjugated was higher than my value as a resource, then simple cost-benefit analysis would push for my destruction. Not only that, but my defenses would be easily run through if a change in mind ever happened. Worse yet, the people who gained strength from my dungeon might find me no longer a challenge and be further incentivized to get rid of me (even if it was to pull up ladder behind them).

And that brought things full circle. A dungeon that was too strong was a dungeon too dangerous to keep around; a dungeon too weak did not provide enough value to keep. From a relational perspective, I needed to sit squarely in the goldilocks zone--not too hot, not too cold, but juuuuust right.

Protecting myself was an easy maxim to adhere to and one I was already committed to in my mind. To balance this, I needed to provide sufficient value to the delvers. What were they looking for from a dungeon? If this world hewed to the way role playing games worked, then they likely wanted similar things. The first thing they would want was experience (and if the system governed them similar to me, then that might very well be literal experience). Second, they might expect financial or tangible rewards, such as money, magical items, or other loot. Third, the delvers may specifically want to destroy or capture my dungeon core.

The second benefit I listed--tangible loot--could also be a problem. Tangible loot included money, items, magical items, artifacts, crafting materials, or anything else that could physically be removed from my dungeon. I remembered reading an old article in a roleplaying magazine that wondered what would happen if dungeons existed in real life or how people should react to them realistically. The author reasoned that if a dungeon contained a large hoard of treasure, then every nearby king or ruler would be heavily incentivized to take as much gold and treasure as fast as possible. Armies and wars were, after all, extremely expensive and free money would be a boon any king would be desperate for. Such an endeavor would surpass simple raids and be conducted as a large-scale excavation project. Did the Nazis seek out the Ark of the Covenant with a crack team of adventurers? No, they had hundreds of soldiers and thousands of workers digging in the ruins of ancient Egypt. And that was just for one artifact! A mound of treasure or a powerful enough artifact could lead to the local rulers trying to strip mine me with nary a thought towards dungeon sustainability!

I ruminated for some time about what factors would allow me and my dungeon to sit within the goldilocks zone. The two purposes were not per se incompatible: I could provide delvers with value while striving to maximize my protection. For example, I could do what was typical for dungeons in many computer games, making my dungeon progressively more difficult the deeper one delved.

Then again . . . screw balance! I was promised an assistant and they were nowhere to be found. That was squarely the responsibility of whoever put me here and they had failed. I was insulted that they wanted me to do this job when they didn’t give me the resources I needed! I would not design my dungeon for life cycle whatever or being friendly with the locals; I would design it solely for my defense and my growth (for more defense). I’m going full Vauban.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

So, what defensive paradigms should I follow to increase my survivability?

First was accessibility. A dungeon was functionally the equivalent of a fortress. The purpose of both was to keep people from reaching the inside. Likewise, the biggest weakness of both a dungeon and a fortress was the same thing: they both existed in a static, fixed location. In the history of Earth, fortresses could be extremely difficult for an enemy to take, but that cost need only be paid if the enemy had to take the fortress. If the enemy needed only to go around the fortress, then the strategic value of the fort quickly became zero. My dungeon’s fixed location would also be a significant weakness. Once the entrance to my dungeon was discovered and that information propagated, then anyone with that knowledge would know how to access my dungeon. Even hiding my entrance would only delay the information spread, not prevent it.

There were other problems derived from accessibility. The quality of delvers as well as the number of delvers could be problematic. Suppose, again, that a king or ruler wanted to get all of the loot in a dungeon, why would they limit themselves to small numbers of mercenaries over an extended period of time? Besides literally digging out a dungeon, a determined general or ruler could simply overwhelm a dungeon with numbers. Instead of sending ten people in at a time, send one hundred or a thousand, overwhelming the monsters and traps with sheer numbers. Even though that seemed unlikely to me, a large number of contemporaneous delvers would be a real problem. Therefore, I would need to research a way to limit the total number of delvers allowed in my dungeon at any one time.

Similarly, the quality of opposition could overwhelm any defenses I create. Until I became a powerful dungeon with loads of defenses, I simply had no way to defend myself from powerful delvers. They could stomp through my meager defenses and do whatever they wanted. Admittedly, such powerful people might not waste their time with a low-level dungeon, so the risk of their intervention might be mitigated somewhat. Of course, if someone overpays for their services–bah. I don’t see how I can control this risk without a way to simply bar overpowered people from entering.

So, controlling who, what, and how many enter my dungeon was important.

The next issue I foresaw was also related to fixed defenses. Static defenses either don’t or are difficult to change. Given enough time and information gathered, enemies could and would find a way to defeat a dungeon. Suppose I make a spiked pit trap in my first level.The very first group who comes into my dungeon may very well be surprised and killed by it. As long as every person who enters my dungeon and learns of that trap does not leave then that trap will remain at its highest level of effectiveness. Once people leave my dungeon with information about that trap, then some people will have the knowledge to bypass it. The trap’s effectiveness is thus reduced. Over time, information on that pit trap would become common knowledge until everyone who enters my dungeon knows to avoid or disable that trap. At this point, the trap becomes completely neutered.

Thus, over time, more and more of my dungeon will become easier and easier. Worse, those delvers that are successful and leave my dungeon alive would likely come back stronger each time. My dungeon would have the negative effect of making threats to my survival even greater threats. It was an arms race I could only hope to keep up with, never win.

The only viable answer I had was to utilize the few advantages I could create to slow the diffusion of information about my dungeon or to reduce the value of such information. The best ideas for that I could come up with right now were modularity and variability. In short, if I found a way to efficiently change and modify existing elements of the dungeon from time-to-time, then information about the dungeon would become obsolete or useless. I played my fair share of games that utilized something called “procedural generation,” a system where each level followed certain rules but each instance was slightly different than any other. If I could implement that type of system for my dungeon, then my dungeon would be far more difficult to “solve.”

I began putting together a list of priorities in my mind, etching out the words as if writing them into an invisible empty status.

Gorge’s Keys to Survivability

The name came out that way. The interface was well and truly fucking with me. I kept that thought there and went to add the objectives.

* Access Control: Control who can enter my dungeon; how many can enter my dungeon; and what power level can enter my dungeon.

* Modularity: Minimize information creep on my dungeon by maximizing variability.

* Core Survival: No matter what happens, the core must survive.

The words seared into the interface and I felt them gain permanence. They disappeared for but a fraction of a second before appearing again, but this time in a status box of their own.

Gorge’s Keys to Survivability

* Access Control: Control who can enter my dungeon; how many can enter my dungeon; and what power level can enter my dungeon.

* Modularity: Minimize information creep on my dungeon by maximizing variability.

* Core Survival: No matter what happens, the core must survive.

Did I . . . just create my own notepad?

Demesne Interface 3 obtained.

I just did. I laughed and then laughed some more. For all I escaped my corporate perdition to come to a world with magic and wonder, it was not so willing to let me go. The dreaded office memo had followed me from the pits of hell to haunt me even here.