Alistair

Alistair sighs, and urges his beasts forward, up the steep path. They strain at the metal chains binding them to the tremendous wagons, and inch forward, bit by bit. Their feet have unnatural grip leaving deep divots in the hillside.

Eli sits happily at the top of the hill. Blissfully unaware of the plague ridden bastards chasing us.

I sigh, and crack my whip aggressively as we barely pull ourselves free from the top of the steep hill, and continue on the long winding path that will eventually pass through a steep narrow pass leading into the mountain valley.

The gravel under the wheels of our wagons, cracks, and turns to sand. We continue to push onward. Decimating our landscape. Our path narrows between two trees but we roll onward, and our wheels pull the trees down in an instant. They grind over top of the logs, with barely any extra resistance, and they turn the logs into a smooth sawdust.

We push onward.

DC

I sigh discontentedly.

“Gairy…”

Gairy glances away from what he's working on. He pulls his pipe free from his mouth. “Yes Master?”

“I need more creatures. I don't have enough and I'm not happy with it.” I wine petulantly, and pout my imaginary face.

Gairy nods his head. “We could try to send some goblins. It is probably a death sentence, but I'm sure a few will make it back with something interesting.”

I make a discontented noise and say. “Why can't I just make a human, and send them?”

Gairy nods thoughtfully. “Because they are considered an adventurer species. I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn but certain species, including humans, elves, dwarves, and the like, are all considered adventurer species. Now you can't make them because your mana won't allow you to. But if a human, or other adventurer species is born inside of your domain you will have two options. You can either claim the baby right then, and there, and it will become dungeon born. This baby will immediately be slaughtered if they are dungeon born though. Or you could simply study it while its shields. “ He air quotes shields. “Are down. Once you have studied enough you can then create that adventurer species.”

I smile. “So if I make my floors big enough down here…”

Gairy finishes my sentence. “They may try to make a small town or city down here. One way you can encourage this is by making valuable resources down here. For example make a safe floor, and make large copper reserves so that we can get people moving in to mine copper. Of course when you get large enough people don't want to have to go through your entire dungeon every time, so Cities will naturally form.”

“Soooo… Should I make my seventh floor a safe area with copper mines? Wouldn't other Ores be better? I can make Iron, Gold, Coal, almost anything really.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Gairy shrugs. “I think Coal would be best for this floor as it isn't very difficult to get down here.”

I nod thoughtfully. “Ok…”

I turn my attention back to the floor, and begin working on a hilly area with a valley squat in the middle. The hills are weird rocky mixes of hills, and mountains, standing 500 feet tall or so on average they are rocky, and littered with moderate, to small cliffs, drops, and ravines. A tree hazard for the unprepared.

At the entrance to the floor I scratch a message in the most known language I can find onto a wooden board which I embed into the dirt.

Safe Zone

I smile. The floor is 720 feet in every direction, up, east, west, north, and south. I had the capacity for 900 feet in every direction but I want to save the extra space for downwards. I make it over 500 feet into the earth before I run out of energy and my boundaries end there.

I fill those 500 feet with huge Coal veins, but I also mix in some unstable areas, and a couple pockets of deadly gas. I chuckle, “They’re gonna need that Canary for the Coal mines, and i'll get a new species of bird.”

I also lay a layer of bedrock near the bottom, so I can saturate that bottom layer with water. Making it even more difficult for mining. Though this will actually probably be appreciated as it will make them much safer, and less likely to cause explosions.

I smile, and I copy, and paste this into another floor below it that I'm using as my Evolution floor for this one.

I filled this floor with any variety of birds that I had. Being not many. I had a couple of Cave swallows, and a type of finch, which I filled the place with hopeful living in the ravines, caves, and crevices scattered throughout the place.

Due to my lack of a variety of birds. I begin to work on making new types of birds. The first bird I make is a small to moderate sized bird, with hooks on the backs of the wing in the sort of elbow area, and thick durable claws on its feet, perfect for gouging out rocks to make nests. These will be perfect birds for the ravines that run abundantly through the floor, so I release those. I altered their souls so they are quite territorial but not unreasonably aggressive. They kill the majority of each other off quite quickly leaving them each a decent slice of land. They also have a born knowledge of how to build their nests, and chip away at the hard rock faces of cliffs.

The species of moles I made with the rocky hands, I also release into the floor. They are small about the size of squirrels or moles, but breed quickly, live mostly underground, are rather intelligent, and live in colonies that can become tremendous in size. I release them into the environment with the understanding that if they are left to dig as they like they will cause the entire floor to collapse, and reshape over time, So I seal the whole place with bedrock except for the vents that allow air, and my influence to get in.

Next is the part I'm most excited about. I take some regular old moles, and I begin to remake them with lots of human influences, and I'm left with a species of blind mole people. as intelligent as humans or more they are rather ugly and spend most of their time living underground. They are slow breeders, but are strong, brave, and have good hiding spots. They have bulging muscles perfect for digging, and their claws are razor sharp, and would tear flesh just as easily as stone. I release a group of 30 of these creatures on the eastern side of the floor, in a cave, and they immediately start digging.

Next I take a group of rats, and once again morph them with human influences, and am left with a species of rat people. Cowardly, weak, and disgusting. They have hunched backs, and long snouts. They are cruel, and intelligent. All their weaknesses are made up for by their incredible capacity for breeding. I instill in their minds a concept of power, and slavery. They aren't perfect for digging but hate the light of day, and so spend most of their time underground. They have no care for the world around them, and are the complete opposite of the mole people. I release these fellows into a deep sealed cavern on the western side of the world. They will be the nemesis of the mole people, and hopefully they will be an even match for each other.

I do need to work on some more creatures for the land above…