“What level did they get to during the last incursion?” Colt asked, his head bent over the display screens.
“You were the one watching,” Lacey bent over her newest creations of dungeon levels. The level of detail required to make the maps was taking more effort and time than her doodling from before. “I’m drawing maps.”
(Lacey) Drawing +2
“It’s just that I think they got a little further this time,” Colt squinted at the screen as the lights in the room changed from red to blue.
(Colt) Perception +1
“It varies, doesn’t it?” Lacey fussed at the borders of another maze like the Aztec Tomb.
“But it was going up and down,” Colt dropped another stack of creations into the pedestal. “It seems to be trending toward them getting further each time.”
“How can that be?” Lacey finally looked up. “If they’re forgetting each time, how are they still getting better at it?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, but we should add some more levels, just in case,” Colt suggested, trying to paste on a smile. He pressed the option to create the new levels beside the Aztec Tomb. Now that Lacey was working on more complex options, she was barely making three new levels per incursion, and that was when she wasn’t sleeping.
“That’s what I’m working on,” Lacey grumped, getting up to stretch and pick up her drawing book. “As long as they haven’t gotten to the Aztec Tomb yet, I think we’ll be okay.”
“We keep moving it down under the new levels with the higher mobs we can create,” Colt commented. “If it was at the first place we put it, they’d have blown through it.”
Colt busied himself moving toward the exit of their control room, making sure he had all he needed. Lacey was right behind him as they both left the control room just as the dungeon turned to red. It was the only time that they could get out of the room.
“I just have this gut feeling like they’re setting us up for something,” Colt called over his shoulder as they went down the stairs to the water cavern.
(Colt) Perception +1
“I’m normally the pessimistic one,” Lacey teased him.
“It’s like they’re stalling,” Colt propped the door open with a stone, more of a superstitious move than because it might lock against them.
Lacey was considering the idea as she washed up and got changed. Colt didn’t get morose like this, but maybe the repetition was wearing on him. He often thought that most people were smarter than they actually were. Maybe the NPCs hadn’t gone against competent or motivated adversaries. This systematic method of cascading attacks probably worked most of the time.
(Lacey) Perception +1
“If we could get out of the tutorial, we could summon the pedestal to any room in the dungeon, as long as no adventurers were on that level,” Colt took up the conversation as if they hadn’t spend half an hour doing their own thing. “I’d just feel better about staying out of the control room for longer if I could check that they weren’t up to any tricks or something.”
“I guess I got used to them doing the same thing each time,” Lacey admitted, toweling her hair dry with a coarse, but clean, blanket. “They’re NPCs. Do you think they have the creativity to deviate?”
“Don’t say stuff like that,” Colt gave her a look as he approached the stairs back to the control room. “I still think something is listening to us and it isn’t as machine-like as you think it might be.”
(Colt) Perception +1
“I’m going to check out the new levels before I go back in, but I also need some sleep,” Lacey stopped at the foot of the stairs.
“Ok,” Colt paused, but Lacey could tell that he wanted to rush back to check the pedestal. “Just let’s not get complacent.”
“Are you ready to splurge our credits and dump as many of our highest levels in the first room yet?” Lacey challenged him.
“I’m still thinking that might backfire because if we don’t kill them all then the dungeon doesn’t reset, and we’ve lost the credits we spent on those mobs,” Colt shook his head.
“But they’ll have lost whomever we manage to kill,” Lacey countered, more to see both sides than because she was ready to go all in like that with the credits. They’d been saving up a little stockpile to try that out.
(Lacey) Intelligence +1
“I think we should wait until we’re closer to their levels,” Colt worried the idea around in his skull like he was playing pinball with it.
(Colt) Intelligence +1
“We’re at 19 now,” Lacey worked the numbers.
“They’re at 32,” Colt shook his head again. “It’s still too big of a gap. When we can dump fifty mobs in there that are only 3 or 4 levels below them, maybe.”
“Got it,” Lacey gave him a smile and a salute as she headed to the other stair that would take her up to goblin lair side of the dungeon. “I’m thinking on it.”
----------------------------------------
“Lacey,” Colt shook her awake, again.
“What?” she muttered groggily, knowing that she hadn’t gotten enough sleep.
“Lacey, wake up,” Colt’s tone woke her quicker, but that didn’t make her more amiable.
“Whaaaaa-aat?” she whined out, throwing her feet over the edge of the top bunk.
“They got to the maze,” Colt replied, his tone clipped.
“What!?!?!?” Lacey was suddenly wide awake.
“They got to the Aztec Tomb,” Colt told her, handing her boots up to her. “We have another five copies of it now, but I’m not sure we can keep up.”
“How?!” Lacey scrambled down the rough wooden ladder, swearing at yet another splinter.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“I missed it,” Colt ran his hand through his hair and waved her to the pedestal. “I wasn’t paying attention well enough, and they dressed him up like the bard. I just didn’t check the levels.”
“You aren’t making sense,” Lacey skidded to a stop by the pedestal, still stomping one foot into one of her boots.
(Lacey) Dexterity +2
“They brought in Hughe,” Colt gritted out, watching over her shoulder. He did a reverse pinch to zoom in on the person in question. “He looks a lot like the bard, but,” and he tapped the screen.
“Fighter, level 8,” the system responded. A part of Lacey’s mind scoffed at the tiny level number. They’d been in this cascading fight for what had to be a blur of a few weeks, and they’d leveled all the way up to 22. Hughe had only gotten to level 8? Then Lacey’s mind spun to catch up.
“But Hughe remembers the dungeon,” Lacey caught up faster. “I mean, he can’t remember this dungeon, but he’ll remember…”
“I don’t think this is his first time through,” Colt grunted as they watched Hughe point to another trap along the route the party was taking. “He knows the layout even though its different from when he was here. I didn’t notice because they weren’t throwing him around this time.”
(Colt) Perception +1
“They aren’t quite to the Tomb yet, but they’re close enough for this to be uncomfortable,” Lacey admitted. “And they’ve never gotten this far before, so the Tomb will slow them down.” Every pause in the incursions was another twenty mobs sent into the Tomb to buff it up and they weren’t bothering with the beetles that died too quickly. They now had a dozen different monsters in that dungeon that were growing up the hard way by fighting over territory with each other. Okay, so maybe their fur-covered dragons were the size of fire lizards, but they breathed fire and acid or even ice depending on their colors. All of the final level was a series of 5 versions of the Aztec Tomb, each littered with brand new puzzles and traps and creature sets of mobs. The walls weren’t different except for a few that Colt changed around to mess with the flow. Was it enough?
“It will slow them down this time through,” Colt agreed, but rushed on, “but each time, he’s going to get through the puzzles and traps faster because he’s already learned them. And the rest of the party are getting better at the puzzles even without Hughe’s help.”
“We can rearrange the Tombs so that they don’t know which maze they’re in, but you’re right. Between them getting better at the new puzzles and Hughe giving them the answers to all the old puzzles, we might be sunk,” Lacey grasped the gravity, and her mind leapt to possibilities.
“We need more dungeon levels,” Colt threw his hands up.
“We’re already using all we make to increase the levels,” Lacey’s complaint was accompanied by pacing. She longed to reach for her drawing book, but it was only a band-aid, not a cure. It was her third book. They’d had to order new ones. She could have kicked herself for wasting all that time drawing useless things like the cat that they’d promised themselves they’d get once the incursions stopped.
“Is the menagerie up to par, yet?” Colt asked, knowing the answer but needing to ask anyway. They were listing their assets, just like he always did. The menagerie was their new still bomb of releasing an army of their highest levels at them at the very beginning, but it wasn’t ready yet.
(Colt) Intelligence +1
“We’re level 22 to their 34 and our highest mobs are level 27,” Lacey answered anyway. “We wouldn’t kill many of them even with the 58 mobs we’ve saved up so far.”
“We could just copy and paste a bunch of levels that we already have done,” Colt suggested. “It could be cheaper and faster than buying new ones.”
“The only level that would work with is the menagerie and it’s too expensive. Even if we copied and pasted the older levels to run them out of time, they can stomp through the levels too fast and we’re running out of new puzzle combinations,” Lacey shook her head. “They’d rip through them like rice paper. We can change the variables on them, but how do we keep up when they plow through the mobs like paper mâché too?”
“I never thought I’d hear either of us say we’d run out of puzzles,” Colt said softly.
“I’ve run out of puzzles I can throw together in a hurry with the current technology,” Lacey hedged his comment with more bravado than she felt.
“We don’t have time to change the variables using the pedestal,” Colt threw his hands up. “In the two minutes, we could only change a few of them anyway.”
“We could change them manually,” Lacey considered, her finger up. “As long as we kept ahead of them by a level or two, we could make the changes.”
(Lacey) Intelligence +1
“And miss whatever new stunt they pull?” Colt blew out a breath of frustration, his frustrated hand-waving now focused on the pedestal and its limitations.
“I could kidnap Hughe,” Lacey tried and saw Colt flicker with hope.
“Yea, no…” Colt’s hope dimmed. “He’d just be expelled at the same time to the same place the rest of them are.”
“We can kill Hughe?” Lacey suggested.
“Then he’d be locked out for, what? 16 hours?” Colt nodded, liking the idea.
“It would only buy us an extra round,” Lacey worried, but it was still the best idea so far. “And they’d probably just sleep in the dungeon for that cycle.”
“It’s worth a try,” Colt crossed his arms over his chest. “Which one of us gets to do it?”
“Whoever comes up with the best way to do it?” Lacey smiled slowly.
“You win,” Colt chuckled. “Are you sure your time isn’t better served drawing?”
“You can draw more levels of the Aztec Tomb as easily as I could,” Lacey challenged him. “It’s grid paper. Make a maze. Those will take the longest for the adventurers to figure out. And make sure that they have the longest route if they make all right turns. That’s the method of maze solving that they’ve been using since we got Muck to eat their string.”
“I doubt that it’s half as easy as you make it look,” Colt shrugged.
“I’d need you to watch them for the best time to grab him,” Lacey returned to the table to strap on her dagger. They’d started sleeping in the leather armor, which was a thing one had to get used to, for sure.
“You can’t go yet,” Colt eyed her dagger sheaths, strappy thing, which had been updated with a row of daggers. Lacey had spent a little time practicing with throwing them, but she had a moment of self-doubt. “And take a few of Adam’s guys with you.”
“That makes sense,” Lacey gave him a grateful smile. “How long until they time out?”
“A little less than an hour,” Colt answered her, his eyes back on the screen.
“They aren’t getting through the Tomb quickly, especially not the first time,” Lacey squeezed in next to Colt to watch the screen for a moment. The party had gotten through the first corridor, with the rogue slowly dismantling 7 traps before they hit the first dead end. Even with Chuck and Muck as great mobs for the floor, they were still only level 18 in that instance of the Tomb, and just couldn’t do enough damage even when they caught the adventurers.
“You draw,” Colt pointed to the table and her book. “I’ll keep you updated.”
“There has to be a way to design a trap or puzzle to automatically randomize,” Lacey thought to herself out loud. “Yeah, I’ll draw. Maybe if I…” her voice trailed off.
(Lacey) Intelligence +1
“They found the first blood well,” Colt gave her a running commentary.
“That was faster than I expected,” Lacey sighed, but kept most of her concentration on her design. “They got through that hallway of traps?”
“Halfway, then the rogue found the secret passageway,” Colt replied, each of them with their eyes glued to their stations.
“Not that it will do him much good,” Lacey bit her cheek, trying to figure out random numbers.
The wells were mostly decoration until they overflowed and then they were mostly for squick value. It was a lot cheaper to buy blood when they saved up the excess of the blood their monsters bled out. The “blood” had an odd brownish color from the mix of goblin green blood, and the yellow from the beetles, but there was enough red from the cats and others to make it gruesome.
“They are stuck in the second vertical trap hallway,” Colt grinned at her, but the grin lost a bit of shine as she crumpled up the page she’d been working on.
“I can’t get anything to do something random,” Lacey ground out, throwing the wadded up ball across their room. Ginger clucked at it but left it there rather than interrupt Lacey’s glare at it there on the floor. “I got to water drops that coils springs that roll dice, but it rolls it the same way every time so there’s a pattern! I just don’t know enough without modern technology!”
“It’s okay, Lace,” Colt’s gaze tried to stay on her, but watching the screen was just as important to them both as keeping his eyes on the road when he was driving. "We didn’t have time to implement anyway. They are timing out. The main fighter is really pissed about it, too.”
“Great,” Lacey mourned the time she’d wasted, but she was ready to head for the door when the timer ran out. “I’ll just take it out on Hughe. I can’t believe he’s helping them.”
“I can,” Colt snarked.
“We’re not the bad guys here,” Lacey returned, her hands on her hips. “We’ve made the dungeon fair, fairer than what they’re doing to destroy us!”
“I know, Lace,” Colt tossed a map on the pedestal and flicked a few screens the instant the walls turned blue. Then they were out of there.