It's been a few months since the sticky-fingerer Space Mage Marie was caught lifting items from not only my city, but from my dungeon too. Since then, a lot has happened in the mountain-town of Varona.
First of all, we've established trade routes with almost all the major cities in Ishda and the quality of life for my citizens has never been higher. Which in turn boosts their happiness and productivity. Not that they weren't living well before, but through Soul Guide's eyes the majority of my population have a very-healthy green glow. There are even two blue souls kicking around in that field who are loving life.
Obtaining a green soul is the first step towards the question marks of tomorrow. Not that I know what they are yet, or where tomorrow actually is. Even Me knows nothing about Soul Guide's description, or the strangely-titled next level. At the minute, the whole notion has been shelved until I'm actually ready to harvest a soul. Not that I'm confident in killing on the best of humanity, but that's a problem for future Abi. I'm sure she'll be able to work it out when the time comes.
Good luck me. I'm counting on you.
Anyway, not only did we get in the Lord's good books for doing him multiple favors, but thanks to that, the residential district of my own city has more than doubled in size and numbers. As word of the mountain town spread with every caravan, merchant and trade route established, more and more migrants flock to my city. Even now, the numbers keep increasing as people arrive on a daily basis, continuously adding to the population and, most importantly, my DP.
The best part is that everyone looking to make a home for themselves in the city I created and staffed with dungeon summons are always full of joy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that my family are ridiculously pleasing on the eye. Or the rare creams and potions that can't be found anywhere else other than Varona.
Speaking of improved looks, the refugees that arrived from Gorn a few months ago have also jumped up a few notches on the beauty scale, reinforcing the belief that making beautiful people really is my superpower. Me still vehemently disagrees every time I bring it up, however, always claiming I have no such powers. Only ridiculous ideas.
Although, with how good my user notification system looks himself, he's not really one to talk. Even with his carrot top, he turns eyes every time he's out and about. Not that he's noticed. Other than eating, sleeping and enjoying life's other little luxuries, the only other thing my partner bangs on about is my lax spending habits.
Anyway, more people means more problems, but that's nothing more Assassins and Mages can't fix. And as soon as they've weeded out the rotten patches, the rest of the flowers bloom quite nicely.
Deputy Mayor Sacha and the city Council have been hard at work setting up our economy and somehow, they managed to succeed. The local currency now flows through my city as though it was there all along and, although everything is cheaper in Varona, that's probably the reason so many merchants pass through to buy our wares. Although I still foot a small bill each night, it's nothing compared to what was asked of me before and barely even accounts for 5% of my daily DP.
Even whilst looking after her own boss, it baffles me that Sacha had the time, let alone the skill, to know what she was doing. I mean, I created her and still have no idea how she's managed to pull it off. There has to be a lot of work involved, never mind gold and I've never been the best person to hold onto the money pouch, or so Anya would say.
I'd be lost without my family, that's for sure and I'm not blind to that fact. Not only Sacha and the Council, but every single one of the people here play an important role in keeping Varona running. From Cultivators to Guard Captains, The Taskmaster to The Potion Master, The Chef to The Council, everyone plays a part. Supporting each other without ever thinking twice. But even if they did, they'd help regardless because that's just the type of place we're trying to build here.
Alongside constant expansion in the housing district to keep up with the good-looking population that keeps on growing, a few choice features have been upgraded to meet demands. Ali's restaurant, The Crescent Cafe, which everyone had taken to calling Ali's because of the sign outside, has even been renamed that way in its description since the upgrade.
Now a chain business, each restaurant is homely, welcoming and can serve 200 guests in a single sitting. The Chef employs a small army and hundreds of staff members are employed across the ten establishments she has scattered throughout the city. Fortunately, she can teleport anywhere she needs to on her own now and if a problem arises, Ali's on it immediately.
Aswell as the catering industry, I also had to upgrade Lucinda's business too. The potion shop thrives with activity on a daily basis and is one of the most popular buildings in town, even with its outlandish appearance. Surprisingly, the oddly-proportioned building looks even stranger than it did before, opposed to the homely atmosphere given off at Ali's. Which is strange for a Tier-Three feature, nevermind a Tier Four.
More armoury than shop in the outside, four chimneys pump multi-colored magical smoke into the atmosphere in every direction. Making the feature look like it has four cannons instead of the smoke releasing shafts they really are. Inside, not one, but a dozen cauldrons take up the floor behind the counter. There's also a few furnaces, alchemy benches and dozens of desks, each of which are littered with different books and notes strewn on top.
After the third upgrade, Lucinda was finally allowed a workforce of her own and she asked for as many people as I would summon. Well... She asked for Slimes first, which threw me for six. Since her customers are able to see where the magic happens, however, I had to shut her down. Plus, I'd probably find myself distracted every time I passed by and would end up spending more time here than neccesary.
So, yeah. I summoned her a load of Assassins as a consolation prize, which was probably more than she needed, but she was still grateful for the assistance. The Potion Master has almost as many staff as Ali now, but she only has the one building. Still, it's fine. For whatever reason, probably the spacial skill I got from Marie's contracting, Lucinda's Liquids is much bigger on the inside.
None of these bizzare occurrences dissuade her customers however, and the sight of her rainbow coloured smoke pumping out lets them know she's open for business. Once it's gone, work is over for the day and if they wanted something, tomorrow's the day they're going to get it.
Last on the list of upgrades was Tilly's Clinic, or as The System would call it, The Surgery of Soothing. Unfortunately, it didn't keep in line with the other two features and the Cleric's name was absent from its title. Maybe it's because she's contracted, who knows? Certainly not Me.
Either way, the contracting didn't stop the surgery from becoming the most grandiose building I've ever heard or seen. The Royal Halls of Regeneration, is one of the largest buildings in my city. Looking like it's straight from the future, the feature has four floors, three hundred rooms, and everything is a pristine white that somehow never manages to discolour.
Other than the ever growing number of guards, what started as the Hut of Healing now boasts the second-largest amount of employees working at a single establishment. Which is much better than Anya and Tilly tending to everyone themselves and being run ragged.
Hana and Mira are in charge of the majority of my family. They're also have conrol of the humans who joined the guard in the last few months. Although, the scouting teams work perfectly and it's awesome that my family coordinate together so well. All that's really left for the Commanders to do is train the regular Tironians.
My dungeon is a well-oiled machine after all.
Other than a few upgrades and a growing population, the city of Varona is not the only part of me that's undergone changes during this time. The dungeon I once hated due to losing my humanity, the one I've shared with my family since we began, has also seen some interior and exterior upgrades.
The most notable is what Barry has been doing without my notice. Now that I'm able to view his creation around my dungeon, it's almost impossible to tell where one path starts and another path ends. If that was all there was to it, I'd be quite proud of the maze my Mythril Golem has dug. But it isn't...
Ignoring his ant nest, the dungeon running directly beside my own, with its own Barry-created touches, is just bizzare. Worse yet, he's even overtaken me in the dungeon game and his has a total of nine floors! That's two more than my own. That alone was enough to insight me into pulling my finger out. Especially since Varona's doing so well.
Copying my Golem, it never hurts to pinch an idea or two, my eighth floor is now a gigantic maze. Granted, it's nowhere near as big as Barry's, nor is guaranteed to lose half as many adventurers as the mythril-murder machine's, but my aim isn't to kill as many people as possible. Unless theyre on the shit side of the stick, that is.
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I did consider acquiring Barry's tunnels, floors and maze. As bizzare as his dungeon is, I quite like the fact that I can see something else inside tkhe mountain other than me. Plus, having it next to me, I can't help but pity any poor adventurers who get stray from my path and get in there.
Hell, maybe I could chuck the red souls in at the bottom and hope they're neutral by the time they return? If they haven't starved by then. Even so, do they deserve a fate like that?
Probably.
They are the smelliest part of the manure after all.
Damn that Golem is amazing. If it wasn't for those Gachas I would never have gotten the deep-diving DP machine and my start as a Dungeon Core would have been average at best. Even though I rake in an absurd amount of points every single night, it wouldn't be possible without the foundations Barry laid.
After creating the Eighth Floor, I did something I never thought I would. Feeling uncomfortable using my human-type monsters like Violet and Sam, because they've also changed aswell, I decided to use something else as fodder and to level the humans instead. Sam is still the Scariest Mary to ever live, but has an actual face now. The rest of her is still hair. Violet, on the other hand, is a human with wings. The Bat of Sorrow even gives Peaches a run for her money now.
Plus, I want Sam on reformation duty, not dungeon duty.
Instead, I stated smashing out new floors like there was no tomorrow. Generic as hell and easy to navigate, the monsters I staffed it with are guaranteed to level up humans.
Notice how I said monsters?
Yep, that's right. Ugly, smelly, disgusting, vile, despicable, dirty and damn-right rotten, Goblins have found their way into my dungeon. Horrible, little bastards they are, but good for leveling a bunch of under-leveled humans too. The best in fact. No one feels bad about sticking it to a bunch of Gobs. No one's going to want to stick it to Violet... Not in that way at least.
Last thing I need is my family corrupting people when they're in the dungeon. Hence, the little shitters. All the first-tier variants are pretty useless on their own, but they do they job they're supposed to in numbers and numbers there certainly are. Twenty one whole floors full in fact.
Not going to lie. It took me a while to actually film the floors when I'd finally committed. Not because of the cost either. Goblins are one of the cheapest monsters going at 5DP a pop. That said, it's my aversion to the little shits that made me take more breaks than was needed. Eventually, it was done. Me congratulated me, I told him to fuck off, and we moved on just like that.
Or at least that's how I'm choosing to remember it. He might have a different opinion, but it's been a few months like I said. If he hasn't, well... We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
My new floors scale in difficulty the further adventurers progress. On the First Floor, Goblins don't travel in packs larger than three. By the fifth floor, fifteen in a group is what's to be expected whereas sixty is the norm on floor twenty. More so, I added extra DP in the creation of Goblins on floors ten-to-twenty. That way higher level adventurers won't congest the lower floors and there won't be any bitching in the dungeon.
Well, there hasn't been since I opened it, but there's still time. I'm not averse to slapping the shit out of someone's soul though to scare them into not being a fool.
Using every Goblin available, they also scale in difficultly with hobs introduced from Floor Ten onwards. Sporadically at first, then they're appear more frequently and with small platoons they take command over on the floor.
So yeah. I've got stabby XP. XP with shoddy bows. XP that hold barrel lids like shields. Large XP. Large XP in armour and to top it off, a stupid fucking Mage who never shuts up. Also worth a shit ton of XP. Seriously, he keeps begging for this alter that appeared as a feature when he was set as the Boss of Floor Twenty-One.
Not that he's getting it and he's been told as much. The description I read was less than appealing so it's a big fat no. Plus, I'm not here to pamper my mortal enemies. They're here to provide the means to level up my human population. Mainly the adventurers, but the guard will also be training here as well as the forest. It's not all patrols under Hana and Mira's watch.
To think, all that actually happened and then some. Thankfully, I still couldn't care less about the little, green bastards and wholeheartedly encourage the humans to kill them as often as possible. Hence the term monsters.
Normally, twenty-one floors of Goblins wouldn't be too difficult for a well-seasoned party. Especially not one whose members level in the twenties and have reached their first class advancement. My Goblins however, as with everything else, are on a whole other level. After deliberately adding that extra DP to those lower than floor ten, the adventures aiming to train themselves inside me haven't been able to make it far.
I think the record so far is floor thirteen.
A feature was unlocked after summoning a thousand Goblins. One I wish the Rogues could have, it would be just insane. The newest item in my list could even be said to be the strangest one yet. Could be. Nothing topping the Hay Bale yet, since I'm not sure what it's going to do next. Still, the Goblinator sure gives it a good run for its money.
That wasn't what The System named it by the way. I just thought it sounded better, because of what it does, and finally renamed something in my ever-growing list that may aswell be a novel.
The Goblinator, for whatever reason The System chose, looks like a shell one would find at the beach. A plain, old, empty shell. Except it isn't empty as it has a vortex in its opening. One as dark as my overview and, every few minutes, some XP crawls out of the Goblin-sized shell. It continues to do so until the floor reaches capacity and finally stops.
How does it know when it has reached capacity? I don't know? I didn't even know my floors had a capacity limit, but apparently they do. Me gave an explanation into how it works, he was definitely still annoyed with me at that point as his tone would suggest, but as usual it went in one ear and out the other. Even though I actually trying hard to pay attention, the minute he started throwing technical jargon around that was above my comprehension limit, I'd already stopped caring.
Sacha would have probably understand it though. Either way, as long as Me knows, that's good enough for me. When he's not as pissed he might dumb it down a little for me. Dungeon'in 101 for dummies is now in session.
At 1000DP each, which isn't too expensive considering I never have to summon Goblins again, I placed a Goblinator on the first ten floors. To my sheer disbelief, that unlocked the Hobgoblinator. I couldn't believe it, but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. It the rule of ten wants to work on a monster-producing feature, I'm certainly not going to argue. The System's already fucked up enough as she is.
I'm super grateful actually, even if it is a little like cheating in a sense. The Goblinator took a thousand Goblins to unlock and I was honestly expecting to have to do the same with the Hobs. Fortunately, their self-creating feature unlocked before we even reached two hundrand, but again I'm not complaining.
I put Hobgoblinators on floors eleven-to-twenty with the DP-enhanced Goblins and unlocked the ElderGoblinator. I don't even have Elder Goblins on my list of monsters, but I went ahead and placed an Eldergoblinator on the Twenty-First Floor anyway. The fake dungeon boss, Obling the Goblin Mage, needs some minions after all. Especially since he's not getting his alter.
He's the only named Goblin out of the thousands that roam my floors and if I'm being honest, I didn't even want to give him one. I was just about to settle on stinky when I reentered that Bosses and Minibosses contribute to the appearance of my mountain. The last thing I want is to be known as is Goblin Mountain.
Fuck that!
That's why there's only one named gob on all twenty-one floors. Each floor has a new boss assigned to it by the Goblinator when the current one has been slain and, for whatever reason, they all answer to Obling. Maybe because he's the highest-costing monster in their evolutionary chain? I don't know.
Anyway, even with the anxiety-inducing little bastards roaming around inside me, they're proving to be very useful. Simon, Katrina and Anon have been placed in charge of dungeon admittance and Sophie helps out here and there when she can. There's no entrance fee, but we keep a record of everyone going in and out. Just in case the Goblins do manage to kill someone and I eat them by accident.
One I've digested, regurgitation isn't possible in my case.
Plus, I'm not always watching the dungeon. In fact, I barely watch it at all to be honest. Not now the Catergorisers are doing what they do. Well... Almost. Maybe? Still, they're working on something dungeon related. It Catergoriserish. And yeah it's much more pleasant outside in the sunshine where all the happy faces are.
Even though my aim is to help the people of Varona grow stronger and better themselves, I can't expect that to happen without a few casualties on the way. That's why we keep a register of sorts. If someone doesn't make it out of the dungeon and I can't find them inside it either, then it means I've skipped their notification and they're no longer with us.
Gods bless their new life.
As sad as it is, death is the actual price for entry and you might not get away alive ager trying to see what I look like inside. That said, it's not like we force people to come in me. The only ones that have so far are those that work in the Barracks as guards to train. Them and a trio of adventurers who showed up a while ago.
They've been living here for a few months now and frequent my dungeon almost daily. They haven't made it past the larger groups of Hobgoblins yet, but they're doing OK for a bunch of low-leveled humans. Not that it matters, I plan to add even more floors now that the dungeon is open to make sure my Core stays safe.
It damn well needs to be safe. With the single Goblin Mage chosen as the fake Main Boss and the twenty-one floors that I've added to my dungeon, the size of the mountain Varona sits at the foot of has risen exponentially. This led to a few awkward questions being raised, but members of the City Council handled it like pros in true Abi fashion.
They kept passing if off until the questions stopped coming.
Legends!
In all fairness, the growing mountain holds no impact on the quality of life my citizens receive. If anything, its size acts as the perfect landmark for our city and you couldn't miss the multicolored work of nature if you tried. Even though it isn't actually nature's doing, no one needs to know that.
Anyway, it's not just the dungeon divers of my city that put their lives on the line by venturing inside me. I too put my own life at risk now that I'm inviting them in. If someone stronger than Light happened to turn up out of nowhere, ignored the Categorisers and my rules, managed to reach the Sanctuary and slaughter everyone inside, then I'd be absolutely screwed. Up until Marie the Kleptomaniac Space Mage arrived, I was under the impression that there weren't any Tironians that had made it past level 40.
It's a good job that I fully trust in my family's strength and abilities.