> The Glory Of The System: My Fellow Dungeon Cores! I Know Some Of You Dislike Using The System To Aid In Your Creations. I’m Here To Try And Persuade You Otherwise! The System Doesn’t Take Away Your Control! For Those Of Us That Have Lived Before I Speak As A Representative! We Are Thankful For All The System Does. I Never Want To Go Back!
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> DunJohn: I’m… not reading that.
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> DoneGun: Booo. Get out of here Gramps. Fix your grammar - then we can talk
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> Degen Corr: You’re preaching to the choir. Go find some fellow ancients to bug with your drivel. They are probably the only ones that distrust the system anyways.
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> The Glory Of The System: I Simply Wish To Spread The Teachings Of The System. Its Saved Our Lives. Our Species. It Makes Our Lives Better In Every Way.
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> DunJohn: What are you on about Gots. Literally no one is complaining.
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> Soul Of Iron:>>He>>is>>simply>>talking>>about>>how>>easy>>you>>cores>>have>>it<<
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> >>Back>>in>>my>>day>>we>>had>>to>>build>>our>>monsters>>using>>nothing>>but>>determination>>and>>instincts<<
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> >>No>>fancy>>system>>panel>>to>>tell>>you>>whats>>in>>your>>inventory>>no<<
> >>Some>>times>>we>>had>>to>>empty>>our>>whole>>inventory>>just>>to>>find>>some>>iron<<
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> >>It>>built>>character^^
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> DoneGun: We need to petition the gods for a way to block out the older cores. Shove em in a chat somewhere else where we don’t have to interact with them. Anyone with me?
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> DunJohn: Ai, I’ll throw a vote in.
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> The Glory Of The System: The System Was Made So We Could Communicate! Why Ever Would You Block Out That Communication. Absurd! Sacrilegious! Unthinkable!
Excerpt taken from chat logs from "Public Chatroom V0.1" 150AS.
His army was lined up at the border between the crystal Pillar room and Amy’s monster’s pool room.
5 Crystal Bombers (2 less effective ones), 5 Crystal Turtle Tanks, and 5 Crystal Snakes (new variants + all the older Versions) all lined up in rows. The army was ready to roll.
Cheering them on he sent them out 3 at a time to engage the waiting beast. I feel like I might be going overboard…nah If I can’t kill Amy’s monster then how else would I be able to tell her how effective it is.
Yes, she’ll appreciate the effort I’m putting in…and if it survives this army, I’ll send it back to her and admit defeat.
As the first group entered the room the slowly waving tentacles stilled. Slowly raising and then suddenly shooting forwards 3 tentacles extended, each aiming for a separate monster.
The Turtle was immediately grabbed, barbs sliding over its crystal armour and flaking off pieces of it as an appendage clung to the shell. The first “Bomber” managed to slip past the threat as it rose into the center of the room and started dodging the tentacles that scraped along the ceiling in their attempts to grab it.
Finally, the snake – one of the older variants but not the oldest version (Silver) – was simply sliced in two, its tail flipping away into the corner while its top half struggled to continue its assault.
As Innearth sent the second wave out, the Turtle shot off a spike that missed wildly before being picked up and pulled towards the monstrous octopus.
Twisting the shell upside down the octopus seemed to consider the fleshy underside before a second tentacle came and neatly sliced it off – hitting at an angle the liquid wasn’t protecting from at too fast a speed for the creature to manipulate.
Agitated the liquid crystal fell out of the shell – the octopus dumping the contents and exposing the core like a pearl for its taking.
Innearth’s next wave entered the room just in time to watch the first Turtle’s core being ripped out and shattered – liquid crystal making weird streams as it fell to the pool of water below and mixed with the water. Each stream of liquid crystal falling at an angle away from the shell instead of straight down giving the whole scene an unnerving feel.
Immediately seeing what happened to its brethren the second Turtle backed up into the hallway before loading and shooting a spear of crystal at the monster.
The second flying crystal joined its older likeness in harassing the octopus from above.
The first had been the older prototype that shot forwards and it hadn’t managed to let loose a shot yet but the second could drop its load directly on the monster. Hit by sharp spears from both above and the side, the tentacled beast flailed about attempting to knock the projectiles to the ground in a futile attempt. A lucky shot managed to nab the first flying crystal and smash it into the ceiling breaking its brittle body and dropping shards of crystal and a broken core into the pool below.
The 3rd wave was approaching – this one containing Silver, the final older flying crystal and a regular Turtle but they were nearly not needed. Taking the slow stalemate and whittling down of the monster to a truly outnumbered and overkill fight, they rushed forwards and attacked. Tipping the balance completely in Innearth’s favour.
Over half of its tentacles were damaged in some manner now – some completely ripped off and others speared through and weighed down.
A lucky shot managed to hit two tentacles at once pinning them together as it twisted the tentacles that had been reaching out to rend Silver limb from limb to the ground. She managed to slide into the water gliding forwards and being the first monster to stab into the creature’s sack and actually puncture it.
Immediately the tentacles stopped flailing about and stilled – but the fight wasn’t finished. The ropes twisting about the inside of the monster pulsed several times, large lumps appearing in their pipes as a liquid was rapidly pumped through them.
Seeming to shed its skin, a yarn ball of intestines surrounding the core pulled its way out of the sack and tentacles, before attempting to escape into the bottom of the pool.
Underwater the spikes being dropped by the one flying crystal that could Bomb and shot from the two turtles at the entrance were nearly useless. But Silver and the other nameless crystal snake both followed the escaping creature down to the bottom of its pool to finish it off.
Seeming to draw some of the liquid crystal dropped into the water earlier towards it, the nameless snake manipulated the material. Reaching forward it wrapped a crystal noose around the foreign monster trapping it in place while silver stabbed inwards with her spiked head.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As bits of the tube broke, a densely magical liquid leaked out. Several strands of deeply deeply blue ink dying the clear water an unnatural colour, as they infused the whole pool with concentrated Water mana. The tubes flinched after being broken and started to push the water away from itself in a chaotic pulse attempting to blow the two snakes away from it.
At this moment with a burst of speed Silver finally managed to glance a blow at its core shattering it and changing the pool forever.
As a wave of pent-up mana passed through the diffused liquid crystal pool, now filled with dense blue liquid, its colour twisted and thickened.
Escaping the transformation, Silver slid to the surface and flung herself out of the pool but the other snake seemed entranced by the process preferring to sit in the middle of it and wait the "storm of change" out.
The water seemed to shatter and reform several times as it changed, and it was only after the 3rd shatter that Innearth decided this wasn’t a temporary change to the pool but a permanent one.
Instead of the stable liquid crystal that seemed to pick and choose properties of both solids and liquids depending on strict guidelines and weird unnatural concepts like “direction”, this pool was in constant flux. Spikes periodically appeared, pushing out of the surface before breaking apart and melting back into nothing. Under the surface was even worse – bits stiffening and relaxing constantly and randomly as the crystal snake slid around – one-minute swimming, the next seeming to slide around on the edges mid-water before being momentarily frozen and then released again.
It seems happy enough? Feel like I should probably name it so I can differentiate the weird pool snake from the others…You’re now Pool Snek. Be proud. Wear your name with pride.
Pool Snek ignored the Core who had christened it and continued to frolic in the pool. As it moved about, it seemed to get better and better at controlling the fluctuating pools liquid. Gliding along bridges above the surface that broke behind it and smashing through walls that shattered like glass before reforming behind it, the snake made this strange attraction its home.
Turning to the chat he noticed Amy had sent him a message…A couple hours ago, oops, I guess she's been done for awhile.
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Amy: Hey here is review #2 of your absolutely adorable monster. This lil guy moves well on both land and water, I think it's much better than the last monster you sent by far. Okay, so it seemed to like exploring so this time I didn’t tell anything to come attack it just let it make its way throughout my halls itself.
Amy: You there? It hasn’t shown you coming online yet…
Amy: Ah well I’ll finish my review and you can respond when you are free.
Amy: So, the snake is probably a great common enemy for you, It managed to sneak up and stab two of my Spinners before retreating and dodged the attacks by Reelers in the same room that your other monster died. It seems like it can do about as much damage as most of my common monsters but has a bit less reach and isn't fast enough to kill them all so it might be slightly weaker. You could probably set something nice up if you make places for them to hide in your dungeon and play to their strengths... Now it's hiding in a room I haven’t attached to the water network yet, do you want me to send it back?
Amy: Alright I’ll continue monitoring it and tell you if anything new happens
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…Innearth felt kind of guilty about getting competitive and sending a literal army at her monster now. He wasn’t going to lie about the way it died, or the number of monsters that attacked it, but…maybe he’d not mention the amount of effort he had put into putting her monster down. Or that the monsters had been somewhat designed to counter it.
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Innearth: Hey Amy you on? I’m afraid the monster you sent is dead…but I have to say it performed admirably. I sent 3 monsters at it but when it killed 2 I felt like I should up the difficulty and sent 6 more…It managed to last against 7 monsters for quite some time before perishing. I don’t know what to tell you it seemed artfully made. I think it's stronger than any one of my monsters and if I sent them one at a time for it to destroy it could have probably lasted all day.
Innearth: I’m really sorry I didn’t back off at the point it was clearly pushed back, If it matters I rate it as being able to handle 4 of my monsters at a time…I don’t know how that transfers to handling Adventurers but you know? I'm sorry you gave a much more informative review and your monster probably taught me more than mine did but I can tell you're more experienced than me at this.
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Amy: Hey!
Amy: …Oh my poor baby. Can you give me more details? How did he die?
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Innearth: The octopus was harassed by ranged attacks, Since I sent you the Flying crystal I’ve upgraded them to drop spikes instead. After being stabbed repeatedly it tried to escape and then my snakes followed down into the bottom of the pool when it tried to escape there.
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Amy: …did you have to send them after their escaping form? I made that so I could heal them back to full after they reached a safe space… you could have sent me it back so I could have saved him…
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Innearth: Yeah…I didn’t really order them to attack its escaping form, but I was kind of feeling competitive and didn’t stop them. I thought it was going to start attacking again its escape form looked ominous like the second stage to a boss.
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Amy: That wasn’t a boss? Just one of my regular Skreecums…I sent you that one because it’s the only monster in my dungeon that acts alone…all the others have packs and hunt in pairs or large groups.
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Innearth: Yeah sorry…I do want to say I learned a lot just by looking at it! There are so many concepts you used that I can’t even puzzle out. Like what was that blue stuff? Anyways I thought it was a boss because of how big it was, Chunky boi. You should make some adventurer-sized monsters as well.
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Amy: Innearth…I. Okay, I’ll tell you, but I’ve worked hard on that okay? Don’t spread it around I'm only telling you because I consider you a friend. Basically, it's nearly impossible to make a Water core. Packing enough Water mana into a material – any material – I’ve tried so many – makes it liquid no matter what. It's basically impossible to contain…Air cores too, I think but I haven't tried those before.
Amy: However, making pure shells hard enough to hold it doesn’t seem to work and neither does using a shell that’s not Water mana. -It will slowly turn into Water mana and after a critical point break again.
Amy: So anyways, the liquid still acts a bit like a core when gathered together in earth shells but not fully - the shells corrupt that slightly. I have them in a few of my monsters to control the limbs better and as long as I also include a pure core it seems to be able to function well enough. The tubes have multiple purposes but for the most part with these monsters, it's to protect their pseudo cores. Sometimes when enough of them are merged in it they’ve shown signs of making spells but nothing repeatable.
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Innearth: You can include multiple cores in a monster? I think I remember wanting to experiment with that.
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Amy: Yeah for the most part! I haven’t been using multiple full cores yet but the few times I’ve tried I learned you shouldn’t have multiple cores the same size in it.
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Innearth: Oh? What happens,
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Amy: So, when you use multiple cores you have to spark it with life multiple times…and the few times I tried cores equal in size they kind of clashed constantly each trying to control the body and ripping each other apart as they fought for control.
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Innearth: …and making one larger fixes that?
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Amy: It does! The smaller cores submit to an obvious higher power if you ever have time to experiment with it you can get some pretty powerful creations.
Amy: The only problem of course being that cores take aggess to make. I recommend you outsource if you go that route. Try and use the market you know?
Amy: Anyways I don’t think I want to do this trading thing again. It's nice to know…but I’m kinda disappointed my baby died and wasn’t able to return to me.
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Innearth: I’m sorry! Listen I feel really bad about it you can send all your monsters to attack my snake if you want? Also, I think I just made a unique material do you want a bit of it as a gift?
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Amy: Oh? You have a lot of a unique material? Is it safe? If you think it's safe I could use a bit. Also, I’m okay, your cute little monster did nothing wrong there would be no point in taking out my sadness on it. I’ll send it back shortly.
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Innearth: Yeah, it's safe. Want to buy a snake of your own :3 Considering the amount of effort that goes into one I think…2 pure cores might let me break even – I can do that for you no problem :3.
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Amy: Oh, you really are an entrepreneur aren’t you. Taking my advice to outsource for pure cores huh I didn’t mean from me… I might just take you up on that though. I think having my very own Slitherkins would be great.
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Innearth: …I’m going pretend I didn’t hear that awful name for crystal sneks.
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Setting up a trade request he put a small cup worth of the material from the pool and quickly whipped up a crystal snake husk nearly seeding it by default before stopping himself at the end. Oops, yeah no, she would want the monster to be hers.
Setting what he wanted as 2 pure cores for the trade combined with a gift, he sent it off hopefully.
A few seconds later and it was returned for him to confirm – Amy having attached his original snake to it and leaving the rest untouched.
Selecting where he wanted the snake to go as the same place his husk was, he confirmed the offer and watched as the empty husk seemed to blur being replaced with a confused crystal snake who jumped back after the sudden transfer.
I’m going to name you Pioneer. You visited a new place didn’t you. But now you are home.
The snake seemed to understand as it relaxed and began exploring his dungeon.
I guess next I should see if Bose is ready to do a trade as well!