Chapter 7: Dungeon of Golem's Gambit

Brent spent the next week purchasing rooms and setting up the dungeon under Emil’s diligent watch. Emil offered advice during every step of the process, his guidance precise and unrelenting. As they worked together, the dungeon started taking shape, with each new addition becoming more purposeful.

Once they had settled on which rooms were essential, Brent and Emil began working on the layout of the dungeon, a task that required more thought than Brent initially realized.

“Since you’ve chosen to make this more of an obstacle course—” Emil began, looking over the map with a thoughtful expression.

“Race,” Brent corrected, not missing a beat.

“Right, a race dungeon,” Emil continued, unperturbed. “We need to ensure the layout reflects that format. But it can’t be a straightforward circle. There needs to be complexity, something to challenge adventurers so they’ll want to return. We can make the layout circular but add twists—turns, traps, and puzzles for the adventurers to solve. Over time, you’ll want to change the layout too, so it doesn’t become predictable.”

Brent nodded as he stared at the map projected in front of him, his mind whirring. The idea of designing a race-focused dungeon excited him. "Yeah, I’ve got some ideas," he said, his voice filled with enthusiasm. "I was thinking of adding secret passages. They could act as shortcuts for adventurers who are perceptive enough to spot them, but they should also come with their own dangers. Traps hidden along the way, just like on the main track, to keep it interesting."

“That’s a fantastic idea,” Emil responded, his voice carrying a note of approval. “Not only will it reward players who are more observant, but it’ll make them weigh the risk of taking a shortcut against the danger. And don’t forget, you could sprinkle a few extra treasures around in those hidden areas. Adventurers love discovering hidden loot.”

Brent grinned, his mind spinning with possibilities. “Can I make the rewards at the end time-based? Like, if someone rushes through and sets a record for the fastest time, they get better rewards than someone who takes their time to explore everything?”

“Absolutely,” Emil replied. "The System allows you to set variable rewards. If you want to reward speed, we can set a tiered system—one for fast runners and another for those who take their time but explore thoroughly. You’ll just need to be a bit more hands-on with the reward settings. Let’s go ahead and open the Treasure page in your menu."

Brent nodded and summoned the interface, his eyes flicking over the options until he reached the Treasure tab. The screen was mostly empty, with just a single button labeled "Add Reward" at the center. He clicked it, and a new window popped up, offering fields for configuring treasure rewards.

“First, we’ll set up a basic completion reward,” Emil said, his tone turning instructional. “You need a baseline reward for anyone who finishes the dungeon, no matter how long it takes. Without that, the System won’t assign anything if someone finishes too slowly, and that’ll frustrate the adventurers. You don’t want them leaving empty-handed just because they didn’t meet your speed threshold.”

Brent followed along, selecting the title field and typing in "Completion Reward." He glanced at the other fields, noting labels like "Treasure Value" and "Prerequisites." His brow furrowed as he studied the options.

“How do I know what value to put in the Treasure Value field?” Brent asked, his curiosity piqued.

“That’s up to you,” Emil said, watching Brent work. “But keep in mind, you’re a brand-new dungeon. The rewards you give out will come from the materials you’ve earned from your expansion. If you set the rewards too high, you’ll run out of resources quickly, which means you won’t be able to make changes, respawn monsters, reset traps, or give future rewards. I’d suggest keeping the base reward at around one gold for now. That’s more than fair for a new dungeon.”

“One gold?” Brent repeated, frowning slightly. “Isn’t that a little cheap?”

Emil chuckled softly. “Not really. Most basic adventurer gear costs a few coppers or silvers. One gold will go a long way for most of your early adventurers. Remember, they’re not coming here for grand treasures yet—they’re here to test themselves, explore, and maybe find some valuable gear. You can increase the rewards as you grow and gain more resources, but for now, this is a solid start.”

Brent felt a little more reassured and entered the value. “So, I’m just setting a value, not picking specific items?”

“Exactly,” Emil confirmed. “Trying to assign specific items would be a nightmare because you can’t predict what class or needs each adventurer will have. Imagine you set a sword as the reward, and a mage finishes the dungeon. What’s a mage going to do with a sword? The System has an auto-association feature that assigns items based on the adventurer’s class, skills, and gear preferences. You set the value, and the System takes care of the rest. Plus, it keeps things exciting. Adventurers never know exactly what reward they’ll get, which keeps them coming back for more.”

"That’s pretty amazing," Brent said, a sense of relief washing over him. "I’m really glad I don’t have to pick items every time someone finishes the dungeon. That would get tedious fast."

"It’s definitely a handy feature," Emil agreed, nodding. "You’re going to have a lot of other things to focus on, so it’s best to let the System handle this one."

Brent’s curiosity piqued. "Is it possible to set specific rewards if I wanted to, though?"

"Absolutely," Emil responded. "If you look at the bottom of that screen, you’ll see an ‘Advanced Options’ button. Inside there, you can manually set the rewards if you ever want to. But honestly, it’s really tedious work, especially since you’d have to know the adventurer’s class and gear preferences. Unless you’re giving out universal items like coins or potions, it’s easier to let the System decide. Otherwise, you risk giving a mage a sword or a warrior a staff."

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Brent looked back at the screen, filling in the Treasure Value field with one gold. He glanced at the next option: Prerequisites . It was a drop-down field with a list ranging from Dungeon Completion to Boss Defeat, with a Custom option at the bottom. He selected Dungeon Completion, then hit save. The modal closed, and now a single item was listed in the Treasure screen for his completion reward.

"Alright," Brent said, satisfied with the setup. "Now that I’ve got the completion reward set, what about timed rewards? How should I handle those?"

Emil pondered for a moment before replying. "I’d suggest holding off on that for now. You don’t really know how long it’s going to take adventurers to complete the dungeon yet. Once you get some trial runs under your belt, you’ll have a better idea of average completion times. Then you can set rewards based on how fast they finish."

Brent nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. No point in guessing right now."

"Exactly," Emil said, satisfied with Brent’s understanding. "Once you see how things play out, you can make adjustments."

Brent sat back and thought for a moment before asking, "So, what’s next?"

Emil perked up slightly, clearly excited. "Next, we need to name your dungeon. The name is really important—it’s how adventurers will know you. It needs to represent who you are and what you’ve built. Please, for the love of all things dungeon-related, don’t pick something stupid. I’m begging you."

Brent laughed. "Who would name it something stupid?"

Emil sighed dramatically, his tiny metallic shoulders sagging. "You’d be surprised. I once worked with a core who named his dungeon The Dungeon of Pretty Pretty Ponies. He went with the magma theme and had fire nightmares as his main minions. He killed nearly every adventurer who entered, but after a while, they stopped coming. Apparently, they thought the ridiculous name was some sort of trap in itself."

Brent blinked. "Wow. Okay, yeah, I’ll try not to do that."

"Please don’t," Emil said, placing his little hands on his hips.

Brent mulled it over, thinking about everything he had learned so far and the direction he wanted to take with his dungeon. He thought about the future, about the challenges and excitement he wanted adventurers to experience. He glanced down at Emil and suddenly felt inspiration strike.

"What about Dungeon of Golem’s Gambit?" Brent suggested.

Emil’s eyes lit up with excitement. "That... that’s actually brilliant! I love it!"

Brent smiled, pleased with the reaction. He opened his menu and navigated to the main page. At the top, there was a field for Dungeon Name, which had remained blank since he first explored the menus. He hadn’t rushed to name the dungeon, taking Emil’s advice to wait until they had a clearer picture of what they were building. Now that he knew, he typed in the name: Dungeon of Golem’s Gambit.

"Great!" Brent said as he confirmed the name. "Now that we’ve got the name, can we start moving things around for the race setup?"

"Absolutely," Emil replied, his enthusiasm growing. "Let’s start rearranging the rooms. Go ahead and open the map again. This time, you can select rooms and move them into the side navigation panel. That’ll let you arrange the rooms however you like without having to drag them all over the place. Since you can only move one room at a time, the navigation panel will make it much easier to rearrange everything without overlapping rooms."

Brent pulled up the map, noticing a set of arrows pointing left on the right side of the screen. He clicked them, opening a side navigation panel. It was blank, ready for him to move rooms into it. He selected one of the basic rooms and dragged it into the panel. The room appeared in the navigation with the words Basic Room and an icon showing its image.

He continued moving the other rooms into the panel until everything except the Core Room and Research Lab was neatly organized. Then he paused, staring at the now-empty map.

"Alright," Brent said, eyeing the space with a critical gaze. "I want to set these rooms up in a circular pattern for the first run. Let’s see what kind of layout we can create."

Brent began arranging the rooms, carefully placing them in a loose circle. He added a large central column in the middle of the dungeon to act as a dividing point. The adventurers would enter from the area where he intended to place the dungeon entrance, leading them straight into the first room.

"I’ll keep the first room simple," Brent muttered to himself, setting it as a straightforward corridor with minimal challenge—perhaps a few low-level minions to test the adventurers’ abilities.

After the first room, he set up his first trap room. He wasn’t sure what traps he wanted to use yet, but that decision could come later. Next, he placed a room that veered left—this would be his maze room. He worked on placing stone walls and corridors for adventurers to navigate, forcing them to find their way through the winding paths.

“Hey, Emil,” Brent called out, pausing in his work. “When do I actually create the traps?”

"Once you create your first minion," Emil explained. "You’ll need them to help set up the traps. But for now, just focus on laying out the dungeon. Once it’s all set, we’ll move on to minions and traps."

Brent nodded and returned to his layout. After the maze, he placed the mini-boss room. He didn’t know what mini-boss he wanted to create yet, so he left the room blank for the time being. Next, he designed a puzzle room, where adventurers would need to solve a challenge quickly. Finally, he placed the boss room at the end of the dungeon.

Confirming the placement, Brent watched as the rooms shifted into position. The stone floors and walls reformed, sliding smoothly into place. He used some of the dirt he had gathered from expansion to create a central column that acted as the anchor for the entire layout. He smoothed the edges, making sure the column fit perfectly with the angles of the rooms, and rounded the outer walls of the dungeon until everything aligned seamlessly.

When the rooms finally settled into place, Brent stepped back and admired the nearly circular layout. Each room curved slightly, guiding adventurers along the path he had created.

"I think that came out pretty well," Brent said, beaming with pride. "What do you think, Emil?"

Emil surveyed the finished product, nodding approvingly. "It looks great! The layout is solid, and the circular design works perfectly for a race-based dungeon. Now, I think it’s finally time to look at what you’ve got in terms of minions."