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Chapter 4: Upkeep

Luné Alpenglow

Luné, not really knowing what to do now that she has accidentally created a Boss Monster, decides to just press the buttons on the screen, starting with the “(Undecided Class)”. Another Menu appears, allowing Luné to see where Cloud could go in her development. The first thing she notices is that Monsters might gain points in stats thanks to classes as well. Which would mean, if specialized correctly, Cloud could theoretically be more dangerous than even Sebastia.

Class Selection

Cloud

Female Wolf:Eurasian Wolf

Armor: 0

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 3

Constitution: 3

Spirit: 1

Class Option 1 (Locked)

Guard

Armor: +4

Strength: -1

Dexterity: -1

Constitution: +1

Spirit: +0

Class Upgrades: Shield, Watcher

Class Option 2 (Locked)

Pack Leader

Armor: +2

Strength: +0

Dexterity: +0

Constitution: +0

Spirit: +0

Class Upgrades: Leader, Commander

Class Option 3

Infected

Armor: +2

Strength: +1

Dexterity: +1

Constitution: -2

Spirit: +0

Class Upgrades: Contaminator, Lycan

Allow Boss Monster’s Decision

Despite how much she would like a Lycanthrope to be her Boss Monster, she cannot discount Cloud’s feelings. After all, she did come up to her to comfort her. She presses the button, and watches, as nothing happens. She watches as Cloud raises her head, and stares at the screen in front of her. Then it just closes, and she turns her head giving Luné a lick on the side of her head. Though slightly disappointed that Cloud didn’t make the choice, she knows now that Cloud is leaning more towards the other two options. She then decides to check the conditions to unlock the other options. For Guard, Cloud must simply save the lives of at least five separate denizens or dungeon monsters. For Pack Leader, she must lead a pack of three wolves, excluding herself, to victory, once. Simple conditions. For now, she will return to the Dungeon Core Management menu, now that she has the mana to be a little excessive, she wants to look through what she can fully do. However, on opening it, she notices something within the Denizens:

Dungeon Core Management

Resources:

1x Oak Collection Point

1x Copper Collection Point

Manage Resources

Monsters:

1x Void Sprite Spawner Level 10

1x Wolf Spawner Level 5

Manage Monsters

Denizens:

Luné Alpenglow (You)

Chaos, of Probability (Error)

Sebastia Rin

Koto Youngthorne

Miyoshi Youngthorne

Manage Denizens

Rooms:

Dungeon Core Room Level 1

Barracks Level 1

Crafting Room Level 1

Manage Rooms

Expeditions:

No Expeditions Currently Away

Manage Expeditions

Dungeon Mana Pool 200/200

It seems she cannot hide from that weirdness. At least, not right now. She taps the Manage Rooms button:

Rooms Menu

To proceed in creating a room, please designate an area.

Luné begins to focus on one of the empty rooms on the second floor. It has a hole down to the Crafting Room. Luné sees the Rooms Menu update:

Rooms Menu

Rooms Created:

Barracks

Crafting Room

Rooms Available to Dungeon:

Smithy (Unavailable in Location)

Sawmill

Foresters Post (Unavailable in Location)

Miners’ Guild

Denizen Room

Wolves Den

Voidic Oracle’s Room (Error Unknown Interference)

Previously Available to Dungeon:

Textile Mill (Requires Cotton, or Spiders or other Cotton substitute)

Spider Nest (Requires Spiders)

She thinks for a bit, then glances at her Denizens. Koto and Miyoshi are sleeping side by side. They deserve a better place to rest their heads instead of just chairs or the barracks. She selects the Barracks, wanting to see what she can do with it, especially to see if she can change it to a Denizen Room for the two.

Barracks Level 1

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Upgrade for 50 Mana, 10 Wood or 1 Bed Frame, and 5 Textile or 1 Bedding

DowngradeDismantle, regain 12 Mana, 1 Bed Frame, 1 Spider Bedding

Convert

She smiles happily, and presses the Convert button, and watches as a warning pops up:

Barracks Conversion

Warning!

Proceeding will consume less resources and take less time, however, any Denizens or Monsters currently occupying or working this room may be angered. If there is a Room Specific Monster, it will become Masterless. Are you sure you wish to proceed?

Y/N

Knowing there is no one occupying or working the room, she presses yes, and begins to think a small bit on Room Specific Monsters. If a room can have a specific monster, does that monster do a specific job within the dungeon? She will have to find out soon enough, right now, however, she needs to focus on getting the siblings their room.

Barracks Conversion

Rooms Available to Dungeon:

Smithy (Unavailable in Location)

Sawmill

Foresters Post (Unavailable in Location)

Miners’ Guild

Denizen Room

Wolves Den

Voidic Oracle’s Room (Error Unknown Interference)

Pressing the Denizen Room, the screen changes:

Barracks Conversion

Convert to Denizen Room

This will cost half the normal mana cost of a Denizen Room, but full cost of resources.

Mana Cost: 50

Resource Needs: Filled

Proceed

She presses the proceed button, and watches as several wolves stop their play fights, and head off with some Void Sprites. They reach the Barracks and begin pushing things around, and gathering a few other things. One wolf exits and returns with a big stick, followed by a few others. They head upstairs, and begin filling in some small holes in the roof with the sticks. A good solution for now, but one they will need to fix later. She looks over to Cloud, as the Wolves proceed, and Cloud becomes alert, on feeling her gaze drift over. Cloud looks at Luné’s lifeless body, as Luné speaks, “Cloud, can you keep an eye on the conversion? Once it's done, can you move the siblings to the room?” Cloud huffs a small sigh, but starts getting up, trying her best to not let Luné’s head hit the stone floor too hard. Then she heads up to supervise. Luné smiles, and gets back to figuring things out. She looks around, and then realizes that she and Sebastia have no place to sleep. Sebastia should be fine, she seems like she knows how to live in rough conditions, and Luné only found out about true comfort while living at the Crown Prince’s Castle. She quietly remembers the Crown Prince, and the kindness he showed her. She grows a small bitter anger towards him, for sending her with those betrayers. She then pushes those thoughts to the side, survival is more important than thinking petty thoughts. She speaks to Sebastia, “Sebastia?” Though still leaning on the railings, and watching the world silently, she speaks up, “What can I do for you, my Lady?” Luné explains a simple idea she wants to try, causing Sebastia to raise an eyebrow.

Standing up straight, and stretching lightly, Sebastia nods as she says, “Got it. I’ll go try.” She starts walking around the house, and to the back, where the small grouping of Oaks and Copper is. “I’m not too proficient with axes, but I’ve got a spell for axes anyway.” She extends an arm, and a blaze of golden light appears, revealing a golden spectral axe. Sebastia steps up to one of the Oak trees, and raises the axe to the side, and swings as hard as she can. Both Sebastia and Luné see a red “57” appear. Luné grins like a madwoman, and speaks, “It works! Keep going!” Sebastia shrugs, and goes again, chopping away again, getting a yellow “171”, which turns black, as the tree topples. Sebastia looks at the tree falling, clearly a bit surprised she can cut down a tree that easily with just a spell. Luné speaks to herself, though Sebastia can hear her voice, “So an Oak has around 100 to 200 health. That would take a while to cut down with the Wolves, but the Sprites might be faster, since they have 10 Spirit. Lets see here, you said that was a spell, right?” Sebastia nods, and then asks a question, “A tree has health? That is extremely odd.” Luné looks confused by that, “That’s not odd at all. Everything has health. From the smallest bug to the largest giant.” Sebastia continues, “Either way, yes. It is a spell.” Luné begins thinking to herself again, “Sebastia’s Strength is 36, and her Spirit is 21, so that makes 57. If we assume it only takes two hits, then the tree should go down in 114 damage. Sebastia?” Sebastia just speaks, already walking to another tree, “I’ll hit another tree.” She hits a tree twice, getting a red “57” and a black “57”.

Luné grins, and speaks, “Okay, so an oak tree has 58 to 114 health. Lets try with a Sprite.” She gives the order to a Void Sprite, and it slowly floats over, as the felled trees disappear into nothingness, and the tree stumps begin to slowly regrow into trees. Eventually, the Void Sprite arrives, and begins attacking the last tree, getting two yellow “30”s in a row, followed by four red “10”s, until the tree is felled. Luné smiles happily, and shares the findings with Sebastia, “The total health is about 100.” Sebastia slowly nods, “Okay, I only saw six hits, so I’m assuming some yellows popped up?” Luné is a little confused by Sebastia not understanding this. “Yes. The sprite got two critical hits.” Sebastia just looks more confused, and Luné continues, “How do you not know this? This is basic stuff for any adventurer or manual laborer. Red numbers are normal damage, based off your strength and equipment. Yellow numbers are critical hits, which triple the damage you normally would do. Black numbers are death blows. Finally, blue numbers mean the damage was totally blocked.” Sebastia slowly nods, getting it now, “What if I deal damage, but still get through the armor?” Luné answers quickly, knowing that answer as its really simple, “It will show the amount of damage that got through and the specific type. For example, you can still critically hit, but only get 1 damage through, because the defense of the person is only one below your damage output. The number would show up yellow in that case. If it were to be normal damage, it would just be a red 1.” Sebastia seems to understand now, as she lets the spell fizzle out, and says, “Well, what next, my Lady? Need me to do anything specific?” Luné shakes her metaphorical head, “No, but if you want, you can help Cloud move the siblings to their new room.” Sebastia turns her head slightly in confusion, “Cloud?” Luné smiles, “She’s the new Boss Monster for the Wolves. She is currently in the former Barracks.”

Sebastia starts walking, as Luné decides to focus on other things, such as expansions! Perhaps with an expansion she will get more resources. She opens the expansion menu and decides on N1, to get a bit more forewarning about anyone in the direction of those slavers that the siblings had run from. As she presses it, and confirms the expansion, she sees the blurred area become clear. It's only a forest, but she can already see the many birds hanging out in the trees. She focuses on one, and sees:

Invader Menu

Corsican Finch Level 1

Dodge: 1

Health: 10/10

Strength: 1

Dexterity: 5

Constitution:1

Spirit: 1

Currently Feeling: Worried by Dungeon Expansion

Currently: Guarding Eggs

Luné is a bit sad that she is worrying the local birds, but at least they are not trying to kill her. She looks around a bit more, finding another Oak Collection Point with three more trees, and another ore, which she doesn’t recognize. After focusing on it, she finds that it is tin. She then keeps looking around, and spots a new spawner, this one gives her Bears. She can already see one appearing from the spawner. She smiles, and gives this Bear the order to gather wood from the oaks. Bears have to be strong, right? She then looks at the stats:

Monster Menu

Bear Level 1

Health: 30/30

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 1

Constitution: 3

Spirit: 1

Current Orders: Gathering from Oak Collection Points

Currently Feeling: Purposeful

Speak to set new orders.

She stares in utter shock, as her world is flipped upside down. She decides to just upgrade the Bears next, but first, she needs to finish looking around, and it's a good thing she did, as she barely caught movement out of the corner of her sight, and looking at it, she sees just a plant, but after a second, a screen pops up:

Monster Menu

Sproutling Level 1

Health: 10/10

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 0

Constitution: 1

Spirit: 2

Current Orders: None

Currently Feeling: Ready to Burn Itself

Speak to set new orders.

On seeing that one of her new monsters already wants to kill itself, she decides to give it orders before it can try to find a way to. She’d rather her little arsonist not catch fire just yet. She begins looking around for things the Sproutling can do, and she soon figures it out, and returns, taking a few seconds to find the ambush predator. She tells it to go gather tin and copper ores, it stops being an ambush predator, and starts shuffling along on the ground. Using its longer blades of grass and bush-limbs to crawl away slowly. As it goes, she smiles, then notices a lot more movement, as the spawner has already spit out its maximum of Sproutlings, who all begin shuffling after the first one. She checks their orders, and sees none, so she decides to have them set up as traps around the dungeon. She’ll have to tell the others where they are. They won’t attack, but she’d rather the poor things not have to be stepped on at any point, if one already wanting death is anything to go by.

She then opens the menu for both Bears and Sproutlings, and finds the leveling button. She then allocates the Bears’ 4 points to Strength, giving them 6 Strength. She then looks at the Sproutlings, and chooses one of the trap Sproutlings, and requests it to show what it can do. The Sproutling slaps the ground a few times with long grassy tendrils that had been hidden inside its body. Then it slaps a Sproutling beside it, and places a tendril on it. She examines the injured Sproutling, and sees its health go up from 7 to 8, then 8 to 9 and 9 to 10. With the demonstration over, the two slowly move to their positions, and Luné ponders how she should allocate the points. That one arson-inclined Sproutling will have its work cut out for it, but the healing would be very beneficial. Especially if it can only heal 1 because it has no mana. She decides to make them just efficient traps and miners. Thus, like the Bears, all of their points go into Strength, bringing them up to 7.

She finally glances back at her Denizens, and sees that the two Kitsune are now laying on that creepy spider bed, with Cloud laying down beside Luné and moving her back to how she was before Luné ordered Cloud to tend to the siblings. Sebastia is wandering around, with no end in sight to her wander. Luné decides it's time to spread her legs, and she starts to return to her body, and then she sits up, as she feels her shirt being tugged at by Cloud. Cloud simply huffs at her getting up, and lays her head down, side-eyeing Luné in the process. Luné smiles at Cloud, and speaks, “Cloud, we’re both low level, so I think we should get Sebastia to help us level up.” Cloud looks at Luné and stares quietly. As Luné stares back, she slowly starts to feel a small push of emotion from Cloud, mostly worry. “Don’t worry, Cloud. Sebastia’s strong. We’ll be safe.” She smiles happily, and starts to get up. With another huff of disapproval, Cloud begins to stand as well. The two walk upstairs, and out of the house, heading out into the new expansion. They can see Sebastia ahead of them, watching one of the Sproutlings plant itself into the ground, and camouflage itself with nearby foliage.

As the two approach her, Sebastia turns to look at them. Luné speaks, to break the silence before getting to Sebastia, “Sebastia, let's go hunt something. Cloud and I need experience, or we’ll forever be weak.” Cloud is quiet this time, just walking beside Luné. Sebastia nods, and then says, “Well, which direction do you want to go? And are you sure Cloud can exit the dungeon?” Luné looks at Cloud for a few seconds, then says, “I don’t know, this will be a good test at least.” Sebastia nods once again, and begins deciding on a direction, since Luné didn’t give her a direction to go. She starts heading west, past the newly planted “bush”. Luné follows Sebastia, and Cloud stops to sniff at the Sproutling, before passing by it. As they exit the dungeon’s area, Luné feels a cold shiver down her spine, and a small bit of pain in her right hand, at the burn scar, which returns. Ignoring the feeling of being away from her new safe dungeon home, she follows Sebastia, ready to level herself up a good bit.

Chaos, of Probability

Chaos sat quietly, watching Luné exit her dungeon. The poor thing was yet to be named, and he knew it hurts the Dungeon’s feelings. Though he may feel pity for it, he knows it simply wishes to be named as a formality, not a necessity. After all, it is Luné too, at least now that she has arrived at her fate. He chuckles to himself, and looks at Cloud, “Such a nice beast. I wonder if she will be the guardian Luné needs, or the goddess of combat Luné doesn’t need.” He slides his vision around a bit, and even under the ground. Looking for a good and worthy opponent for the band of three. Something the Wolf and her Mistress can fight without needing Sebastia’s assistance, preferably. He finds the perfect two creatures, and laughs to himself. Then he possesses them, and strips them of their flesh. It was time to make a diplomatic incident in the Dungeon world. As he clacked along with the two Skeletons, he took a moment to check their stats, and adjust them accordingly. He smirks, and happily keeps the names, taking a moment to revel in his work, as he moves them into position:

Monster Menu

1

Naomi Haldric

Skeleton:Human

Warrior Level 7

Armor: 1 (2)

Health: 30/30

Strength: 3

Dexterity: 3

Constitution: 3

Spirit: 0

Currently: Controlled by Chaos, of Probability

*Deceased as of today :) -Chaos

2

Randal Méz

Skeleton:Human

Mage Level 9

Health: 10/10

Mana: 20/20

Strength: 0

Dexterity: 0

Constitution: 2

Spirit: 10

Currently: Controlled by Chaos, of Probability

*Deceased as of today :) -Chaos