I gazed at the shaft before me, solid and unwavering and wondered. ‘Stalagmite or stalactite?’ It was a question for the ages and the info screen was about as useful as page twenty on a google search, just calling my creation stone. I had begun my adventure in artwork as soon as I figured out I could use the stone in my inventory like clay that could eject from my palms. I was rather fond of my, and I chose to stick to a name at this point, stalactite, rising up from the floor to waist height and having variations in its structure that almost seemed natural. I was no artist, stick figures usually my best interpretation, but making a pointy rock with some ridges carried little need for skill.

In the meantime Ben had been gathering moss and fungus in as slow a manner as ever, giving the moss more plenty of time to recover and expand even further, along with the occasional spawning of a patch here and there. That left me with nearly two hundred biomatter and some new information. My little slimes were far more efficient when gathering materials. The easiest way to test was to carve out about as much stone as a slime would occupy, my earlier tests having shown that would produce one stone with a slime gathering it. It had taken stopping my slimes as they worked to conduct the test but it was good to know. It’s probably why one of their descriptions is for cleaning, they can get more use out of scraps.

Finally the biomatter count ticked over fifty and I tried spawning it again, having tried at each tenth point.

Select spawn point:

Spawn point must be over 2 square meters to allow room for spawner.

I smiled at the new window and turned away from my confusing pointed rock. While digging with slimes was more efficient in terms of collection I had chosen to do more than sit around and make pointy rocks, having manually dug out three rooms, each leading away from the main room. They had gone out in each cardinal direction, with the stairs still marked as south for me, and were all fair sized. I moved over to one, east, and measured it out as best as I could without any visible feet, and figured it was about fifteen feet in either direction, which gave me pause as I tried to remember how many feet went into a meter, guessing four to be safe. Then, with a wave of my hand I selected the center of the room and felt a bit of vertigo as my vision changed, superimposing the image of a pool over the area I had selected, outlined in blue.

Please confirm spawner location.

It was a little odd having an overlay like a game but I shrugged it off as it was damned helpful. I tried pointing at it and dragging the image and, to my joy, the image moved and let me drag it closer to the wall. It suddenly flashed red as it started to press into the wall, making me shake my head at the situation, and back up allowing me to spawn it in, though I made a quick mark at around half its length, thinking I could make a crude yardstick later.

When I ‘placed’ the spawning pool the stone bubbled and began to sink downwards into a bowl roughly shaped like a bean. Green slime suddenly started to pour out of the bowls walls, filling it to nearly a finger depth below the edge of the bowl. When the pool stopped moving, and filling, I was left with a knee deep pond not quite taking up the entire area the interface claimed. Now would be the time for some testing.

I quickly ran through a few ‘power words’ until ‘select’ while pointing at it brought up a new window.

Slime spawner:

Spawns available:

Slime: 10 Biomatter

Alright, I knew slimes would cost biomatter but they were proving to be as cheap as they were useful. But now I had a bit of curiosity, were my humble green goo boys the only gelatin critters I could have jiggling around the place? I turned my focus to my spawner and tried info.

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Slime spawner:

A pool where slimes may intermingle and occasionally spawn more of their kind.

That didn’t answer my question but it did raise a new one. Maybe I could have Bob and Ben chill in the spawning pool and make more slimes over time. Or it was just flavor text and I was overthinking things, still I could test it out later. For now I turned my focus back onto my still small first floor. It had taken a fair amount of time to collect fifty biomatter and Ben couldn’t collect it any faster, nor could i help as i’d waste most of it. I heaved a sigh and started putting down my glowing nodes, shrooms and moss.

I somewhat lost track of time as I worked to expand and enhance my dungeon, carving out more small rooms, planting more nodes and ordering my second floor slimes to start expanding the tunnel they dug. I had a rough idea of what I wanted for the second floor, thinking i’d do some kind of noob metal cavern with some spiders mixed in for flavor. Otherwise I was keen to stick to my current plan, coating the corners and edges of the first floor rooms in moss to expand my biomatter production.

By the time I finished the ninth room, having chosen to expand out each room before adding more between them, I had enough biomatter for three slimes, courtesy of Ben, and was moving back to the room I'd set the spawner in, when I had an idea. I am a dungeon, so, every rock and pebble was technically a part of me. I should be able to spawn from wherever my ‘form’ was as easily as twitching a finger. So, I began to focus and hoped I wouldn't later need to traverse fifty floors just to keep my first floor topped up.

Slime spawner:

Spawns available:

Slime: 10 Biomatter

I could feel myself grinning, glad I figured that out early and sure I could apply this to my ‘forces’ if I focused correctly. Despite my findings I still moved over to the spawner, wanting to see it in action., spending the biomatter on my arrival.

The biomatter was spent and a twenty second cooldown timer grayed out my slime choice, but the pool reacted immediately so I couldn't marvel at the quick cooldown. The slime bubbled slowly then faster, making the entire pool look like it was boiling, until a portion slid up to the edge and smoothly slid away from the pool, leaving me with a freshly spawned slime. In truth it was a little anticlimactic.

I gave the new slime some simple orders while I waited for the cooldown, mostly just making it move around then collect some moss. It didn’t appear different from my first slimes in any way nor did it act any differently so my thoughts on random mutations petered out there, however I had something new to test with the spawning of my third slime, and I wasn't left disappointed when two slimes moved into the pool.

Slime spawner:

Spawns available:

Slime: 10 Biomatter .02% mutation rate

Alright, I was a little disappointed. A point two mutation rate was a paltry reward for twenty biomass worth of slimes, but it was still neat to know. Hell, the more I thought about it the better it sounded, it only took ten biomatter to boost it by point oh one so it should only take a thousand to increase it by one percent, and a quick scratching at the floor made me reasonably sure my math was right. While that might sound like a significant cost, it hadn’t taken long for my slimes to accumulate a thousand stone. Once I got a proper farming area set up, and enough farming slimes to run it, I'd be raking in biomatter. It was still a disappointment though to have wasted two of my slimes so quickly.

The farm idea did get me thinking though. I couldn’t just keep expanding my top floor and hope whatever adventurers found me would leave me enough moss to keep up my production. I would need a secret farm, one I could make conveniently sized for my slimes but entirely useless to anything larger than my own orb. I quickly ran through a couple ideas before landing on one I liked, something like a silo system. I’d have my slimes dig neat holes straight down with enough space between each tube for moss to spread through, then i’d just have to let my slimes run through tubes one after another. It was a rough idea, and i’d have to work on timing to get things optimal, but I liked it.