The fly eggs all hatched at the same time, about a day after I summoned them.
Minion Template Acquired: Maggot!
Just what I wanted, thanks. My bumblebees' numbers were back up, and the flowers looked a bit perkier now that they had water and fertilizer. I spent a few quartz and insect impurities to make "Treasure Template: Bumblebee_Quartz_LifeSize" and amused myself hiding little stone bees on the ground around my edelweiss plants.
The tunnel to my next room finally finished, and the automated digging continued into the solid granite.
I was bored, and watching movies in my memories didn't sound appealing. I wanted to be doing something! I could make more treasure, but I didn't feel like it - I felt like making new minions. I didn't have food for more bats, but maybe I could set up another bumblebee nest.
I put a new mat of pine needles down at the back of the entrance hall, under the bat's "home" on the ceiling. Then, I selected my existing swarm. I picked out a worker, and focused in on her.
Remove bee from swarm.
Something immaterial clicked, and one of the bumblebee pupae hatched into a new adult. I assigned my new, lone, bee to the new pine needles.
Upgrade to queen.
Select Compatible Impurities.
Use a life impurity.
Upgrading Minion...
Minion Upgraded! Bumblebee Has Become Bumblebee Queen!
Refining Impurities...
1 Life Impurity Refined to 10 Dungeon Mana!
Warning! Bumblebee Queen Has No Swarm! Create Swarm? Y/N
Not yet. I wanted - no - needed to try something.
I focused in on my new queen bee.
Minion: Bumblebee Queen
● Swarm: None
● Home: Pine Needle Decoration
● Food: Edelweiss Nectar, Edelweiss Pollen
● Water: Available
● Condition: Lonely
Use an ice impurity to upgrade bumblebee queen. I hope this works - I need monsters, not ordinary bugs.
Warning! Mutation Is Unpredictable and Cannot Be Undone! Continue? Y/N
Yes. I crossed my imaginary fingers and watched my bee.
Upgrading Minions...
Refining Impurities...
1 Ice Impurity Refined to 0.5 Water Impurities and 5 Dungeon Mana.
The bee began to glow a pale blue, then swelled and grew. She grew from about an inch long to a whopping three inches. When the light faded, her yellow fluff had turned glacier blue.
Minion Mutated! Bumblebee Queen Has Become Icy Bumblebee Queen!
Minion Template Unlocked: Icy Bumblebee Queen.
Now I want to make a swarm for her.
Select Swarm Size.
Thirty bees.
Creating Swarm...
Medium-Small Icy Bumblebee Swarm Created.
The icy bumblebee queen buzzed her way to the nearest flower and set about gorging herself. She left tiny frosty footprints on the petals where she landed and stepped. The flower's stem bowed a bit under her weight, and she visited an awful lot of them before she returned to her home and started building.
I watched, fascinated, as she made little bowls of wax and ice and filled them with pollen and nectar. She capped them with more wax and carefully laid an egg on each, until she had thirty little wax bowls and thirty little blue eggs. As she worked, she left more and more frost on the pine needles, until they were glued together into a cozy little bee cave of ice and pointy leaves.
Much better. I decided to reward myself for making my first monster by re-living the first time I watched the Star Wars movies. That had been a marathon for the ages.
---
Greyex ran until he could run no more - he ran right out of the valley and into the foothills. It took him a day and a night, and he thanked every higher power that he thought might give a shit about him that he hadn't tripped over something and hurt himself. He dropped to the ground and wheezed until he got his breath back.
He was really thirsty. He was hungry, too, but thirsty was definitely the bigger problem.
Fortunately, the sun had come up while he was laying around and suffering, so he got to foraging. A good stick off the ground here, searching around while he s-l-o-w-l-y made his way up the hill and... there! Greyex found a nice, thick vine with waxy, swollen leaves. It wouldn't taste good, but it probably wouldn't make him sick, either.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Very few things made him sick.
He tore a length off the vine and bit into it, sucking greedily. Bitter juice flowed out and soaked his dry tongue. It was so good. He kept drinking until his vine segment was all chewed up, and then helped himself to another. It wouldn't do anything for his hunger, but food could always wait longer than water. He kept going, following the vine up the hill, until his stomach couldn't hold any more liquid.
Greyex straightened up and started to walk. The sturdy stick he'd found wasn't long enough to help him keep his balance, but it turned out to be good for poking into likely looking holes to check for bugs to eat.
Two hornets' nests later, Greyex was no longer poking his stick into holes. In fact, he had lost the stick. He had also lost the hornets. He had also made it to the next hill, he'd run so fast. Maybe poking holes in trees wasn't such a good idea.
A sudden breeze fluttered his loincloth, bringing with it an unfamiliar chill.
"Maybe," he said to himself, "I'd be better off finding a spot to hole up and lay some traps. I can turn rocks over if I need bugs."
He did pick up a new stick though. A longer one. Just in case.
---
Yeah, those were some good movies, and Taji had been the best college roommate in the world. I forgot to turn down the immersion. Alright, notifications, what'd I miss?
Intruder Alert!
Intruder Destroyed.
Minion Template Acquired: Mountain Mouse!
Intruder Alert!
Treasure Template Acquired: Pine Twig!
Intruder Destroyed.
Minion Template Acquired: Pine Nut!
Treasure Template Acquired: Pinecone!
Warning! Pine Nuts From Treasure Pinecones Cannot Germinate Within the Dungeon!
I put some pinecones in the pine needles. It seemed like the thing to do.
A huge gust of wind blew a load of snow into the dungeon.
Intruder Alert!
I had no idea what just came in with that snow, but whatever it was, it wasn't much of a threat if it could get blown around like that. The snow melted away where it touched the floor and walls, revealing... I actually didn't get to see it, because it was immediately swarmed over by pissed off bumblebees.
Decoration Template Acquired: Spiderweb!
Intruder Destroyed.
Minion Template Acquired: Snow Spider!
Intruder Destroyed.
Minion Template Acquired: Ice Fly!
I didn't feel any particular need to use any of my new templates. I checked on my next room instead. It was a little bigger. I inspected the hallway that connected my core room to the room under construction. It curved a little, but stayed mostly straight. The ceiling had the same texture I'd set up in the rest of the dungeon, so bats would be able to grip it just fine.
I took a look at my "swarm of flies". The maggots had gotten a lot bigger. Gross. I turned my attention to my icy bumblebee. She was making more waxy pots - her eggs had started to hatch, so she was laying more. The icy bumblebee larvae were tiny, and they ate their pollen and nectar slurry ravenously. I checked my regular bumblebees.
They were back up to twenty adult workers.
I checked on my bat. It was still lonely, of course.
I glanced at my mana generation. It was up to 60 per day, even with the new treasures and minions to support - must be the power of optimization. I summoned another mountain bat and set it to the same home as the first one. It grabbed onto the ceiling next to the other bat, and my first bat opened its wings and wrapped them around its new friend. I didn't know they did that. It was so cute.
I opened their information.
Mountain Bats, Colony of: 2 Bats
● Maintenance: 7.5 Dungeon Mana per Day
● Home: Entrance Tunnel
● Food: Not Assigned
● Water: Available
● Home: Entrance Tunnel
● Status: A Bit Lonely
That was less maintenance than I'd expected. Maybe having water around made a big difference for more than just plants - of course it did. Everything needed water, and anything my minions needed that they weren't getting was supplemented with my dungeon mana. I checked on the future food of my bats.
Flies, Large Swarm: 0/1000 Flies; 0/1000 Pupae; 10/1000 Maggots; 28/1000 Eggs
● Maintenance: 0 Dungeon Mana per Day
● Food: Dung Treasure
● Water: Available
● Home: Dung Treasure
● Status: Happy
I felt like I should be a lot more grossed out by that than I was. Like, as a human-type person, that was gross. Flies were gross; poop was gross; flies on poop were extra gross. As a dungeon core-type person, I really wasn't bothered. Flies were minions; poop was treasure; minions on treasure was just good sense. That it was a treasure that no human in their right mind would want to pick up and take home with them was immaterial.
---
Taaku woke up uncomfortable. His scales itched where they'd been scratched and were healing, and his knees ached where they'd been bruised.
Taaku woke up lonely. Usually, he woke up in a pile of friends or family (or, if he was really lucky, females), but tonight he was alone and cold, huddled under a bush.
Taaku woke up thirsty. There didn't seem to be any water here. He forced himself to his feet and stumbled forward. Water always went downhill, and so would he, until he found something he could drink.
---
I was so bored, I was watching maggots grow. They were growing really fast, making it at least a little interesting, like watching a time-lapse video, and the dung "treasure" they were on kept regenerating, which was also a little interesting, but still. I was watching maggots grow.
I thought about decorating more, but I was happy with my core room, and I didn't want to decorate anything behind my core room. That felt wrong. My core room should be the last, and best, thing in the dungeon.
I checked on the next room. It was a little bigger than the last time I'd looked at it, but not by all that much.
I opened the planned blueprint. Maybe I could make adjustments on that to pass the time.
I added shelves to the unfinished room, and even more shelves to the third room after it. I could put decorations on those! Well, treasures, if I wanted to use the "official" term, since it was probably going to be more bumblebee statuettes. I put a few dips in the floor of my core room, on the blueprint, and adjusted their priority so that they wouldn't be dug out until after I'd moved my core to the next room. Then I added an automated process to move my core, complete with pedestal, to the second room once it was finished, so I wouldn't have to worry about making it happen myself.
On second thought, I adjusted that so it would give me a popup prompt, so it wouldn't catch me by surprise when it happened. Then, I lost myself in making plans and adjustments. A water feature here, a nook in the wall for something pretty there, a depression in the middle for soil and plants... and make the ceiling higher so I can have a small tree.
Trees need light. Save plans, open decoration template designer.
What impurities do I have that can produce light?
An omnidirectional glow appeared in the previewer. So that's what I'd get if I used a light impurity without any modifications. Any interest in the passage of time, or sense of boredom for that matter, that I may have had faded away insight of a puzzle to solve. I needed a light source that would make plant minions that weren't right by the entrance happy, preferably one that mimicked a day-night cycle, in case my minions needed something like that to stay happy and healthy. I plugged in different combinations of impurities, tested various commands, and slid into the zone. This was going to be great.
When I finished, it was going in my core room, and then everything would glitter in the light.