Corey felt a pang of loss as Chuck had left, but then his attention was drawn back to the wolf that was sliding across the ground with its claws scraping against the rock floor. Corey looked to the spiked pit trap. The other wolf and his dead ratman were filling the left side of it, so he thought he might be able to shove one more of the wolves into the other half.
Corey sighed. This wasn’t working. Maybe I’m missing something, he thought. He pulled up all the prompts he had been shoving to the side of his awareness. There were prompts for all his dying rats, prompts for his own death as a ratman, the experience gains from both killing a wolf, as well as keeping them busy in the dungeon, and prompts asking if he would like to absorb the dead wolf, his rats, and his dead ratman corpse.
“Will absorbing that wolf give me mana and the blueprint?” He asked.
“No, it’s like with the beetle earlier. This is an invasion, so you get the mana when you kill it, and can either gain a little more mana if you pass on the blueprint, or absorb the blueprint and pass on the extra mana.”
“How much extra mana are we talking about for passing on the blueprint?” Corey asked.
“Not as much as you get when you kill it. For that wolf, you would get six mana by passing up on the blueprint.”
“Why so little?” Corey asked.
“A monster dungeon wouldn’t get the mana from its death or for keeping it busy in the dungeon. That is something only given to human players. The six mana is the only mana a monster dungeon would get for killing an invading monster, but only if they pass on the blueprint or already have it. And like I said earlier, they also only get 1/5 the experience.”
“Oh,” Corey said. “My bonuses seem pretty nice when you put it that way.”
“It’s designed to help you keep up with the otherwise superior monster dungeons,” Daniela said. “And, if you were curious how much mana you would gain to clean the rest of… that,” she said, gesturing to the pit. “You regain the mana you spent when you absorb your own dead units since they are your mana constructs.”
“Wait, they are made of mana?” He asked.
“Yes,” she said. “For example, your rats are the same as any other rat in the game, but since you created them with your mana, you can instinctively know how to absorb them and regain that same amount of mana. Absorbing an invading rat’s corpse would only give a fraction of that.”
“But, I thought I needed to wait for everything to go away or die before I could absorb and re-make stuff.”
“You can absorb the dead right away. You just can’t absorb live invaders, or any of their equipment or items until they die or are removed from their posession. You still can’t summon any more defenders while the wolves are in here though, aside from your avatar anyway. It’s a bit of a grey area.”
Corey was sick of the wolves jumping at his core, so he decided he needed to get on with it. He started by absorbing his ratman, maxing out his mana at 25/25.
Summoning another ratman for 20 mana to use as an avatar, he lunged at the wolf, but was tackled to the ground by both of them at once. The alpha got him by the throat and instantly killed him. They then left his new ratman corpse to begin taking turns jumping at the core again.
The ratman seems too weak, Corey thought, then he had an idea. He absorbed the dead wolf to gain its blueprint, even if he wouldn’t normally be able to use it until level one.
[Would you like to gain the Blueprint for Wolf?]
[Yes] or [No]
Corey selected yes.
[New Monster Blueprint Available]
[New Temporary Dungeon Avatar Blueprint Available.]
He mentally opened the monster defender list. He skipped over the wolf, which required a level one dungeon, to look at the new monstrosity. “Yep,” Corey said. “Just as I thought.”
[Wolfman Runt: Level 0. The weakest of the Wolfmen, this Wolfman cannot use magic or weapons besides its own claws or teeth, and has the following stats: Strength: 3; Stamina: 3; Agility: 2; Intelligence: 0; Spirit: 0; Luck: 0; Vitality: 15; Mana: 0; Defense: 6; Mana Cost: 22; MCU Cost: 22.]
“Is this an actual game monster?” Corey asked.
“It is now,” Daniela responded happily. “There were already werewolves, but those are locked in with higher level requirements. Wolfmen, however, are brand new because I just made them! You should be glad I’m finding you options to fix your lack of having an avatar that you like. Normally you wouldn’t be able to make a level zero creature from level one blueprints, but Chief has authorized me to do it.”
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Corey couldn’t really argue. The Wolfman was just as monstrous, but it was at least cool. Plus, this one was at least a foot taller than the ratman, standing at about four and a half feet tall. Also, it had way better stats compared to other level zero monsters.
“Fair enough,” Corey said. Then he absorbed the rest of his dead rats and the new ratman corpse inside the cave, bringing his mana to its maximum.
Checking the other blueprint he’d received, he saw that the option for wolf was greyed out and he couldn’t select it, probably because he needed his dungeon to be level 1 first as it was a level one creature.
Corey summoned the Wolfman avatar just as the alpha was rebounded and flew back to land just in front of the pit trap. The disorientation of the perspective shift wasn’t as bad as the first time, so his reaction time was faster. He lunged at the alpha.
The other wolf to his side didn’t let him make it to his target though. It jumped in to impact Corey’s wolfman avatar sending it sideways. It tore at his arm with its jaws as they spun in the air.
Corey clawed at the wolf with his other hand and scratched deep marks into its face, but the wolf kept hold. Just as he reached back to strike it again, this time aiming for an eye to blind it, the alpha pounced, catching his free arm and throwing him to the ground.
The other wolf let go of his other arm and tried to go for his throat again, but he managed to raise his damaged arm to defend.
This protected his throat, but instead, the wolf just bit his arm again.
His health was dropping rapidly, and it hurt, though not as much as he would expect a real wolf bite would, but still enough to want to avoid it.
Corey tried using his feet to kick at the wolves and was surprised with how flexible he was. Doubling his body in half, he managed to get a solid kick at the regular wolf, but he didn’t connect with the alpha. Corey rolled and tried to get on top of the alpha while the other wolf was thrown off, but before he knew it the other wolf had darted back in with a snarl and had him by the throat.
His avatar died.
He was again inside his core, and after looking at the two wolves, he was surprised that he had done so little damage to the regular one. The alpha was pretty much at full health, but he hadn’t landed a hit on it, so that wasn’t a surprise. The other one, however, Corey had expected to at least have a decent chunk of its life missing. It currently had 22/25 hit points.
Corey absorbed his dead Wolfman avatar as the wolves continued to take turns jumping at his core and being thrown back.
[Mana Update: 25/25.]
Corey mentally turned the updates off again.
“Stupid game,” Corey said. “This isn’t even realistic. Even a wolf isn’t this stupid. Why are they still trying?”
Daniela answered, “The wolves are basic game AI Seeds, and must act according to their directives. It’s not their fault that this barrier can stop them. They don’t have any Directives to tell them what to do when they encounter it yet since nothing like it has existed in the game before.”
“So,” Corey said, “until they come out with a patch to fix all the things you are messing up with your rogue kidnapping changes, I’ll have to deal with them acting like this?”
“Yep,” she said happily. “Though, I would prefer that you stop calling me a rogue kidnapper. I am simply trying to help you to reach level 50. You chose to conquer the dungeon, after all. Don’t you want to reach dungeon level 50?”
“Well, yeah,” Corey admitted. “But I want to be able to log out…”
“Look on the bright side,” she said happily, “now you can get to level 50 even faster. You won’t even need to take breaks.”
Corey did want to level up, at least to level one. He needed his human avatar back. “Okay,” he said. “What do I do next?”
“Kill the wolves,” she said happily. “Normally, you wouldn’t be able to, but now that you can just absorb your avatar and keep summoning it, you should have one of them dead in no time.”
She looked over at the pouncing wolves. “Well,”she added, “it depends on how many times you let them kill you while whittling them down. But I know you can do it!” She added this last with a raised fist.
Corey sighed and summoned his wolfman runt just as the already weakened wolf was about to pounce. He thought he might be able to catch it midair and throw it into the pit. He jumped and intercepted the wolf perfectly. Only, instead of throwing the wolf back, they both spun in the air in a mad tangle. By the time they were on the ground, he had one of his arms being chewed in its jaws, and the alpha had ahold of his leg.
Corey ignored the throbbing pain as best as he could, trying to focus on fighting the weakened wolf off his arm. He clawed at its eyes, which didn’t do much. He redoubled his efforts, and as he jabbed his thumb’s wicked claw into the eye socket, which finally rewarded him for his efforts.
The wolf fell to the ground dead. Glancing down at it, the wolf had a glowing neon red mark where its eye should be.
It had also let go of his arm as it died, so that was nice.
“Really?” Corey ranted in frustration, “Instant kill if you stab it in the eye? I mean, come on!” The game had been so realistic in other regards, why did it fall into the same old trope? There was no way he’d even gotten to the brain with the thumb attack. Regardless, he stopped his complaints since the alpha had taken advantage of his distraction and bit down on his throat, killing him.
“Okay,” Corey said from his position back inside his dungeon core. “It looks like biting a throat is an insta-kill too.”
“Only because you are such low level monsters,” Daniela offered. “Striking his eye was smart though, it gives one of the highest critical strike bonuses.”
Corey sighed, absorbed his corpse, and waited for the stupid alpha to jump at his core again. Just as the wolf was flying back, he summoned his avatar of the wolfman runt and charged. Pushing off with his powerful lupine legs, he crashed into the alpha, knocking it into the pit, but managed not to fall in himself.
Looking into the pit, he saw a spike protruding from one of the wolfs eyes.
“Again with the eyes…” Corey said.
He shrugged. If this was the game he was playing, it would be foolish not to play along. He needed to win.
He re-enabled his prompts. The prompts appeared almost normal in his viewpoint from the wolfman. There were a couple for his dying and absorbing his corpse, a couple for experience gains, one that said he had unlocked new defenders, and, thankfully, he had one congratulating him for gaining 263/250 experience and inviting him to level up his dungeon.
He checked the log. He had gained 30 experience after killing the first wolf, about five more in total just for keeping them busy in the dungeon, which had taken him up to 193/250, and the second level one wolf had been almost enough to level, leaving him at 223/250. The alpha gave him 40 experience. In total, it put him at 263/250, but didn’t level him automatically.
“What gives?” Corey asked. “Shouldn’t my dungeon be level one already?”