Each faction was going to need an encampment, and Mordecai decided to start there. He placed each one on opposite sides of the cavern at its widest point, approximately midway between the entrance and exit. He’d sculpted the cavern to have interesting terrain, so the widest point was a touch off of the center.
He was only going to do part of the work for the encampments, leaving the customization to the laganthros who would be playing the parts. For the moment he started by clearing out a circle of terrain for each side, with half of the circle being carved out of the wall behind them and the other half being out front. The sub-caverns created this way were 20 feet tall, giving them plenty of room to build as they liked.
Now he created small gardens for a new set of mushrooms, special breeds for use as items. The first set of cultivated fungi had their use based off of their normal appearance:
Broad-capped mushrooms were reinforced and designed to be readily broken off to be used as shields. A variant of Morels whose craggy nooks could be used as shelving, trumpet-shaped mushrooms that could be used for a limited time to greatly amplify shouted words, bell-shaped mushrooms that would actually chime when a living creature approached, squat trunk mushrooms that could be grown small or large to act as stools or tables, plus some cupped shaped ones that could easily become actual cups or bowls. He would create more as requested, he couldn’t think of everything himself that others might need, but the goal was to make it so that the two factions had almost everything they needed to equip themselves and to build.
Mordecai ventured further afield with his next set of mushrooms for gardening however. The living crystal had given him an idea when he’d considered the problem of making normally metal items. The mushrooms in this field grew in a variety of shapes but were very heavily infused with living crystals and all grew in spreading patterns. The outer heads are where the crystal would concentrate the most, eventually causing them to crack off on the outermost edge. The resulting material could be knapped much like flint or obsidian to a razor-sharp edge, but over the next couple of days would harden to a toughness more like that of nephrite, i.e. true jade. Jadeite was the more common stone called jade because of its similar appearance, but it was not quite as tough or as hard as nephrite.
It wouldn’t cover everything metal could do, but would be more than sufficient for making weapons if napped, or for anything from art to tools if shaped only after it was fully hardened. Empires could be founded without advanced metallurgy if they had access to even normal nephrite, let alone what could be done with this crystal.
He also altered some mushrooms to sit more ‘in between’. With a more lightweight infusion of crystal for structural support, it was not hard to create fungi whose various parts could be used as raw construction material, whether akin to ropes or materials that could act like wood, if a touch spongier.
Now that he had raw materials down, it was time to call in his troops. Most of them were simply going to be the strongest of the laganthros in their respective specialties, though he did have a couple of additions to make.
The right side encampment was the easiest to assign, calling up some ‘light cavalry’ mounted on polecats, and some aerial cavalry in the form of mages mounted on dracobits, with scouting/infantry support from rangers bonded to caracals.
The left side he gave to ‘heavy infantry’, though he had to make their mounts first. The Riverbridge gifts and trades came in handy here as there had been some farm animals included, and before long he had his porcini boars. And he had them live up to the pun too, growing the squat mushrooms from their thick hide and fur, forming a natural saddle shape as well as extra protection for both the boar and the rider. It was admittedly a more outlandish hybridization than, say, an ursaviane, but at least he’d be able to adjust and fix any issues that might crop up.
For support, he gave them various rabbats as ‘falconry’, providing both scouts and an aerial force, and sharpshooters of both archery and gun varieties. The guns were one of the few things that absolutely had to be made out of metal, he couldn’t find a way to reinforce any form of crystal to withstand the shock pressure of the firing chamber. Maybe as a deeper dungeon they could create a heavily enchanted crystal if they wanted to, but it didn’t seem worth the effort.
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And the final creation for this level he made as a support for both sides, though purely defensively. To take the place of guard dogs, he altered and enlarged some badgers, creating two colonies of Giant Badgers. He only had to alter their base personalities a little, most badgers were quite capable of being social and of being aggressively defensive, he just had to tighten up their pack bonding and ability to work in groups. He also made sure that they were completely immune to all fungal spores and toxins to be found in this dungeon, which also gave them a general boost against toxins and diseases. Dungeon creatures may not have to eat, but it feels natural for them to do so and he wanted to fit them in here with the ability to eat any mushrooms.
Once he was certain that everything was settled well enough, he met with the leaders of his two factions in the safe-space camping spot at the level’s entrance.
“So, what do you think of your enclaves?” was what he started with, and that led to a couple of hours of discussions, questions, and answers. When all that was settled, Mordecai moved on to making sure everyone was on the same page concerning rules.
“I want this to be a bit more free form than what we’ve done before. You don’t absolutely have to fight any dungeon challengers, but you do have to play the part of a warring party on high alert and be highly suspicious of intruders.” He grinned at them. “If you need to, you can take some acting lessons from your cousins on the third floor. Might make for a good part of that training exchange I set up previously. But you don’t have to let them pass by either. You can deny them passage, you can demand tribute, you can form alliances, or otherwise act how you like. This should all be very dynamic. The only rule I make absolute for you and yours is that this zone right here is a safe space for them. Mind, I am only being so nice here, the ‘wildlife’ won’t be burdened by that obligation, but generally won’t have a reason to attack this location anyway.”
“And when there aren’t any challengers?” asked one of the troop captains.
“Mostly up to you for the details, I just want at least some of you to be training against each other most days. You’ve been very diligent in forming your own schedules before, I don’t see any reason to change that now. But I’ll let you know if I spot anything I think can be improved on. Similarly, I expect you to let me know if there is anything I can improve. I think I’ve balanced your forces, the forest is heavy enough to keep the mages and dracobits from dominating the battlefield, but if your battle practice shows that I need to change that balance, I want you to tell me.”
The rabbit folk talked with each other for a bit, then when they had reached a consensus turned back to him. “We’re satisfied with this new role my lord. There are a few who have decided they aren’t quite comfortable here after all, but we can find some other recruits to fill their spots so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Excellent. Oh, one final thing, as a default no one is to support the boss fight.” Which was a change from most of the previous floors. “The exception is if your enclave is assaulted. If that happens and you survive, then you should rally at the final chamber for the floor and support the boss or bosses.”
“Oh, what do you have planned for our bosses?” came the excited query.
Mordecai smiled. “Well, I’ll show you before too long. For now, you should know that they are not going to start out the brightest and could be hazardous if you get too close, so be very careful if you do end up supporting them. And their names will be Sarcomaag and Klastoria.”
“What is up with those names?” Kazue’s voice asked in his head.
“I’m just having some fun messing around with relevant words.” he replied before focusing back on the faction leaders. “I think they’ll be an interesting new challenge for people who get this far.”
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While the two dungeon cores had fun finally building out their fifth level, the rest of the world continued about its business. Their wife was finishing her preparations to come back home and bring Kazue’s father with her, including a quick side shopping trip that she was very careful to not let them in on, which was much easier to do while they were distracted.
Traveling south from the capital city was a merchant caravan with a champion as part of its escort. They moved slowly of course, but by the time they had to start setting up camp the last spires of the city’s central keep were lost over the horizon behind them.
News of their existence was beginning to spread in earnest now, and some of that news even managed to get their names right. The oddness of a dual-core was going to stir curiosity at the least, but it was Mordecai’s name that would serve as the biggest catalyst for making their life more interesting, in differing measures of good and ill.