Turns out I had long than I thought, though not as long as I’d hoped. I’ve had a solid week with no interruptions. Including the delver, which is concerning. I expected them to make at least one attempt to sprint through the dungeon, but I’d seen no sign of him. He could be dead, but I never gave him any serious injuries. It’s possible that his supplies ran out and now he’s too weak to do anything, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up. Without seeing his body, I can only assume he’s still alive and well.
Over the past week, I’ve advanced another several hundred feet down the mine shaft. The pace is slow, but most of my Essence is being spent on the part of the dungeon between me and the outside world. I hoped he would come to me rather than me having to stumble across him so e could get this over with and I could move deeper into the mine, but it looks like I’m gonna have to dig him out when I find him. So I was thrilled when I completed another Milestone during the week.
Dungeon Management System
Milestone: Get a Room II
Make a total of five rooms.
A room does not a Dungeon make, but it is an important first step.
Reward: 1 Schema, 1 Trait Point
I immediately used the Trait Point to pick up Monster Master: Spiders for the cost reduction. I honestly didn’t understand just how many spiders I would need. The schema was a tougher choice, with the main debate being between the Elite Cave Spider and the Cave Spider Warrior. The Elite Cave Spider was just a Cave Spider, but better. It was stronger, faster, tougher, and smarter than the basic one and only a little larger. But It was a lot more expensive. The base cost of the Elite was sixty Essence, with Monster Mastery reducing it to fifty-four Essence. The Warrior was also an improved Cave Spider. It boasted greater strength than even the Elite and improved Chitin that was supposed to increase durability. The trade-offs were that it was twice the size of the normal cave spider and a good bit slower as well. They were also more expensive than the base spider, but not as much as the Elite. The Warrior had a base cost of fifty Essence, with the trait bringing it down to forty-five. The debate boiled down to a cheaper, more specialized spider, or a more expensive generalist.
Dungeon Management System
Monster: Cave Spider Elite
A rare advancement of the basic Cave Spider. The Cave Spider Elite is not only physically superior to the Cave spider, it also boasts an increased intelligence that it uses to direct its less intelligent brethren inside and outside of combat.
Requirements: Monster - Cave Spider
Dungeon Management System
Monster: Cave Spider Warrior
Only found in larger groups, these Cave Spiders sacrifice their ability to run and hide for the ability to stand and fight. Even in death, these spiders often physically block the way forward using their prodigious size.
Requirements: Monster - Cave Spider
I could see uses for both. The Elite would lead smaller groups of spiders around, acting as the commander, either tying down the main tank or staying in the back-line while being able to direct its fellows to do more than throw themselves at the enemy. With the Elite Cave Spider, I wouldn’t have to micro-manage the spiders in combat as much. But the warrior was just tough. With the warrior, I would still need to direct them in combat to get the most from them, but they should be able to take a few hits and maybe even dish them out.
I need creatures that can take a hit right now. And in that regard, I think the Warrior will just be more useful for that. I’ll definitely be picking up the Elite later. The increased intelligence and ability to lead other spider is too good to throw away. I just won’t be able to get the most out of it with only a handful of variants of the same monster.
I summoned one into the old core room and it suddenly became a lot more cramped in there. The spider warrior didn’t actually fill of the room. It wasn’t quite that big, but it was still a rather large spider. Its body alone was almost the size of an adult. Their legs were pretty short compared to their size, but they were two to three times thicker than a normal Cave Spider and just helped the spider take up space. I widened the old core room a bit to give the spider a little more room to maneuver, but not so much that it couldn’t use its body to block the way forward. I summoned three more and placed two in the back-half of mineshaft and one in the buffer zone between me and the delver.
The Cave Spider Warrior wasn’t the only new monster. I also successfully split the Cave Spider, Small schema into Cave Spider, Tiny.
Dungeon Management System
Monster: Cave Spider, Tiny
A much smaller variant of the basic Cave Spider. Summons 4.
Cost: 38 Essence
I don’t tiny is the word I would have used. Including its legs, the “tiny” cave spider stretched out would still reach from ankle to knee on most adults. The process to get them was worse than getting the small Cave Spider. It was rough to the point where I think I blacked-out for a bit afterwards, though I’m entirely sure.
Beside the new stuff, I also summoned a bunch more monster of the types I already had. I’m currently sitting on eight Skeleton Miners, sixteen Cave Spiders, sixteen small spider, twelve tiny spiders, and four warriors. All the new monsters needed a bunch more space, and that it what I’d spent most of my time and Essence on.
The rest of the expansion was a new mine shaft. The new mine shaft branched off from the second chamber and descended a little further than the original mineshaft. This was the start of making the mine more confusing. The plan I’ve settled on is to have three main mine shafts. Around each of them, sometimes connecting to another shaft but not always, would be a network of minor shafts, branch tunnels, and chambers. I haven’t decided if the main shafts will converge at the boss room yet. Right now, all I had was the main shaft. I haven’t begun digging out the network of other tunnels yet. Several of the new Cave Spiders, small spiders, and Skeleton Miners found their homes in the new mine shaft.
I was working on the new shaft when I was Interrupted by the feeling of someone entering the dungeon. It disappeared quickly, but someone had definitely entered. And they didn‘t enter from the direction the spearman had gone. They’d entered from the actual entrance. I popped over to the entrance just in time to see a human with an ornate looking staff and an elf carrying a bow both briefly step inside. Both were wearing leather armor and had large packs on their backs. Outside waiting for them was a shield and hammer welding dwarf in what I would call half-plate, his own pack on the ground by his feet.
“What do we do now?” the Elf asked their party.
“We’re not going in side are we? I accepted a job to look for missing shepherds, not explore a new Dungeon.” the Human said.
“We’re not going inside,” the dwarf said. I guess he was the party leader. “We don’t know how old this dungeon is, though I would guess young if we’re only going by the amount of people missing. Now, I don’t know about you two, but I would rather not be added to a missing person list. We’re returning to the village to inform them that their fellows have likely fallen to a dungeon, and to warn them off from the area. Then we’re heading back to the guild to report it. Given how few Silvers there are in the area, though, I expect well be back before too long.”
The Human sighed while the Elf merely nodded.
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The trio didn’t seem to want to stick around any longer and quickly descended the slope, disappearing into the fog that marked the edge of vision a minute later.
I stared after them for a bit, hoping they would change their minds and I’d have a chance to stop the news from spreading. That didn‘t happen, of course. I also wasn’t under any delusions that I could actually take them. One dude with a spear was enough to threaten me, and I suspected those three were stronger than him.
Damn. I was really hoping I could get some more time. I’ve only been here for maybe two weeks, I think? Another month would be great. Two would be even better.
I popped back to my core to think.
So how long do I have? They said they were from a town, but passed through a village that was nearby to get here. Let’s assume the village is at most half-a-day’s travel from here. Another half-a-day to a full day’s travel from the village to the town sounds reasonable. Double that for the return trip and that’s two days at the quickest, but only if they get to town and immediately turn around and head back. It’s probably closer to three to five days depending on the actual distances and how long they get held up. It could be sooner if someone from the village tries their hand at exploring me, though. All of this means that I could expect more visitors anytime between tomorrow and a week from now. Super useful.
If more people some tomorrow, I can only hope that the village doesn’t have anyone else like the spearman. Or if they do, they decide to stay home. As for the others, I can only assume that the guild they mentioned is some kind of Adventurer’s Guild or Dungeoneering Guild. If the stories are anything to go by, the next time they’re back, they should be performing an inspection or evaluation to see what I’m all about. That’s if they don’t view dungeons as something that must be destroyed or controlled or course. If that’s the case, I only have a few days of life and/or freedom. Fantastic.
I looked over my dungeon, especially at the deep section closer to the spearman, and mentally grimaced.
I think it’s time to move deeper. Fuck. I was hoping to deal with that delver before I did that. I don’t want to make it any easier for him to get a second chance.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I dumped the rest of my Essence into expanding in that direction. Moving the defenses would be next, when I had the Essence to do it. In the meantime, I took a look at my stats. It’d been a while.
Dungeon Management System
Unnamed Dungeon
Floors: 1
Bosses: 0
Essence: 0 (+15/hour)
Traits: 4 (0)
Milestones: 4
Achievements: 2
Free Schema: 0
The only changes were my number of Traits and Milestones each increasing by one. My lack of bosses caught my eye.
I should make a boss for the first floor and a boss room to put before the core room. The boss room will depend on the boss I choose, so I need to decide on that first. For the base monster, I only have spiders and skeletons to work with. Of those two, I think it need to be a skeleton boss. If I choose a spider, I’ll have two spider bosses in a row since the boss of the spider floor has to be a spider, right? I could have an undead as the boss for the spider nest, but an undead boss wouldn’t really fit the floor. Maybe if it’s an undead spider, it could work? That could be a way to tie the floors together, but how did the undead spiders come about? Maybe the Cave Spiders broke through into the crypt and, sealed as the crypt was, the built up necromantic energy burst out, corrupting the spiders or killing some of them and raising them as undead. I’d have two undead bosses in a row, but it’d also have two spider bosses, and it could be an interesting transition.
The story of the first three floors could start with the miners breaking into the spider nest. Defending themselves, the spiders would drive the miners out of the nest and back into the mine. The spiders aren’t gonna say no to more territory, though, so they would push into the mine itself and force the miners out of that too. Unwilling to just abandon the mine, The mining company hires adventures to go in and clear out the mine and the next so operations could resume. The Adventures push the spiders out of the mine and back into their nest. In an effort to get away from the adventurers, the spiders break into the necromancer’s crypt, releasing the wave of necromantic energy. This kills some of the spiders and rases them as undead. The spider aren’t the only victims, however. Some of the adventures that chased after them are also killed and raised as undead. The wave would spread far enough that even the corpses of the miners that died in the initial assault by the spiders are raised as skeletons. That would explain the mix of spiders and the odd undead here and there. For the second floor, the first half will be normal spiders, while the second could be the undead spiders. This would transition into the third floor, which would be entirely undead.
The boss of the first floor will either have to be one of the surviving leaders, in which case I’ll need to get the Cave Spider Elite, or one of the stronger spiders charged with guarding against their undead brethren, obviously the Cave Spider Warrior. In both cases, there will need to be adds. The warrior is just too slow for a solo boss fight. Without any ranged attacks, delvers would just be able to kite it. The Elite is a minion controller. It needs adds to be at its most effective. Without them, it’s just a stronger Cave Spider. Which ever I don’t use now has a good chance to be used as the boss for the second floor, providing I don’t find a better one, and an undead spider controlling undead spider minions sounds a lot more interesting to me than a big undead that’s just hard to kill. Maybe I could give the Elite some minor necromantic powers? I’ll need to look into that. In any case, I think I’ll be using the Cave Spider Warrior as the boss for the first floor. Now how do I make it?
I checked my ever helpful copy of “Dungeons for Dummies,” and according to it, all I had to do was pick a creature and designate them as the floor’s boss. So following its advice, I selected the Cave Spider Warrior I set up as a mini-boss encounter and willed it to be the first floor boss. Nothing happened, of course. I tried being really formal about it and still got nothing. For my last attempt, I switched targets to the Warrior near the Core Room and, braving great discomfort by having Pete the Skeleton Miner move me, had the Warrior touch the core while I selected them. No dice.
I have two theories about why it wasn’t working. The first was that I needed a bunch of Essence to fuel the change, which I didn’t have right now. The second was that the monster needed to be in the boss room for the change to happen. How the system would determine if the monster was in the boss room or not, I don’t know. And, if the boss is tied to the boss room, would the boss disappear if I moved the room or would it just change rooms? If that’s a thing, then it’s something I may need to learn the hard way. I just don’t have the Essence to spend a bunch on expansion while also still having to build out a boss room and actually making the boss. Unless...
Does absorbing monsters only refund Essence if they’re dead, or can I reclaim still active monsters and get some of that Essence back? I need to test this, but who do I use for it? The monsters over in the new mine shaft are kind of out of the way and aren’t actively protecting me at the moment, so let’s try using one of them. Cave Spiders are the cheapest, so I will start with one of them.
I selected the first Cave Spider I ran across in the new mine shaft and focused on absorbing it. Immediately, the spider started breaking down as the monster rapidly became super hazy and translucent before disappearing altogether. The entire process took only a couple of seconds. Checking my Essence confirmed that it worked, though not completely.
Essence: 18
So I can reclaim monsters for Essence, but I’ll only get two-third of their summoning cost back. So I could absorb monsters If i need a quick Essence boost in an emergency, but I can’t use them as a store of Essence. That the summoning discounts also decrease the amount I get back is unfortunate. Still, I need the Essence right now. That each monster will give me a bit less just means I may need to absorb an additional monster or two to compensate.
I quickly absorbed three more Cave Spiders and two groups of small spiders to get me over one hundred Essence and went back to my mini-boss Warrior. I tried making them a boss again and failed again. So I went back to the new mine shaft, absorbed a few more monsters, and tried again. Still no change. I did this until I was down seven Cave Spiders, three pairs of small spiders, and two Skeleton Miners. I gave my Essence another check.
Essence: 252
If this doesn’t work, I’m just gonna wait until I have a boss room to try again.
Focusing on my chosen Warrior, I will it to become the first floor’s boss. There was an immediate change this time. The Warrior started twitching uncontrollably before a bright glow enveloped them. It was bright enough that I could only see a vague silhouette of the monster. It actually reminded me of the glow that surrounded me when I first got here. The glow around the warrior expanded as the writhing silhouette grew in size. By the time it stopped growing, it had to be over twice the size the Warrior had been. I had to raise the ceiling quickly to make sure there was enough room for it. I caught a handful of glimpses of incredibly thick legs with something protruding from them, and I think I saw spikes near the area where their head should be. The glow eventually faded and revealed my very first boss.
Dungeon Management System
Monster: Cave Spider Guardian - Boss
Like its smaller Warrior brethren, the Cave Spider Guardian uses is immense strength and size to physically block invaders. Unlike a Cave Spider Warrior, the Cave Spider Guardian is never supposed to leave the nest. For this one to have done so, something terrible must have happened.
Cost: 225 Essence
Restrictions: Only one of this monster can exist at a time.
The Guardian was enormous. Standing at its normal height, its face had to be a good six to seven feet off the ground, with the Guardian’s tallest point reaching a couple of feet beyond that. Its body hadn’t grown too much longer, but it had grown substantially wider. Combined with its much thicker legs, which stayed fairly close to its body, the Cave Spider Guardian just felt bulky. That feeling wasn’t helped by the front two legs, which were almost a foot thick, each sporting a large shield-like section of chitin that made the front legs look even wider. It wasn’t just the front legs that were armored, though. Almost the entire creature, with the exceptions of its joints and its underside, was covered in a thick, armor-like carapace. Even its head had extra armor, with the spikes I saw earlier outlining a helmet-like piece of thick chitin that covered everything except its eyes. But the largest thing about my first boss was, however, its price tag.
I really hope this thing is worth it. That’s fifteen hours of saving for one of theses guys. I either have to get a load of delvers that leave before fighting him, or at least one delver has to die every time this guy dies to make the cost worth it right now. That the schema description seems to allude to my future plans is interesting, though. I wonder If it’s a coincidence, or if I’ll be seeing more descriptions like that in the future?
I watched my boss move around the now very cramped room. I had it do a few strikes and, as expected, it was slow and a little clumsy. A durability would have to wait because I don’t think any of my monsters would be able to scratch it unless they targeted a weak point. It was when I wanted to move my new boss deeper that I realized that there was no way they were gonna fit through the mineshaft as it currently was.
To get the Guardian deeper, I’ll need to raise the ceiling and move a bunch of obstacles out of the way. That’ll definitely be expensive and will limit what I can do within the next few days. Maybe I could just absorb the Guardian and re-summon them in the boss room? Will that be cheaper? If I absorb them, I’ll need to kick in an extra seventy-five Essence to re-summon them. Given the distance they’ll need to go, I think paying the extra seventy-five Essence is the cheaper option. I’ll wait to do that until I have the boss room ready. That way, I’ll at least have the boss available in case someone comes by.