System: The Mana Cycle

There are three different but connected energy forces that rule the way how the dungeons work. Together they form the Mana Cycle, and understanding of this is vital both for adventurers that want to survive and control a dungeon and for the dungeon cores that want to squeeze energy out of them.

The first energy is Mana (sometimes called Dungeon-Mana), the energy that is used by dungeon cores to extract their floors and to create spawns, traps, plagues, swarms or other defenses. If the dungeon has a template and enough mana, anything can be created – but at a cost. And that cost is not only the loss of mana, but on using mana that energy is converted into a different energy. Some Xenotics might compare it with breathing – when breathing in you take the oxygen as a need and it gets converted into CO2 on breathing out.

The second energy that is created on the use of mana is Lifeforce (sometimes called World-Mana). This energy is dangerous to any dungeon spawn – if it stays in the dungeon most spawns and swarms would die within hours. That is why dungeons need open entrances to get rid of this energy.

However the Lifeforce has the opposite effect on all people of the sphere – it revitalizes them, closing their wounds and replenishes their endurance and astral power. So if there are wounded adventurers in a dungeon and the dungeon then creates more spawns to fight them, this mana use will heal the adventurers before the spawns are ready to fight.

Sometimes this might still work, but most of the time a dungeon that tries to create more obstaclles from mana recharges the adventurers more than what the new spawns can cost them in the added fights.

The combination of the energies that are recharged by the Lifeforce is however the third and last energy of the mana cycle. Be it called Endurance or Health or Astral Power – it doesn’t matter, that is what the third form of energy is. And as soon as the adventurers use those energies with their skills or spells or abilities, that energy use converts it back into Mana, the power of the dungeons.

Outside of dungeons that mana quickly disperses – but any skill or spell used inside a dungeon immediately recharges its mana reserves. Living or walking in a dungeon doesn’t matter, but as soon as an adventurer uses a skill then it will recharge the dungeon.

Each of these energy conversions is an increase in energy – which is the reason why the use of mana recharges the adventurers a lot and on the other hand why even a small fight with skill-using adventurers gives the dungeon a lot of mana.

The keys to success is to consider ones maximum storage. A dungeon that respawns its monsters the moment adventurers enter the dungeon both empties its mana limits in preparation for the mana gains from skill use and can hope that the created Lifeforce passes the adventurers that are near maximum on their capacities.

On the other hand a lot of adventurers risk entering a dungeon with wounds from the previous visit exactly expecting that – who ends up better depends on a guessing of relative strengths.

Inside a dungeon, the Lifeforce always moves up and out – there is no problem respawning monsters on higher floors in preparation for the next party after a party of adventurers has passed deeper. This is is also a reason why every better adventurer makes sure to have an escape portal ready before entering. Because they would have to fight the respawned enemies without the benefit of a Lifeforce recharging if they need to leave by going up again.

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In this regard, magic gates and transfer portals work for both sides – they will allow any adventurer to leave directly, but also allow the Lifeforce to skip the floors between the gates on moving out.

If a 20-floor-dungeon has a transfer portal on floor 1 and on floor 11, then adventurers could skip fighting the monsters on the levels 2-10 – but on the other hand a respawn on floor 15 would have the Lifeforce skip the floors 2-10 as well. Only mana-use on floor 10 or higher would have Lifeforce recharging adventurers on the higher floors.

That is the reason why most of the larger dungeons have transfer portals that allow adventurers to skip floors once they have passed them – those transfers allow them to respawn for several different groups of adventurers, especially since low level spawns are no obstacles for adventurers that can stand the deeper levels.

The Floor Crystal

This Mana Cycle creates a problem for new dungeon cores - as soon as they use mana to create their dungeon, it will create LifeForce that will poison their spawns if it does not leave the dungeon. And the dungeon would have to open up to release the LifeForce before it could create any spawn.

But opening up that early would mean that the dungeon is incomplete and vulnerable to anyone wh just happen to reach it in the first weeks - especially considering the slow natural mana regeneration. To solve this problem, each core also starts with a floor crystal that has three abilities - one of them single use only.

The first ability is to plan a single floor before creating it - that floor needs to be placed and created or the plans deleted before another floor can be planned. The Crystal also checks the planned floor for mistakes or system-errors where the floor doesn't follow the system's rules on dungeons. Very few cores get their first floors correct on first try as they need to be trained on their programmed rules.

The second ability is a dedicated mana storage. The crystal can receive up to 3000 MP from the dungeon core and store them to be used for the floor creation.This ability is especially vital for low-ranked cores as they would not have enough mana storage themselves to create some of the more expensive structures otherwise. If a higher level floor would cost more MP later, it could only be partially planned and has to be completed in reality after the first part is created.

The third ability is the one-time ability. If the floor is placed while the dungeon is still new and closed, the mana storage turns into a lifeforce storage keeping the lifeforce from poisoning the spawns placed. This will block that part of the mana storage, but the dungeon core can continue floor planning and creation as long as some mana storage is available in the crystal. Upon first opening the dungeon, all this stored LifeForce is released and rushes out of the dungeon in an energy spike easily detected by mages. After that the crystal regains the full mana storage but can no longer hold lifeforce.

Dungeons can close up again, but if they do any mana use will create LifeForce poisoning (one level of poisoning for each 10% of their maximum mana used).

Example:

If a dungeon creates a small floor for 250 MP and places it but does not open, then it can plan and create a second floor after that, but has only 2750 MP storage remaining. Low-ranked dungeons with their small size limits for their floors might create up to 10 floors before opening, but higher ranked dungeons with larger floors often have to open when only two or three floors are created.

Most adventurers and scholars never understood the differences or the reasons for them, especially since there is no direct relation between mana cost and floor size (some small structures cost a lot of mana to create) and no crystal ever found had the third ability left (even breaking into a dungeon counts as opening it and loosing that ability).