Finishing her first Room didn’t end up being all that difficult. Obu placed the necessary Monster Spawner down where her instincts directed her, in the back of the room up on a rough ledge carved from rock. The two traps she placed were a weakened stalactite rigged to fall on any unsuspecting intruders and a pool that was deeper than expected at first look. Hopefully, it would surprise intruders with a nice drink and keep them from responding to her Monsters.
That topic, however, was causing her no end of distress. The Monster Spawner itself was little more than a hole in the ground with rough earth and stone piled around it like it had been freshly dug. It was what crawled out of the hole that caused her current distress.
It was certainly a goblinoid in the sense that it had green skin, a short hunched stature with overly large features for its size, and a general air of ugliness. That was where the relation to her father ended. For one thing, they were even shorter than he was and their eyes bore no semblance of intelligence other than a simple kind of animalistic cunning.
They were dressed in a simple loincloth and armed with a sharp stone dagger that was only slightly better than a chipped rock with a handle. To say that she was disappointed was an understatement. Obu had been ‘raised’ with her father who had risen up the ranks of goblin kind rapidly. In their old universe, goblins were a proper intelligent sapient race. They might not have been as strong as the other races or as ‘civilized’ but they were cunning, tricky, and most importantly they had the Waag to guide and help them.
She couldn’t show her father these poor caricatures of his proud race. He would chew her out for creating them despite the lack of control she had over what they looked like. Even as she began to lose herself in those thoughts a chime from the System drew her eyes to her new finished quest.
Congratulations Dungeon Core!
* You have completed the Quest [Building Plans] as shown below!
[Building Plans]
Type: Chain, Repeatable
Step 1: Build a new Room [Complete - Reward +100 Xp]
Step 2: Furnish your Room [Complete - Reward +100 Xp]
Congratulations Dungeon Core!
* For completing your First Quest you have been rewarded 300 Xp!
* 200 Xp from the First Completion
* 100 Xp from the Completion itself
* You have enough Xp to ascend to Level 4!
* You have enough Xp to ascend to Level 5!
Warning! Dungeon Core has reached the Level Cap for Rank F(1)! To begin advancement to Rank F(2) please ascend to Level 5 immediately!
Obu stared at the warning with apprehension. How was she supposed to go about ‘ascending’ to Level 5 when she didn’t even know what a Level was? She could infer that Experience was a method by which the System tracked progress and knowledge but what did a Level do? She opened her main page and watched the information unfold before her.
The Obulwaag
Race:
Dungeon Core
Chosen Name:
Obu
Bond:
Dug Shardaal (Non-System Entity)
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Cornerstone:
Unchosen*
Rank: F(1)*
Level: 0*
Experience: 1000/200*
Core Attributes
Rooted: 1 (+)
Measures the Core’s overall capability of digging deeper and expanding its Dungeon.
Empowered: 1 (+)
Measures the Core’s direct power in regard to its Monsters, Traps, and Environment.
United: 1 (+)
Measures the Core’s ability to better coordinate its Dungeon’s defenses.
Transformed: 1 (+)
Measures the Core’s ability to modify its Dungeon in all aspects.
She saw the Experience sitting there but it wasn’t doing anything. Then she looked lower and found an odd icon had appeared beside each of her Core Attributes. She focused on the Rooted Attribute and poked at the icon. Her mind immediately expanded and she Experienced what it was like to be fully connected to the world in its completeness, her roots reaching down into the depths of the earth where the Aetheric Leylines pulsed.
When she came back to herself she saw that the total amount of Experience she had had been reduced by 200 and her Level had gone up by 1. Her Rooted Attribute had also increased by 1. She felt…different. Like a hermit crab that needed to find a larger shell, she felt like she could expand further than she was able to before.
Excitedly she moved to the other Attributes and pressed the next one in line. Immediately she felt more powerful. She saw her creatures swelling with strength, standing straight and proud. She saw her traps glowing with power and growing in effectiveness. She experienced vibrant biomes and wonderfully detailed Environments that filled her Dungeon with danger and beauty in equal measure. Then she came back down and everything reverted back to how it was before but perhaps with just a hint more than what was there before
She didn’t bother checking her main page. She knew her Empowered Attribute had increased. Moving quickly she went to United and did the same thing. This time she felt her Dungeon like never before. Every divot and cleft in the rock, every detail stood out in incredible definition. She could feel the Aether as it coursed its way through, sustaining the life of her Monsters, Traps, and Environment as it did so.
Even as she came down from the Experience she moved to increase her Transformed Attribute. Similar to the United Experience she could feel her Dungeon in every way but this time it was different. Everything became malleable. She Experienced shifting molecules purely through the power of Aether, manipulating her Dungeon body in ways that seemed miraculous. Her creatures grew mutations, gained magic, and changed forms. Her traps grew in complexity as she manipulated their structure. Environments gained a life of their own as she awakened their nature.
Returning to herself Obu hovered over her Dungeon in silence, her young mind shaking from what she had just Experienced. It had been exhilarating and even now she had to keep herself from going and using her last 200 Experience to relive one of those amazing visions. Instead, she let herself recover and looked over her main page to see she was now Level 4 with 2 points in each Attribute.
In order to get a better grasp on what her new Attributes meant Obu looked over her Dungeon for any changes. The first thing she noticed was that at the back of her first room was a rough stone doorway set into the stone. The implication was clear. She could now make a new room. Looking around her gaze found one of her creatures. The Monster was picking its nose in a disgusting manner but what truly took her aback was the floating words above its head.
Grungy Git - Level 2
Obu knew the word Git of course. It was as close to a curse word as goblins had. It could also be used as a kind of compliment when used by a superior or peer. If it was used as a curse it meant the goblin was barely that, only fit for the most menial tasks and the lowest rung of society. If used as a compliment it meant the goblin in question was resourceful and cunning. It was often used when a goblin had pulled something over on a rival without them expecting it or made them look silly.
This Monster was the lowest of the low. Barely a goblinoid at all and it appeared her Rank of F(1) meant that she had only the barest scraps of the power she had felt earlier. She was certainly a far cry from her father in terms of power and that information irked her. She was the Obulwaag, a mighty creation of the greatest goblin Shamaan to walk their world. With a huff, she turned away from her lackadaisical minion to look for any other changes.
Eventually, she gave up. Whatever the other changes were they were too small of a change for her to notice. Thinking over what to put her final point into she finally decided on Rooted. If she was going to be a Dungeon she would need to begin building a proper one and that meant finishing her First Floor as quickly as possible. She focused on the Attribute and felt the vision come.
As she came down from her mountain top Experience sometime later, she heard a grunt and shuffling coming from her father’s armchair. He was waking up. Excitedly, Obu drew her consciousness back to her Core ready to show him what she had accomplished.