The dungeon has weathered the assault well, you decide. A small group of stealth focused heroes, discovered before they could penetrate far into your defences and then facing against Mercy is certainly about as good a match up as you could hope for. It does raise a slightly concerning point for the future however – anything that manages to get past Mercy will then be able to storm through the castle with minimal challenge.

Maybe if we put her key on her tree? Either challenge her head on or use guile?

You muse on it as you continue to survey your domain. The heroes looted the weapon stand from the arena, but it really did seem like they were hoping to do a full scouting run before actually beginning an assault – if that had ever been their plan. Their collective loot bags were filled with what you could tentatively ascribe as 'mapping supplies'. Hard wearing waxed parchments, sticks of charcoal in protective wooden sheaths, and a complex device of bent metal that Amanda informs you is used for measuring distance.

Most of the pile vanished shortly after you set it out, and Jack was loitering nearby, but honestly he'll probably make better use of it that you ever could.

Minor amount of basic materials are present too; stone, wood and scrap metal. But as you only get a small amount of a hero's inventory on killing them, there's no real way to build a complete picture of what exactly what they were attempting.

But it's not that that lurks largest in your mind.

The boss room. You dismissed it yesterday, unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but now you've opened your menu and you can't help but feel you may have colossally fucked up at some point. Either that, or one of the gods is playing a very personal prank on you.

Boss room – 10 stone, 10 wood

One of the first rooms built by most dungeons, the boss room acts as your seat of power, enabling you to see throughout your domain during raids, issue general commands to your minions, and trigger manual effects. The room can be upgraded to provide a number of benefits to your minions so long as you lie within it. It can also be upgraded to offer benefits to you as the boss, granting you temporary powers to even the playing field against heroes, and can be moved for free once built.

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You sigh, paying the cost with a kind of tired resignation. At this point, it doesn't even really surprise you when shit like this happens. You know about dungeons, from brief chats with more amicable adventurers. Couple of rooms, bit of treasure, and a boss monster, with their own room, then treasure. Why would your lair be different? It just turns out that to unlock it, you had to, you know...

Act like a boss monster that trusted your minions.

Gods are cunts, you think to yourself, as the room squeezes into existence in front of you. Like the treasure room, it simply fades into existence, a grey space that hollows itself into being, pushing the treasure room away from you as it does so. Something 'clicks', and you get the feeling that the treasure room and boss room are not easily parted.

Unlike the treasure room however, the boss room does not complete immediately. Instead, a pop up jumps from the entrance.

Boss room Built!

Congratulations Red Scale for building a boss room, the first step on becoming a truly mighty dungeon!

Please choose a starting theme! Customisation will be inviolable later!

Cavern - Default

Drake Line boss Detected! Treasure Cave unlocked!

City of the Disparate floor Detected! City Hall Unlocked!

Traps Detected! Trapmaster Unlocked!

Key Lock Detected! Puzzlemaster Unlocked!

Kobold minions Detected! Kobold War Camp Unlocked!

Goblin minions Detected! Goblin War Camp Unlocked!

Human minions Detected! Bandit War Camp Unlocked!

Animal minions Detected! Feral Wilderness Unlocked!

Nature minions Detected! Silent Grove Unlocked!

Demonic minions Detected! Black Church Unlocked!

10 or more unlocks Detected! Silver Mine Unlocked!

Insectoid minions Detected! Hive Unlocked!

Troglodyte minions Detected! Troglodyte War Camp Unlocked!

Which of course leaves you with several questions:

What theme should you go for?

How should you develop your boss room?

What the hells is a Troglodyte?