I stood on my third floor and frowned. All that I had really accomplished here was about a thirty by thirty meter room, along with the water and heat experiment secret rooms. Big enough to turn into a house, but I really couldn’t say it was a floor at this point. I had a plan when I made my first and second floor.

The first floor was simple and linear, simply meant to be an introduction to delvers and a filter for idiots who thought I would be nothing more than a toy box to loot. Simple pit falls, meager loot, and slimes to add in a hint of danger. It would take someone completely inept to fail that very weak roadblock.

The second floor was more substance than challenge, basically a ‘you did it’ for the first time explorers and a place for the poor bastards to get simple material that they might be able to sell or craft for better gear. It would be a challenge for solo miners to get anything, due to my hoppers and occasional spider, or a trove of material for parties simply intent on harvesting what I had to offer and getting out quickly. At Least it was until I realized just how deadly a gang of hoppers could be to someone in armor. If the girl had wandered down there with naught but a pick and some clothes she’d be dead.

Or were they really that deadly? They had a hell of a lot of energy once they were moving, and they could get moving in a hurry, but they were pretty simple to avoid once airborne. They jumped from a good distance away and didn't re-orient themselves too quickly. Someone light on their feet, and expecting an attack could probably dodge easily enough, or even launch a counter attack as they sailed past them. Even in her armor, the girl would likely have been able to get well away from them if she’d been expecting trouble. I’d have to set a handful of solo hoppers on the first floor later, to act as a warning for future delvers.

So, the first floor was my introduction, the second was my baby loot room, what would my third be? I could incorporate my ramp bugs somewhat, but how? I set out a new sheet and started marking it, first outlining the box that was currently the only room and then thinking for a few moments. I could make it floor two again, basically a mineral farm. It might have been dungeon instincts, or just a human desire to improve and adapt but I didn't like the idea of just copying floor ideas, it just seemed lazy.

“Spiders, gotta incorporate them somehow.” I started scoring the page I'd made, dragging a long curving line that moved up and away from the room, a simple crescent design. “Ramp bugs to block off tunnels maybe?” I stopped my score then moved back half way down the line and made a smaller room. “They’re juveniles, not adults, they could be some ten meters wide rather than the thirty in their description, or perhaps five. I drew out the room and marked it as twenty by twenty, then grinned.” I’ll make the spiders web up a bunch of rubble so it looks like a collapsed section of tunnel. It would look out of place here, where all my tunnels were smooth stone, then fill it with spiders and a ramp bug. If delvers were foolish enough to explore down the full length of the tunnel without checking the rubble then they’d risk having a horde descend on them when they made it to the end room. With a ramp bug leading the spiders they’d have a frontal tank to take a couple hits for them, hopefully, then fall on the delvers like a hammer.

I looked up to the top of my line and smiled. “Just need to make an anvil.” I marked out the room, setting it as a fifty by fifty meter space. I’d fill it with copper and general mineral. It seemed like a poor reward for the danger, but I imagined the second floor, being safer, would be constantly depleted thus creating a need to go ever deeper. I’d even put a handful of hoppers in the room without slimes so whoever managed to get there, and survive, would be able to carry out something that was likely significantly more valuable than just ore. Hoppers didn’t refine ore very well, but even rougher quality stuff meant they’d be carrying out more than they could in raw ore.

I wrote beside the room, three hoppers, five spiders, and two ramp bugs, if I could fit them. I really needed to spawn in a ramp bug just so I could measure them out and figure out if they’d fit into my plan. Then I wrote beside the trap room, three spiders, one ramp bug. I didn’t want the trap to be murderous, just deadly without preparation. If the weapon the girl brought was the norm for poorer delvers then a group of five should be able to handle it if they didn’t panic, even three might be able to fight their way past the falling trap without too much trouble if they caught on before they moved to fight the loot room monsters. I even thought about setting up a pitfall, but that just didn’t fit with my idea of the floor. This floor was for combat and planning, not just blundering into things.

With my ideas set I finished the tunnel markings by adding a second line, then widened the exit of the tunnel so delvers could see more of the room as they approached. I didn’t want an ambush for the room, just a straight up fight, so they should be able to see the danger as they approached.

For a final touch I added circles to the rooms. I’d need a way to replenish defeated monsters that was better than just sending them down halls that would possibly be occupied by others looting or scooting. I’d make a secret floor above this one, just big enough for monsters to traverse and repopulate the floor. I was now glad that I'd decided to make my floors further apart, fitting secret monster floors to each floor would be a pain in the ass if I ever decided to expand any of my earlier floors.

It was also making sense now that I got a new spawner for each of my monsters whenever I moved down a level. I might not use the old monsters on each floor but I could certainly use the new spawners on old floors if I kept expanding them, and it would be impossible to populate old floors with just a single spawner.

With the first branch out of the way I moved to make eight other branches from the main room, smiling to myself as the spider-like blueprint took form. Eight loot rooms, eight traps, more material to collect than could be found on the second floor, and it looked good. When delvers mapped the place out they’d realize just how clever it looked, considering the abundance of spiders for the floor. I might be tooting my own horn but a little pride wouldn’t hurt me if I put it into my own work.

For a final touch I just needed to add one more room, a head for my spider level. I made it simple, a circle about thirty meters across and thirty high with a short tunnel to connect it to the main room. I thought about it for a moment then marked it for twenty spiders and a dozen hoppers, making eight small divots to mark points I'd add copper or general mineral. I also added in ten slimes for flavor and to clear some of the material the hoppers would mine. A final, wider, divot marked the exit point of the floor. It was close to the entrance, but that didn’t bother me. Delvers capable of beating my new ‘boss’ room would be intent on reaching much deeper and just adding to the travel time would be a pointless waste of time for them, and a pointless waste of monsters on my part. The best I would do for them was make a tough fight that might degrade their combat effectiveness, or injure them, if they were careless in this room.

I looked at my map and frowned slightly before adding ‘make the spiders web up the boss room heavily.’ It was a boss room, it was meant to be a deadly challenge. I’d use the webs to obscure vision, create sticky obstacles, and give the spiders a height advantage so they could attack from above and from the sides. It seemed like a good enough idea, so long as no one was packing a flame thrower. If I ever got skeletons as a decorative addition, I'd definitely add in some webbed up sacks full of bones, just for a bit of flavor.

With my final touch done I nodded and set down the sheet. I’d have to add in moss nodes and mushrooms for lighting, maybe some vines just to break up the ever present visage of stones, but it all looked good for a first draft. Now all I needed was a boat load of slimes and spiders to start mining away to get things done. Just as I considered things ready to get underway a new window popped up in front of me.

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Dungeon blueprints discovered.

Granted ability to create dungeon blueprints.

Granted ability to add nodes to blueprints.

Granted ability to create monster spawn points in blueprints.

Granted ability to create rooms in blueprints.

Theme detected

Granting ability to add themes to blueprints.

Boss room detected.

Granting the ability to designate boss spawn.

Granting ability to designate lesser boss spawns.

My eyes scanned over the window that hovered in front of me and I was a bit confused. I’d already made floors with themes, and I'd already made blueprints, so why hadn’t I discovered this before. The bosses I understood, I hadn't made any boss rooms before. My first and second floors felt like they had a theme going on. A few moments of contemplation and I thought I understood. This was meant to be a spider floor. It had other monsters, sure, but it all hinged on spiders, from the fighters to the design, the bulk of it was built around the eight legged horrors. It was also the only floor that I had really thought out the design of, the other two mostly being heat of the moment constructions that just fell into a neat little niche. It was a little annoying but I hadn't started out with a dungeon mindset, and now that I was going around doing actual dungeon things I'd likely get actual dungeon abilities.

With that bit of introspection out of the way I started going through and getting information on my new toys. The dungeon blueprint was both simple and complex. Just thinking of designing a blueprint opened up a three dimensional map with a ten by ten meter room on it and another thought added a twenty meter long tunnel on it. I could arch the roof, shrink the room and tunnel, make the tunnel into a cylinder that might be hell to traverse. It was a neat little building tool that could let me get really intricate in my designs rather than just scratching out a two dimensional map. The node spawns came just as easily, and even offered a neat little feature. I could see just how efficiently they’d grow. My moss nodes showed little time lapses, letting me see how long they’d take to grow and fill a space, my time keeping ability popping up and timing how long a node might take to fill a space. It even showed the growth rate of my metal nodes, letting me see how long it would take them to grow to ‘full’ size where the growth would stall and slow down.

Moving on I pulled up my second floor blueprint, just to test out the theme option, and was met with disappointment. Spider was my only option. It seemed I'd have to find, or design, new themes on my own. Though it did seem that I could adjust just how ‘themed’ things could get. From a scattering of cobwebs to webs so dense someone would need a machete to have any hopes of advancing through it. With nothing to do, yet, for the second floor I closed it and focused back on my third floor window.

My last test was a quick one. I set down a spider spawn point and was met with a bit of resistance. ‘No path’ appeared and I wondered about that for a moment. The simple answer was that there were no spawners on my blueprint. I tried out a couple things, finding I could add a spawner, but that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. Finally I tried to add an entrance to this blueprint and was met with a new image. My already constructed floor three hovered in front of me and I found that I could add my new floor both below and above it by several means, tunneling straight down, tunneling at an angle, or making a convoluted tunnel that loops up and around the floor it led from. It was a simple enough ability, and I was glad to find out that I could pull up old, constructed floors as well as design new ones. All that to say, once ‘connected’ I saw a little dotted line that led from the nearest, or only, spawner available.

My new ability was a fantastic addition, making sure my next floors would be a cake walk to design. With a final thought I removed my nodes from the blueprint and tried to will the construct, just a square and a tube, to be built in front of me, smiling as the form filled out and made a representation of my new ‘floor’ in stone right in front of me. It might be pointless to make a miniature, but I didn’t think my monsters would be able to see what I saw so I'd need something for them to compare to if i was to leave them to build things on their own.

I quickly demolished the construct and tried to will the blueprint away when I was met with a window stating ‘you will remember this’. Ominous as it sounded, I figured it was just saying i’d save the floor design and be able to bring it back up. I tried my hand at ‘deleting’ it and was met with another window. ‘You will forget this’. Simple enough, I waved my hand and the blueprint vanished. Without much to forget it didn’t feel like I'd lost anything but i wondered just how much I'd be able to remember or forget should i save something large and complex, or delete it.

Finally, for the blueprint, I pulled the ability back up and focused on the third floor. I had designed my idea already and tried to will the design off the sheet and into my blueprint, but it failed. I’d have to go over it again by hand. It was a touch annoying, but it was fine. Working through my ability, and with a design already in front of me, it would be plenty easy enough. I even had the chance to make the ‘legs’ of my design angle down slightly, just another obstacle for an escaping party that wouldn’t be too malicious.

Slightly annoyed at having to rework things, but glad enough that I could add nodes and ‘spawn’ points for my monsters, I finished and set about checking my other new toys. Or I almost did before I stopped myself. I’d almost lost track of what I was doing again, I needed to stay focused, play later, and get the ball rolling now.

With a sigh, I moved back to my elf room and started summoning slimes. I figured four for each leg, and another four for the head, but I decided to add an extra for each ‘party’. My slimes could give, and follow, simple commands so it would probably be a good idea to set up a couple commanders to make sure everyone followed the script and made the floor the way i wanted it designed.

Some time later, and with forty six slimes, the last meant to be a foreman of sorts, I moved over to my spider spawner. Nine would be enough for my crew, but I decided to round it out to ten. The spiders were significantly faster than slimes so I might just make my foreman ride one of the spiders so he could jet around and make sure everything was proceeding as planned. I made sure to keep an eye on my biomatter count as I spawned the spiders, a thousand bio matter not yet being a drop in the bucket, but managed to stay over five thousand. My farms were currently outproducing my slime mutation experiment, but only by, about, a hundred per hour. Comfortable enough for spare spawns, but not enough to spawn in hordes of workers continuously.

Back at the third floor, with all my monsters in my summon space i pulled up my blueprint and made a construct of it, deciding to make it nearly three meters across. The construct had pillars holding up each part, looking like it was printed out, but that wouldn’t be much of a problem. Finally I summoned a slime, my ‘foreman’, and thought for a moment.

“Your name will be.” Another moment of thought. “Foreman.” A less than original name, but i couldn’t keep calling slimes Bob and Robert. “Your job will be to direct others to mine out and shape this floor until it resembles this.” I gestured to the statue beside me and felt the attention of the slime drift for a moment. “This is a small version of what I have planned. If I give you measurements, will you be able to accomplish your task?”

The slime seemed to stare at the statue for a long time and I was beginning to think it wouldn’t be able to accomplish its task. “Here.” I knelt and started to make marks on the floor. “This is a meter.” I used my own measuring ability to mark out a meter line, then scored centimeter increments beside it. I then pulled the original blueprint over next to it. “A meter is a form of measuring distance, how far one object might be from another, or how large one object, or room, might be.” I was beginning to feel some recognition from Foreman. “Now, the trickiest part of this floor is probably going to be the declining halls that lead to the outer rooms. The simplest way to make a slope correctly is to measure out a meter and then measure how far down you’re supposed to go. Even on a smaller statue like this one you can get the same slope on a larger project. Once the angle is down, all you have to do is follow along without dipping or rising.

I did some quick math, ironically slowly, and measured out the angle for the slime and built a new construct that was a simple ramp. I moved the construct to the entrance of the room, out of the way, so my new foreman could slide along it and get the feeling of the correct slope my halls would need. The slime, once confused by the math involved, was picking things up now that it had a physical object to take its measurements from. The slime seemed to re-focus on me and I felt confidence radiating off of it and took that to mean that it was ready. So, I began to summon slimes.

I decided to use just slimes for now, thinking I wouldn't want a bunch of spiders cluttering things up and getting in each others way. I’d let the slimes start on the tunnels and ‘head’ and drop the spiders in once the slimes had made some progress. I made sure to drop the slimes in packs of five, near where the tunnels would be made. With the groups finally summoned I gave everyone their orders. The foreman would make sure everyone stayed on target, staying within the bounds of my blueprint to a close enough degree. And the fifth slime in each group would follow the foremans orders, trying to keep to the lines as he told them to. I was pretty sure I'd eventually get monsters better suited to carrying out tasks like these, managing my other utility monsters and keeping clean lines and accurate work. As it stood, I just needed it to be good enough, and Foreman seemed to be up to the task.

With a wave and a shout of ‘Begin!’ My slimes moved with a purpose, sliding slowly towards, then into the stone as they set about their tasks. I was proud of them and watched their slow work for a moment before letting my mind wander to the other tasks I'd set for myself. “Elf comfort and needs.” I spoke to myself. I couldn’t begin hopper experimentation until my slime experiment was done and I couldn't work out a good metal farming method until I could work in more efficient hoppers or a basic automation system.